The Gift Card reselling market usually sucks during the first couple of months of a year, prolly because consumers are detoxing with a hangover from holiday shopping and aren’t sick of their new toys (yet). The hangover is ending now though and the gift card secondary markets are really starting to pick up. A few of my observations for April:

  • Consignment sale holding time has shortened considerably, with the turn-around time dropping to one to three weeks for big retail brands (exceptions: Home Depot, Target)
  • Appetite in private markets for volume gift card sales is soaring, kinda like PLBY stock
  • BestBuy gift card resale rates are creeping back up (I’ve seen 1-2% higher in the last couple of weeks, and break even deals when grocery rewards are included)
  • Capacity for immediate/non-consignment sales in gift card clubs is growing

Retailers are also starting to offer big discounts for Easter, and usually this trend just continues to pick up steam until mid-Summer.

If you don’t have any gift card reseller relationships, there are a few good exchanges out there. Stick with something reputable, good volume, and a good reputation in the community. There are a couple of gift card sellers that I have gotten to know personally and that I trust with bigger volume. That said, always keep your outstanding float in gift cards no higher than the dollar amount you’d be willing to lose if everything went wrong, and spread out your reselling amongst as many reputable sources as you can so if one fails, your whole portfolio isn’t gone. (c.f., The Plastic Merchant, which went bankrupt in 2019 and left resellers holding the bag)

MS note: In the right circles, you can easily do $30-60k of gift card reselling per week after you’ve developed relationships and moved into inner circles, so don’t ignore this technique. Do start out with something really small and slowly ramp over time though, so if you make newbie mistakes they don’t cost you much. As always — don’t push this beyond the amount you’d be willing to lose if something goes wrong. It can happen and has happened.

The worst part of gift card reselling: having a bunch of plastic cards floating around that you can’t get rid of (“just in case”), but serve no useful purpose.

Time to sail into the weekend. While you’re floating away, check the following:

1. Southwest has opened their travel bookings for most fall and some early winter travel through November 5. Now is a great time to lock in your fall travel if it involves any destinations served by Southwest. I’d recommend you book with Rapid Rewards points if at all possible because you can always redeposit or change Rapid Rewards bookings with no fee, so you can easily get the points back when the price drops or when your plans change. If you need a Rapid Rewards top-off, don’t forget that Southwest is a Chase transfer partner. Also, don’t forget that there’s no undoing that Chase to Southwest transfer.

2. Chase has targeted more co-brand cards for Q2 spend offers. Check your Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, United, AARP, Starbucks, and Disney cards (or any other co-brands you have with Chase) for a Q2 spend bonus here. If you don’t see any offer or get a strange error, reportedly incognito mode in your browser can help get you a bonus.

3. Since our favorite Vanilla Gift Card promotion code FLASH2020 has now died (more like SUNK2020, amirite?), I’m again interested in Simon.com gift card purchases. If you are too, use promo code APR21SAVE50 at Simon to save 50% on fees when purchasing Visa or Mastercard gift cards. Don’t use an AmEx though, you won’t earn points and the Simon transaction won’t count toward minimum spend.

A sailboat with a wave taller than its mast towering, about to hit the boat.
It’s smooth sailing from here, just don’t look starboard-side.

It’s follow-up time:

1. Pavel wrote to let me know that if you’ve gotten attached to one of your burner phone numbers and want to keep it for a while, there’s a great deal at eBay for RedTalk mobile. You’ll be able to port in your number and have service for a year for a total of $30. Porting to Google Voice would cost less, but for most cell phone burner purposes Google Voice is a non-starter because they detect and prevent direct VOIP phone number use.

2. BlueCat previously let us know about the Chase Private Client Arts and Culture Program as a strong benefit that comes with Chase Private Client, but it sounds like that program is ending. That means the principle value of Private Client is once again a debit card that says “Private Client”.

3. Delta extended flexible travel bookings through April 30, so yesterday’s Housekeeping item about locking in bookings while the flexible window is open is still an option on Delta. You’ve got time to plan — things that you may want to book while you’ve got flexible cancellation: Summer vacation, Fall Break, Thanksgiving, and Christmas travel.

4. AmEx sent another round of Membership Rewards for adding authorized users to your card. Look for an email with the subject “NAME, you’re about to miss out on 20,000 Membership Rewards® points. Add Card Members now.” Mine came on a Personal Platinum card and requires $2,000 spend within six months for the bonus. You can try this link, it doesn’t seem to be specific to me.

Follow-up from the most random real-estate listing on the internet: The Bedroom

Are these posts trashposts? When I’m writing them, it sure feels like recycled content which usually isn’t my style. On the other hand, you should be doing all of these things and so should I. Writing this post made me do a couple of them and capture credits that would have otherwise expired. Fortune favors the meticulous I guess.

1. Make sure you’ve spent any American Express credits in Uber Eats or Uber by tonight. Watch out for combining accounts that have stored Uber Cash and American Express Uber credits.

2. Check for any credit cards that have had annual fees post and call the issuer for a retention offer. I suggest saying something like: “I’m thinking of closing this card given its high annual fee, but before I decide what to do I was wondering if there are any retention offers or spend bonuses.” Caveat: If you take a retention offer from American Express, plan on keeping that card for 12-13 months. Good retention offers are well worth it.

3. If you have an American Express co-branded personal card (Marriott, Delta, Hilton), make sure you’ve attached the dining offer to your card and spend it. The easiest way to do this from home seems to be to buy an exact value DoorDash gift card on Fluz, which will should code correctly as grocery. Amazon Meals is another decent option. As always, find a Fluz referral from a friend to make their day if you don’t have an account already.

4. Spend any American Express co-branded business card wireless credits. I prepay my cell phone bill with this one and all of the credits over last year and this year mean that my bill will be $0 after the credits are applied for a long, long time.

5. Make sure you’ve spent any $10 American Express Personal Gold dining credits. The easiest way IMO is to buy something for pickup for $10ish at a local coffee shop on GrubHub, but a combo meal at a ShakeShack is a good option for many of you.

6. Cancel any cell phone burner accounts that you’re done with (and that you didn’t use a virtual account number that expires on).

7. Spend those AmEx Personal Platinum $30 PayPal credits. They’re taking a while to post, but they do post. The easiest way to get these out under the wire is with PayPal Digital Gifts which has been paying the credit even though the T&C says that it shouldn’t.

A picture of someone pouring a bottle of beer into a sock puppet.
Feeding trashposts into WordPress.

We’ve been living in a golden age of flight change and cancellation flexibility, though of course the reason behind that flexibility sucks. That age is about to be over — most airlines’ liberal change policies on even the cheapest of fares are reverting back to normal on Thursday.

If you’re booking travel, and apparently a lot of you are because AA flights are basically full over the next couple of months, now is the time to lock in those bookings. Book by tomorrow and even Basic Economy fares on the major US carriers can be changed for only the fare difference and in some cases they can be refunded completely. Normally they’re of course non-refundable, non-changeable, and require that you wear your most uncomfortable shoes and a pair of underwear that’s two sizes too small. Scoot in under the deadline to avoid that nonsense.

Sure these shoes are uncomfortable, but check out that, umm let’s call it, style!

Grocery store promotions are on fire this month. In addition to last week’s deals (some of which are still going):

Don’t forget the Staples fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards, limit 5 running through April 3. If you’re out and about, you can easily knock out minimum spend or bonus spend with any/all of these deals, or with last week’s Kroger deal.

A fire truck in front of a Meijer store.
Not exactly what I meant when I was talking about grocery stores and fire.

Are you sick of all the running around that’s been caused by the great MS opportunities this year? I am, sorta, but man it’s so worth it. Here’s some more to get you running around:

  • Staples is offering fee free $200 Mastercards starting Sunday and running through April 3. Limit 5 per day (or, more likely per transaction). As always, remember that Visa isn’t the same as Mastercard, though with Metabank GCs they’re not all that different. Thanks to reddit user kawnipi.
  • Check this link for a possible American Express 20,000 Membership Rewards targeted Pay-Over-Time bonus. I personally would leave it on until the next annual fee posts, though it may not be necessary. Remember to turn it off eventually though so that you can get this bonus in the future.
  • There is an upgrade offer floating around for Delta Gold and Delta Platinum American Express cards for the Delta Reserve, check the American Express mobile app or watch for it via email. This one offers $300 plus 60,000 redeemable miles after spending $4,000 in six months. I’d take that offer, but sadly I’m not targeted, probably because I “upgraded” my Delta Reserve to a Delta Platinum last week using another offer. Thanks to Chris for noting that it’s available in app.

Happy weekend, watch out for the spring breakers! If you’re a spring breaker, I mean all the other spring breakers, not you. You’re like a firework.

A fireworks store on fire.
Spring breakers showing the store who’s boss.

A couple of things:

1. Chase has a few mildly interesting spending bonuses from April – June for up to $1,500 total spend. On this round, pay extra attention to your offer. Some give you 5x on all spend, some only on grocery and restaurants, some include gas stations and drugstores, etc. Another variant is 1x-1.5x bonus on $3,000 or $6,000 in spend. Honestly, Chase has gotten AmEx weird this time — go home Chase, you’re drunk! Eligible cards include: United, Starbucks, Hyatt, IHG, Disney, Marriott, and British Airways; but check any other co-brands you have with Chase too. Use this link to see your offer and enroll.

2. Did you know that downgrading your AmEx card will prorate the annual fee? Yeah, you probably knew, just don’t do it in the first year after opening or after a retention offer to avoid a potential bonus clawback. Here’s something related that you may not know: Downgrading an AmEx with an attached offer retains the offer on the card, even after downgrade. For example, if you’ve attached the monthly $20 dining credit to your expensive Hilton Aspire card, you can downgrade to the no annual fee Hilton HHonors card, get the prorated refund, and keep the monthly $20 dining credit. Boom goes the dynamite!

Brian Collins tells us about a nifty AmEx trick.