American Express Gift Cards - No Purchase Fees!

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Top Cashback and American Express Gift Cards (only if you don't use Top Cashback first - Why would you do that?)

Update: This deal ends tomorrow.  All my orders have gotten credited by Top Cashback within a day even though some of my actual orders were canceled by American Express. 



American Express Gift Cards can now be bought without any purchase fees.  This saves you $3.95 for every $500 card.  You need to use promo code SYNCGIFT and pay with an American Express credit card.

You still need to pay $8.95 shipping fee for the order, but that is $8.95 even if you order $5,000 of gift cards.

In addition, for the next 4 days Top Cashback will give you 3% back for buying the gift cards.  Top Cashback says that promo codes will nullify your cashback, but I tried it and it worked anyways.

Here is the math for what this deal can do for you:

Scenario 1: Fidelity American Express (2% back on every purchase).

Let's say you max it out at $5000 in gift cards.  Your total charges will come to $5008.95.

- $150 will come to you from Top Cashback

- $100 will come to you from Fidelity American Express

- $8.95 fee for buying the cards

Bottom Line - $241.05 net after fees or 4.8% on your purchases with the gift cards.  Not too shabby!

Scenario 2: American Express Starwoods (Let's say you're a miles man)

Same thing: Max out at $5000.  Total charge is $5008.95

- $150 will come to you from Top Cashback

- 5,009 starpoints from American Express Starwoods

- $8.95 fee for buying the cards

Bottom Line - $141.05 net after fees + 5009 starpoints  If you do this 4 times you will have $560 and 20,000 starpoints which can be redeemed for 25,000 miles on many airlines.

More advanced tools so that you don't have to actually spend the money (manufactured spending):
Amazon Payments - You can send up to $1,000 a month to a friend with a credit card, including American Express gift cards.
Buy Vanilla Reloads/Visa Gift Cards - You should be able to use these cards to buy Vanilla Reload cards or Visa gift cards which can be loaded onto Bluebird online for Vanilla Reloads and at Walmart for Visa Gift Cards.  Add 1% in fees for this option.
Google Wallet - if you have a Google Wallet account, you can send money via email with a credit card to anyone and that person can withdraw to a checking account.  The problem is that the fee is a whopping 2.9%, which negates most of your cashback.
That being said, you will still net over $100 with the Fidelity American Express without having to spend any money.  With a points card, you end up getting 5,000 points for just about nothing.

Warning! Don't use a Citibank Credit card as they may code it as a Cash Advance so you will get a fee and no points.  American Express and Chase cards are safe.