Category: MS Hints

Tuesday Gift Cards

Apparently this is the week of open loop gift card deals, what a time to be alive! Here are a few more because yesterday wasn’t enough:

  1. Gift Card Granny has free shipping on Visa and Mastercard gift cards through November 24 with promo code NOV22. These are Sutton bank gift cards and typically easy to liquidate in person.
  2. American Express has several offers for a discount at amexgiftcard.com:

    – $50 back on $1,000 or more
    – $20 back on $300 or more
    – $10 back on $100 or more

    These are American Express gift cards so money order liquidation and other typical in-store techniques are out. Also, yes, it’s safe to buy these with an American Express. (Thanks to DoC)

  3. I heard from many of you that there’s a special blend of gift cards for sale in store at Target that are quite rewarding for manufactured spend. Always be probing.
  4. Starting tomorrow and running for a week, Hy-Vee stores will have $10 back on $150 or more in Visa gift cards, and likely that means $30 back on a $500 Visa gift card so go nuts.

    Remember that if your family lives in flyover country Hy-Vee territory and you’re visiting for Thanksgiving, this might be a good money-making escape.

Liquidation

Since those American Express cards in particular are hard to liquidate, let’s discuss a few strategies that effectively always work on gift cards from home:

  • BravoPay (high fee though, effectively 3.5%)
  • Kiva (can be zero fee, but there’s a risk of loss and a time component)
  • Services designed for corporate bill payment

There are other options too, and they’re almost always a FinTech that’s trying to transfer money from investor’s bank accounts to yours solve a problem that didn’t exactly need solving, so look around.

Another form of liquidation, FTX’s FTT coin. (Too soon?)

  1. Discover bank has gameable savings account bonus promotion running through this evening. It’s interesting for three reasons:

    – The bonus posts within two or three business days
    – You can deposit and withdraw the same money multiple times but deposits are cumulative for the bonus
    – There’s no time requirement for holding the funds at the bank

    The downside? There’s once-per-lifetime language. The offers are $450 for $35,000 in deposits in 30 days, with code BONUS1022E, or $500 for $50,000 in deposits in 30 days with code BONUS1122D. (Thanks to DoC)

  2. There are multiple holiday shopping portal bonuses through November 21, though because today is election day let’s call them “politician upset over loss” shopping portal bonuses.

    – 5,000 United MileagePlus miles for spending $1,200 or more
    – 4,000 AA miles for spending $1,500 or more
    – 3,500 Southwest Rapid Rewards for spending $1,000 or more
    – 2,000 Delta SkyMiles for spending $800 or more
    – 1,500 Alaska MileagePlan miles for spending $650 or more

    These are somewhat gameable, one of several examples includes purchasing gift cards at GiftCards.com. On that note, Miles shared that the language in the terms and conditions at for GiftCards.com has changed on most portals from “Orders over $2,000 max per month per customer are not eligible” to “Orders over $2,000 are not eligible”. What does that mean? Great question, I’m so glad you asked. I have no idea what it means, but always be probing.

  3. Do this now (if you have an American Express Platinum card): Enroll for Hertz President’s Circle status.
  4. Chase finally increased the referral sign-up bonus on several cards to match the increased sign-up bonuses available on the public applications, so now’s a good time to refer P2 for a new card, or find a new friend and make their day by using their referral. You can generate referral links here. The cards:

    – Ink Cash: 90,000 Ultimate Rewards
    – Ink Unlimited: 90,000 Ultimate Rewards
    – Southwest Plus, Premier, Priority, and Business: 75,000 Rapid Rewards Points

    There’s also an increased sign-up bonus for the United Business card for 150,000 MileagePlus miles after spending $20,000 in three months. If this one is on your radar I’d wait a week or two to see if it also becomes available via referral before committing.

Have a quadruple decker slice of something in honor of politician upset over loss shopping portal bonus day.

  1. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try and run multiple transactions back-to-back and have a liquidation plan in place since these are Metabank gift cards. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  2. Southwest personal credit cards have a boosted sign-up bonus of 75,000 Rapid Rewards points and a reduced spend requirement of $3,000 in three months. The increased offers run through December 5. It’s a good time to get these if you want a companion pass because you can get two years worth by:

    – Applying for a personal card now (75,000 points after $3,000 in spend)
    – Applying for a business card now (80,000 points after $5,000 in spend)
    – Spending approximately $2,900 before December 31 on the personal card
    – Spending approximately $4,900 before December 31 on the business card
    – And finally, spend $100+ on each card on January 1

    The companion pass will last through the end of 2024. Also, don’t forget to use a friend’s referral link when you apply, they’ll appreciate it and earn 20,000 bonus points too. Seriously though, find someone’s referral link to use.

  3. eToro is a weird crypto brokerage with weird functionality that sometimes helps manufactured spenders, so it’s a good place to have an account in general (remember, the weird is what keeps us in business). Now there’s another good incentive: a $360 new account bonus. To get it:

    – Click through the Gocashback portal in a clean browser for a $120 bonus
    – Sign-up for eToro and deposit $2,000 for another $240 bonus

    You’ll have to deposit by December 31 and keep the money at eToro for 90 days after deposit. You’re not eligible if you already have an eToro account or closed one in the last 30 business days, so there’s barely still time to churn an account for existing customers too. (Thanks to DoC)

  4. Don’t forget that tomorrow is BankAmeriDay. Yes I made that up, and yes, it’s just as stupid as BankAmeriDeals). It’s a great time to manufacture spend because you’ll earn:

    – An extra 2x miles on co-branded cards
    – An extra 2% cash back on other cards

    Coincidentally, AA eShopping has 4,000 bonus miles for spending $1,500 or more and giftcards.com is currently 3x, so I’d run with that on a Bank of America card tomorrow as part of your game. With $1,500 in Visa or Mastercard gift cards you’ll earn 8,607 AA miles and 4,607 AA loyalty points. (Thanks to RabbMD)

BankAmeriGuy, the official mascot of BankAmeriDay.

  1. The current Staples fee free $200 Visa gift cards promotion that was set to expire over the weekend has been extended through Saturday of this week, and the limit is still eight. The cards are also still Metabank, so have a liquidation plan in place and note that there are from home and in-person liquidation plays that work.
  2. There’s a Chase offer for 20% back up to $50 at Quill.com, which is $250 in spend for those of you who can’t or won’t math. Quill.com sells Visa gift cards, though they’re still Metabank no matter how you math.
  3. Lowe’s is running a promotion for a $15 Lowe’s gift card with each $200 Mastercard gift card purchased through Wednesday (though it is limit of two per email address, but you have a few of those I’m guessing?) The resale rate on a $15 Lowe’s card is between 85% and 89%, so you’ll make a little more than $6 after the activation fee for each $200 gift card purchased. Alas, these are Metabanks too.
  4. The dying Morgan Stanley American Express Platinum card has a heightened sign-up bonus of 125,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 in spend in six months. Remember, there are a few obvious and at least one non-obvious reasons that this card is interesting. Also, you can feel fake bougie when you throw down a Morgan Stanley embossed Platinum card.

    You can still be eligible to for this card by opening a Morgan Stanley Access Investing account and funding it with $5,000 with this backdoor application link.

  5. Check United MilePlay for a personalized promotional offer. For me, I got “Book and take a trip one time to get 2,500 bonus miles”, and in the fine print it says the trip must cost at least $300. So, big meh.

Giftcards.com in Recent Memory

Since Summer of 2020, shopping portals have had the following language for purchases giftcards.com: “Orders over $2,000.00 max per month per customer are not eligible”. Of course there’s room to drive a truck through that language. For example, here are vague questions that aren’t answered by the text (but I’ve given my own answer based on experience):

Q: What is a customer anyway?
A: Roughly speaking a giftcards.com account. By the way, giftcards.com does basic matching of multiple accounts by a single customer so scale requires more than just a new email address.

Q: What if all of your orders are under $2,000 max per month?
A: You may get lucky and have more than $2,000 in aggregate purchases track, but that’s not a guarantee. Usually $2,000 is indeed the maximum that they’ll pay out on in aggregate.

Q: Is it $2,000 per shopping portal?
A: No. It’s across all portals, with an asterisk described below.

New Kid on the Block

In August of this year, Capital One Shopping started offering 6% cash-back on giftcards.com. Unlike the other portals, it lacks language about a maximum payout of $2,000 per month. Of course, hitters gonna hit and some people went really big on giftcards.com purchases through the Capital One Shopping portal in August, and continued through September and October. What happened with purchase tracking (and was pointed out to me by AllezSport, thanks!):

– August: Everything tracked
– September: Everything tracked and paid out if it was purchased very early in the month. Afterword, purchases over $2,000 were zeroed out sometime in the last week
– October: So far everything is tracking, but I think they’ll also zero out anything over $2,000 before the payout next month

The lesson here? I guess there are two:

  • Stop buying giftcards.com cards through any portal after $2,000 in purchases if the portal payout matters
  • If giftcards.com appears on a new portal without the $2,000 per month language, go ham early

And an unsolicited piece of advise: Try large purchases with Capital One Shopping, it probably won’t behave the way you think it will.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Sometimes things are bigger than you expect them to be, like this spoon.

Churning and manufactured spend opportunities go away all the time; just this month we’ve seen:

That list isn’t comprehensive either, other deals have been lost in July too. Fortunately July has also brought a hand-full of old deals back from the dead, including some hinted at just yesterday, the week before, or a few weeks ago. What’s the lesson here? Deals often don’t stay dead. When it’s time to get out there and probe, spend a bit of time looking for deals that want to attack Brad Pitt. They’re out there, and they’re often very fruitful.

A Walmart employee prepares to attack Brad Pitt.

A thought to start your Tuesday: Sometimes this hobby is slow, but based on my experience it’s definitely not slow right now. If it feels slow to you, use the time to get out there and start probing. Keep building your network too; fellow churners and manufactured spenders probably have a few tools that you haven’t used yet. Anyhooldes:

  1. The Point debit card refunded annual fees on a pro-rated basis and announced the existing version of the card would be shutdown on September 23. They also announced that existing members will get a free year of PointCard Titan when it launches later this year. A few action items:

    – If you have a Point card, cash-out your balance sooner rather than later
    – If you don’t have a Point card, I’d try and get one now in case the free year of Titan is worthwhile [Update: Point seems to have pulled the application link]

    I earned over $10,000 in cash back with the Point card, most in the first half of 2021 after launch. I also got quite a bit of no-fee manufactured spend in the first half of 2021. Based on those two experiences I’m hopeful that the new Titan card will present a few nice opportunities. (Thanks to Nathan via MEAB slack)

  2. Alaska and AA’s shopping portals have a spend bonus like last week’s Southwest and United portal bonuses:

    – Alaska: 1,200 bonus miles after $600 in spend
    – AA: 2,000 bonus miles after $600 in spend

    A manufactured spending hall of fame payment processor is still running some giftcards.com cards in a favorable way.

  3. Clear is running a $75 Uber credit promotion for new accounts. If you still have an unused American Express Platinum $189 Clear credit or two, sign up for an account with new information to cash-out that credit. So far, none of the Clear promotions like this have needed a complete enrollment at the airport in order to pay out.

    Remember, if you don’t cash-out every one of those Clear credits, the terrorists win. (Thanks to FM)

  4. According to DoC, more people have been targeted for an American Express Business Gold or Green upgrade offer to the Business Platinum for 140,000 Membership Rewards after spending $10,000 in three months. To see if you’re targeted, login to AmEx, set a Business Green or Gold card as your default card, then click ‘Request an Upgrade’ at this link.
  5. In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, starting tomorrow and running through Tuesday, August 9th, Kroger is having another 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards.

A probing tool recommended by my network (In retrospect, I should have been more specific).

First, a quick tip: If you’re having issues with AmEx SafeKey, try another browser. With that out of the way, it’s an interesting Monday:

  1. Office Depot/Office Max has an offer for $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift card purchases through Saturday. The drill:

    – Register your credit cards with Dosh, one Dosh account per card for 2% back up to $10 per day
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back to maximize your time
    – The “Everywhere” variety of cards doesn’t actually work everywhere, but they’re cheaper and they work at some of Everywhere
    – Combine with a targeted Chase offer for 10% back

    These are Metabanks so have a liquidation strategy, and do note that while Metabank liquidation channels have gotten better lately, that’s largely a Mastercard phenomenon. (Thanks to XscapeVelocity)

  2. Meijer MPerks has a $50 future store credit back on $500 in third party gift cards running through August 13. The deal excludes a few major gift card resale brands like Apple and Amazon, but does work on others like Nike, Home Depot, Adidas, Best Buy, and Disney, several of which currently have bulk resale rates well above 90%. Scale this one with multiple MPerks accounts. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  3. Capital One has confirmed to me that the Business Spark Travel Elite credit card won’t report on credit reports, so it won’t affect Chase 5/24 status.

Nailing that Monday triple.