Serve Reloads at Family Dollar - $1,800 in 3 Minutes over 4 Swipes with 2 Cards!

Serve is a great prepaid product available from American Express.  The benefits of Serve include $1,000 of online credit card loads with American Express cards, worth $20 a month with Fidelity American Express ($1,500 of loads if you are grandfathered into SoftServe).

In addition, you can load Serve via Debit Cards (AKA Visa Gift Cards) at Walmart and Family Dollar with a limit of $2,500 a day and $5,000 a month.

Serve Reloads at Family Dollar - $500 per Store is Not the Maximum

Serve is a great prepaid product available from American Express.  The benefits of Serve include $1,000 of online credit card loads with American Express cards, worth $20 a month with Fidelity American Express ($1,500 of loads if you are grandfathered into SoftServe).

In addition, you can load Serve via Debit Cards (AKA Visa Gift Cards) at Walmart and Family Dollar with a limit of $2,500 a day and $5,000 a month

American Express Prepaid Card Adding Monthly $4.95 Fee for Most

HT: JF via email

I originally wrote this post about Serve.  Within 2 minutes I took the post down when I realized my mistake.  Serve is not adding any monthly fees.  I read AMEX Prepaid Card in the email and my mind immediately went to Serve.  I hope I didn't scare anyone too much.  It was sloppy and I apologize.

American Express is adding a $4.95 monthly fee to the American Express Prepaid Card for anyone who isn't a resident of Arkansas, New York, Texas or Vermont.

Monthly fee starts October 15, 2015.  

  

Here is a link to the new Terms.

This is not a big deal since they are basically useless.  If you have any money left, drain it now and then close the account.  If you don't, you can't have a negative balance so don't worry about it.

From their terms:

PLEASE NOTE: If your Available Balance is less than a $4.95 for a particular month, we will deduct the Available Balance on your Card and apply it toward the monthly fee. If you have no money available on your Card, or if you do not have enough money to cover the entire monthly fee for a particular month, your Card will not sustain a negative balance as a result of this monthly fee.

  

One Crazy Day of MS Activities...

Today was a majorly hectic day for Manufactured Spend activities for me.

• It all started with this post from Doctor of Credit.  eBay was offering 20% off any item with a maximum discount of $80.
• I tried to buy eBay gift cards, but PayPal hates me, sometimes.  I wasn't able to buy anything sold by PayPal.  Instead I bought $400 of Staples gift cards sold by Gift Card Mall for $330.32 which is 17.4% off because of shipping fees.  
• I also earned $6.60 in eBay Bucks and $3.63 from Top Cashback.  That was a great start to the day!
• The deal went dead before I could post about it.  It came back again, but died very quickly again

Pajama Money - Free Money Without Leaving Your Home

I love pajama money.  I hate leaving my house if I don't need to so if I can make money without leaving my computer, even better.  I mean, look at the guy in the picture.   He looks so happy and relaxed!



Here are some of the easier ways to make some extra money at home.  So far, this will equal a minimum of $50 a month per person in your household.  I hope to add to this over time.

• Serve - $20 a month.   
• Really easy and simple.  All you need is a Serve card and Fidelity American Express.
• You can automate loading the credit card, but you need to log in once a month to liquidate the money from Serve.
• Santander Bank - $20 a month
• A big pain, but once it is set up, everything is automatic.
• Bank of America Better Balance Rewards - Up to $10 a month per card
• Requires a Bank of America checking or savings account to get the full $10 a month of value.  Otherwise it is $8.33 a month
• Completely automatic once set up.
• Multiple Better Balance Rewards cards are possible (I currently have 4 and I hope to get more) which can add to your month rewards.

Any other ideas?  You can email me or post a comment

I'm Switching Back from RedBird to Serve - My Local Target RedBird Fail

For all those who are unfamiliar, RedBird is the nickname for the Target REDCard put out by American Express which allows you to put $5,000 worth of credit card spending every month onto the prepaid card for free.  The money can be withdrawn or used to pay the credit card bill.  In the end, you have lost no money and gained 5,000 points.  It's pretty awesome.  That being said, I will now be switching back to Serve from my RedBird.

I want to stress that this is an issue with my local Target stores.  If you have a RedBird, there is no need to panic, unless you live near me.

1 Card, $1,000 a Day

I walked into my local Target (Main street in Hackensack NJ) and asked to load my REDcard.  I was told, "Sure, but I can only let you do 1 card now and only $1,000."  I was surprised, but I find that the best thing to do in these situations is to say OK, load your $1,000 and hope it is a one time issue.  Don't try to fight with them, it's not the cashier's personal policy and you will only bring more scrutiny on yourself.

I came back 3 times in the same week at different times and got the same response.  It seems to be a storewide policy.

Any deal is always subject to managers and clerks allowing it to go through.  This should not affect other Targets.  Though the other Target near me (off route 4) does not allow for credit card loads at all.  

Switching Back to Serve

Unfortunately, this means I will be switching back to Serve (you can't have both accounts) for all the cards I control except one.  It would require 5 different trips per card to maximize the $5,000 in loading instead of 2 trips totals.  That's just too time consuming.

I can still get $20 a month for free with Serve and Fidelity American Express, though I can no longer get SoftServe, which is unfortunate.  I do enjoy that I don't need to get off my bum to do it.

Hopefully, I will be targeted for an extra 1% cashback or 10 cents per transaction from Serve until the end of April.

Target American Express Prepaid REDcard - AKA RedBird - Big MS Opportunity!

Within the last couple of months, Target and American Express have combined to come out with a new Prepaid card called REDcard, not to be confused with the regular Target REDcard, which is their regular store credit/debit card.


The features of the Prepaid REDcard are so similar to Bluebird and Serve that it is simply referred to as RedBird in the Blogosphere.  So similar, in fact, that you can only have one of the 3 accounts.  If you have Bluebird or Serve, you will have to cancel your account before you can get a REDcard.

Why You Should Care

REDcard is a major upgrade from Serve/Bluebird for Manufactured Spending if you live near a Target.  You can add up to $5,000 monthly to your REDcard at any Target register with any credit card and zero fees.  You can then pay your credit card bill directly from the money in REDcard account or withdraw the money to your Bank Accouint.

A regular Target REDcard gives you a 5% discount at Target and REDcard is no different, you will get the same 5%.

Limits

- $5,000 of monthly fee free credit card 

- $2,500 daily limit

- $500 limit for temporary version

You need to make two trips a month to Target to get the full $5,000.

How to Get the Card

To get a REDcard, you need to buy a temporary version in store and register it online to receive a permanent card.  The temporary version looks like this:

Unfortunately, the temporary version of Redbird is currently only available in certain states.  

Once you have the permanent version, you can load it with a credit card at any Target Location.

You can have someone else buy a RedBird card for you.  If you are buying for someone else, put in your information when buying the temporary card and then the personal information can be changed when registering for the permanent card.  You can only buy one temporary card per social security number per day.

Category Bonuses

You load at regular Target checkout lines so it is possible that if your Target has a pharmacy or is considered a grocery store that you might be able to get category bonuses on your credit card.  I haven't seen anyone confirm this.  Even if that doesn't work, you can still load with Fidelity American Express (2% everywhere) and get $100 per REDcard every month!  That's sweet!

You can still load $1,000 a month with a Debit Card online, like a Paypal Business Debit card, for even more money.  Paypal Business Debit gets 1% for loading to Serve, I assume the same will be true with Redbird

REDcard vs. Serve

There are a few differences between Serve and Redbird.  Serve can be loaded online with a credit card for free, but only up to $1,500 a month with Softcard.  Redbird's $5,000 monthly limit is much higher.  

There are only two reasons to prefer Serve:

1) If you have no Target that's convenient, Redbird is not for you.

2) If you really care about Amex promotions like Small Business Saturday.  I assume this will be added to Redbird eventually, but it is currently only available on Serve and Bluebird.  I haven't switched until now because my Serve accounts were worth $300 between myself and my wife and our subaccounts.

Other than that, Redbird kicks Serve in the pants! Enjoy it while it lasts.  Once it shuts down, I'm sure we'll find something else in our perpetual game of Manufactured Spending Whack a Mole.

I hope to be switching soon once someone from a different state sends it too me.

You can read more from Frequent Miler, Doctor of Credit, DansDeals and Flyertalk

Loading Serve with Fidelity American Express - Still No Cash Advance Fees

Recently, many credit cards have coding loads to Serve as Cash Advances, which carries a fee and makes it not worthwhile.


I have always used my Fidelity American Express (2% cashback everywhere) to load to Serve for myself and family members and I am relieved to report that loads are working as normal.

Serve allows for $1,000 a month of free credit card loads ($1,500 if you link Serve to Softcard) so if you use your Fidelity AMEX you will get a free $20-30 per month with no fees.

Serve Cash Advance Fees

As I pointed out about 10 days ago, some credit cards seemed to recode Serve loads as cash advances.  It seemed like no one was getting charged a cash advance fee, but since then more information and data points have been gathered for people who are getting actual cash advance fee.

To be fair to the credit card companies, it would seem that Serve loads are your quintesential cash advance and Serve even warns you that it may be treated as a cash advance, but that doesn't mean it has to be treated that way.

Which cards are safe and which aren't?

This chart is from Frequent Miler

Safe List

Here are cards that were reported by readers to be safe, along with the most recent date of purchase:

• BarclayCard Arrival Plus, October 9

• Chase Southwest Premier, October 11

• Chase Sapphire Preferred, October 9

• Fidelity Amex, October 9

• Nasa FCU Rewards Visa, October 11

Unsafe List
The following cards were reported to charge a cash advance fee for Serve reloads.  Most recent reported date is listed:

• Citibank, October 9

• Bank of America, October 11

• Emigrant Direct Visa, October 8

• US Bank Club Carlson, October 9

What Should I Do Now?

• If you have been using a card from the Unsafe List, you should switch it to one of the cards from the safe list.  

• Call your credit card company and ask for the cash advance limit to be reduced to $0.  If you do that, any cash advance transaction will be declined instead of going through with a fee.  Even if you are using a safe card, it may turn into an unsafe card at any moment.

• Ask for a refund.  A reliable source (that's right AL, I called you reliable) confirmed that he had a cash advance fee on a Bank of America card and called to ask for a refund of the fee since he didn't know it was a cash advance transaction.  His fee was then refunded.

• It may be time to consider the Target REDcard.  I won't be considering it until at least after Small Business Saturday since I have 4 subaccounts on both of my Serve accounts, but if the Fidelity American Express becomes unsafe I will have to consider it then.

If you have any more data points, please leave a comment or email me.

Thanks AL for the tip!

Chase Starting to Charge Cash Advance Fees for Loading Serve?

Update: 10/6/2014 - As pointed out by Frequent Miler, Serve loads are still safe.  The loads start as a cash advance and then they change into regular credit card spending. 

According to this Flyertalk thread, there have been reports of people's credit card loads to Serve via a Chase Credit Card being coded as a Cash Advance starting today.  A cash advance gets no points and has a fee associated with it.

A lot of this is still unconfirmed, but please keep an eye out on how your credit card loads are being categorized.

You can always call the credit card company and change your cash advance limit to $0. Any transactions coded as cash advance will be declined instead of having a fee.




According to Flyertalk, the following has been found so far:

Oct 2nd- State of CC Loading to Serve

There are reports of NO cash advance for:

• Chase UA Explorer MC
• Chase Southwest Visa
• Also Barclay, Citi cards (Prestige, AA), Fidelity AMEX seem to be ok

There are reports of a cash advance on:

• Chase UA Club
• Chase UA Explorer Visa
• Chase Ink Bold Visa
• Chase Sapphire Preferred
• Also a Capital One card
• Discover IT

Paypal Business Debit, Old Amex Blue and Serve - The Power Trio!

A word of caution before this plan is laid out:  Paypal is known to shut people down for manufactured spending activities.  Normally, it involves withdrawing directly to your bank account or logging in from outside of the country, but this manufactured spending gem will likely get you shut down.  You also make get a Financial Review from American Express if you continuously spend a lot of money on any one of their cards.  You are forewarned.  You can now enjoy some fictional reading.

The New Power Trio

The following accounts are necessary for The Power Trio:

1. Paypal Account with a Paypal Business Debit Card
1. You will get 1% cashback on signature transactions (non-pin transactions).  You need to activate the 1% cashback from your Paypal account or you won't be eligible.
2. No hard pull, no maintenance fee.
2. Old American Express Blue Credit Card
1. Unlimited 5% cashback at Pharmacies, Grocery Stores and Gas after you spend $6,500 at these categories.  The first $6,500 of the year will be 1% cashback, the rest of the year will be 5% cashback.
1. If the application doesn't load, try browsing incognito.
3. Serve Prepaid Card
1. The relevant point for our discussion is that you can load funds onto Serve via a Debit Card and use those funds to electronically pay your credit card bill.  I think I see where you're going here ;)

How it Works

It's actually relatively straightforward.  Here it is step by step once you have all the accounts.

• Go to a Pharmacy (like CVS) and buy a Paypal Reload Card with your old Amex Blue.  They cost $3.95 for a $500 card.  Let's talk about buying $1,000 at a time for round numbers sake.
• Cost = $7.90
• Rewards = $50.39 into your American Express account
• Load the funds onto your Paypal account.  You now have $1,000 in Paypal
• Load money onto Serve from your Paypal Business Debit Card, which you can link at Serve's website.
• Cost = $0
• Rewards = $10 from Paypal for signature transaction on your Business Debit Card.
• Pay your bills
• Cost = $0
• Rewards = $0

Total Cost = $7.90
Total Rewards = $60.39

Net Profit = $52.49 per $1,000 spending.  Let's call it $52.50 for simplicity.  That's 5.25% cashback on your original $1,000!  Not too shabby!
As you see, you only have to go into one store.  Everything else is done online.  That is key to me.

How Much Can I Make?

There are two limiting factors, Paypal and, more significantly, Serve.  You can only load up to $1,000 a month from your Paypal Debit Card to Serve without ISIS.  Therefore, you are limited to $52.50 per month.
You can load up to $4,000 a month onto paypal.  You can be more creative at withdrawing the money from Paypal.  You can buy Money Orders using the Business Debit card in stores that allow Money Orders with Debit Cards.  The advantage here is that the Debit Card has your name on it and it doesn't say Gift Card on it so sales associates are likely going to be nicer to you.  If you max out at $4,000 a month, you will be getting $210 every month!  If you have a spouse and/or have access to another Paypal account, you can make $420 every month!  Not too shabby indeed!

You can even go further, you can buy plain Visa Gift Cards once you reach your Paypal limit.  Use them to load onto Serve at Family Dollar (Serve has a different set of limits for "cash reloads"), use Evolve Money, Amazon Payments or Money Orders as a Debit Card.  These all require an extra trip to a store so the time to money ratio is not as favorable, but you can still do well.

Serve Reloads at Family Dollar

Apparently, I am late to the party breaking this news.  I guess that's what happens when you go on vacation and don't have time to post (Read: Promised wife not to post very much).



As reported in Free-quent Flyer Book (great blog - check it out) and DansDeals (Really great blog - check it out - although sometimes overwhelming even for the knowledgable), you can now load your Serve card at Family Dollar with Vanilla Visa Gift Cards acting as debit cards.

Only load a maximum of $500 a day.  If you try to load more the register will say that you were successful and the money will leave your Visa card, but it won't be on your Serve card.

Why I care?

I already decided to switch over to Serve from Bluebird because of their online free credit card loading and since almost all the features that made Bluebird great have been discontinued or added to Serve.

That being said, since I moved to Teaneck I hardly ever make trips to Walmart to load to Bluebird or Serve since it takes about an hour.

Now, I can load at Family Dollar in Teaneck which is less than two miles from my house.




Here is how to do it:
1) Bring your Serve Card and Vanilla Visa to the cashier, along with a Vanilla Reload card that you can find only at Family Dollar
2) Say "I would like to add $500 (or whichever amount you are adding) to my serve card with a Debit Card, please."
3) Hand Vanilla Reload to cashier
4) Swipe Serve card when prompted
5) Swipe Vanilla Visa card when prompted
6) Enter 4 digit pin (I always just choose the last 4 digits of the card)
7) Say "Thank you" after you are approved
8) Go home
9) You will receive an email from American Express that your Serve Reload was Successful.

American Express Shop Small - $5x3 Credit in Houston, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, Sacramento

American Express is running a mini Shop Small promotion in a limited number of cities.  Eligible cities include Houston, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, Sacremento

If you spend $5 or more you will get a $5 credit.  Each registered American Express card is eligible for 3 credits.  Registration starts August 1st 2014 and the spending must take place during August.

Online purchases will not qualify.

Every American Express card with a unique account number will count as a separate card for this promotion, including authorized users on American Express branded cards.   American Express cards that are branded by other companies (like Citibank and Fidelity) will only receive one credit per account.  Serve cards are eligible, but all other prepaid cards are not eligible.

Offer terms



American Express randomly runs great promotions so I like to have as many American Express cards that have no annual fee as possible.


Hopefully, as the date gets closer, we can figure out a store to call that will process a useful credit.

American Express Serve - Up to $250 Free

Update: A reader reports that he tried to add funds with a Citibank credit card and it went through as a regular credit card purchase, not a cash advance.  I don't have a serve account so I can't verify, but Citi cards should be safe with Serve.  Either way, send a secure message through your Citibank account and ask for the cash advance limit to be lowered to $0 so that if it does process as a cash advance the transaction won't go through and you won't be stuck with a bill.


Serve® is one of the prepaid products available through American Express.  Similar to Bluebird, its best feature is that you can use it for online bill pay.  This means that any money that has been loaded onto your card can be used to pay a credit card bill as well.

An additional advantage is that you can load funds from a credit card onto Serve with no associated fees (unless your credit card issuer counts it as a Cash Advance). You can then pay your credit card bill with the bill pay.  Not too shabby.

Advantages:

• Online Bill Pay
• Loading with a credit card for free ($1,000 a month)
• Load "cash" at 7-11 and CVS
• There are some reports that CVS allows you to load with a credit card and it is considered a "cash" reload - unconfirmed.
• $50 bonus for two direct deposits of $250 or more.
• There are some reports that Amazon Payments will work for this - unconfirmed
• 20% cashback for any "tap purchases" using Isis Mobile Wallet until January 31st.   Up to $200 in credits ($1,000 of spending).  This works on anything, including Visa Gift Cards or Vanilla reloads!

There are a couple of problems with Serve:

• $1 monthly fee
• You can avoid the monthly fee by loading $500 a month or having direct deposit or having it in your Isis Mobile wallet.
• You can't have Bluebird and Serve at the same time, it's either one or the other.

I don't have Serve because I have Bluebird and I don't want to give it up, if you are interested you can sign up for American Express Serve® here

Thank you YP for the tip!

2012 Credit Card Cashback Year In Review

Disclaimer - The Discover offers are no longer valid.

Related Links
My Favorite Credit Cards
Credit Card Sign up Bonuses
Make it Easy for Your Spouse
Free Monthly Credit Score from Credit Sesame

Here is the 2nd annual breakdown of how I did on my various credit cards from 2013.  Here is my yearend review from 2011.  Hopefully, we can all take some lessons about to do even better in the future!

Some words of introduction

1. Credit card sign up offers netted me over $2,000 this year have skewed some of the numbers.  I will present my results both with and without any sign up bonuses since these are one time bonuses.  
1. I valued miles at 1 cent per point, for ease of calculation, but in truth I will probably end up redeeming them at higher values.
2. I wouldn't suggest that most people sign up for as many cards, but you certainly can get back significant money if you are willing to do a little bit of work and follow my blog, of course :)
2. I have included any American Express bonuses that I would have otherwise spent money on, therefore my American Express numbers are better than the rest of my cards.
1. For example, I included when American Express gave me $20 for spending $200 at Best Buy, which I did about 10 times.  I counted it as $205 of spending and $20 of rewards.  This is because I bought VISA gift cards for $205 and got $20 back for a cashback % of close to 10%.  I also counted Small Business Saturday as rewards without spending because I would have bought the same stuff anyway.
1. The AMEX cards I get lower percentage on is because I use them more frequently and not just for the promotions.

My goal is to get at least 2% back on every purchase.  I use the Fidelity American Express card which gives 2% on every purchase, so if the purchase doesn't fall into a special category, at least I can use the Fidelity card and get the standard 2% back.

Here is the breakdown from my different Cards in alphabetical order - Most have some sort of Sign Up Bonus when you click on the links

American Express Blue Everyday - 15.26%
American Express Blue Preferred - 9.26%
American Express Blue Sky - 27.35%
American Express Fidelity - 4.32%
American Express Starwoods - 28.91% (Sign up Bonus)
American Express Starwoods Business - 67.91% (Sign up Bonus)
Chase British Airways - 452% (Sign up Bonus)
Bank of America Cash Rewards - 3.38%
Bank of American Cash Rewards #2 - 89.1% - (Sign up Bonus)
Chase Freedom - 4.1%
Chase United Credit Card - 0.91% (Annual Fee)
Citi AAdvantage - 65.25% (Sign Up Bonus)
Citi Dividend - 31.23% (Sign up Bonus)
Discover it™- 3.9%
NFL (barclays) - 31.92% (Sign up Bonus)
Target - 5%



Overall - 

• 17.38% with sign up bonuses and 7.19% without sign up bonuses.
• If you take out all of my American Express cards, the percentage drops down to 3.46%

Keys to my success

• Gift Cards - Many promotions require you to spend a lot of money right away, especially sign up offers.  I take big advantage of buying gift cards to gas stations, Amazon (which I consider like cash), and Visa (comes with a fee so are last resort) and using them over time.  
• Serve® from American Express - makes life a lot easier.  I hate having lots of small Visa gift cards around.  You can combine all of them onto your Serve card and just carry around the one card.
• American Express Promotions - American Express has cards with great cashback, the real reason you get American Express cards is for all the promotions they run throughout the year.  I will continue to keep you informed.
• Staying on top of my credit report - I use Credit Sesame to monitor my credit report so that if anything negative pops up, and it has before, I can take care of it right away.
• In case you are wondering, my credit score, according to both Credit Sesame and Credit Karma is over 770, so opening credit cards has not hurt me at all.

My analysis:


This past year 

American Express Cards -  I have already explained that I used bonuses to achieve very good results.  I added the Blue Preferred late this year so hopefully that will help for next year as well.  sed to be my 2% card because it was a Visa but that program was discontinued and changed to the Bank of America Cash Rewards Card.
Chase Freedom is my main backup when when AMEX wasn't accepted, or when a purchase is under $10 and also has 5% rotating categories.
Discover - same as Chase Freedom, except all the rewards can be multiplied by 1.25 if you take rewards in gift cards instead of cash.
Target - Target gives 5% off every purchase.  We buy diapers there and have started to spend more money there when we stopped being members of BJ's.


What to Change for Next Year

• In about a year or so, I may need my credit to be as good as possible so I will only sign up for a credit card if the sign up bonus is too good to pass up (over $300 with no annual fee), otherwise, I am going to stick with what I have.    
• This means, of course, that I don't expect my numbers to be nearly as high next year.
• I am going to try to use Bluebird prepaid cards to pay more of my bills that don't accept credit cards.  I will "only" get 1.2% back if I use my Fidelity, but 1.2% is still better than 0%.
• My overall percentage will go down, but the name of the game is more money, not higher percentage.

I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing this.  

Questions or Comments?  Feel free to be heard!

Best Buy - Spend $200 and Get $20 Back from American Express - $14 Free Per Card

Best Buy - Spend $200 and Get $20 Back from American Express - $14 Free Per Card

Update - Alive again but with tweet #AmexBestBuyOffer for the same Twitter offer.  I have done this a few times and every time I add Best Buy Visa Prepaid money to my serve account.  I haven't spent much money outside of prepaid cards in a little while ;)
Twitter allows pseduonyms so feel free to start multiple twitter accounts and sync one Amex card per account to get $14 for every Amex card you have! 

Keep records of which card is linked to which account.  I send myself an email.

In addition, this will work with your synced American Express on Facebook.  I don't know what happens when the same card is synced for both deals, but I assume you won't get the credit twice.

You need to spend $200 by 12/31 at Best Buy


Update 1: I just came back from Best Buy.  I bought two $200 gift cards and came home to two confirmation emails from American Express that I will be getting my $40 back.  $28 Free!  In addition, I should be also getting two $5 reward zone coupons in the next couple of weeks too!  

Over the next couple of months I will be adding the money onto my two (mine and my wife's) serve account and slowly withdrawing and spending the money.

American Express, keep 'em coming!!

Until 10/31, if you spend $200 or more at Best Buy on your American Express card, American Express will give you a $20 statement credit.

You need to register your American Express card with their app on Facebook.  You can register only one card per facebook account - 

Keep records of which American Express card is linked with which facebook account because it's difficult to find out later.

- Once you register your card go back to the Facebook app, click on sync and the Best Buy offer will come up again.

The $200 can be a regular purchase or a gift card purchase!  Most Best Buys have Visa Gift Cards of $200 that have a surcharge of $6 so you can make a net of $14 per card or an Amazon gift card with no surcharge!

The last time this same promotion ran I bought $400 of gift cards, got my $40 and then I got a $5 Best Buy credit for being a Best Buy Reward Zone member and spending money in the store, so if you aren't a member, sign up now.

- For every $250 you spend, you get a $5 gift certificate (2%).  I already did this twice before  so I spent $400, leaving $150 left over after my first $5 gift certificate so another $400 will actually get me two $5 gift certificates.

- Once you have the Best Buy Visa Gift Card, you can load all your gift cards onto your serve account, but you need to register the gift cards in your name and address by calling the number on the back of your card (this also allows you to use gift cards online).

Didn't Get Your Discover Cashback for Online Purchases - Send a Secure Message

Didn't Get Your Discover Cashback for Online Purchases - Send a Secure Message

Disclaimer - The Discover offers are no longer valid.

I've already told you that the Discover it™ is offering 5% cashback for all of your online purchases from now until the end of the year, as long as you sign up for the 5% categories.

This past month, I spent $867.15 online (airline tickets and serve - more on that later) and I only got $.75 in 5% categories when I was expecting $43.36, which is quite a big difference.

I sent a secure message to Discover that said the following:

Hello, I used my Discover on the internet for many purchases last month and I don't seem to have gotten my 5% cashback for those purchases. Will I still be getting my 5% cashback?

I got the following response from Discover

Thank you for your message regarding your Cashback Bonus. I understand your concern about your Cashback Bonus balance, and I am happy to provide you with additional information.

After reviewing your Discover card account, I see that you did not receive the Cashback Bonus for some of your online purchases between October 1, 2012 and October 19, 2012. Because you are a valued customer since 2009 and we want Discover to be your card of choice, I have adjusted your Cashback Bonus balance, and the increase will appear on your next statement.

This program has a cap of $1,500 in purchases or $75.00 in Cashback Bonus. I have increased your Cashback Bonus balance by $41.34 for the online purchases that did not earn the full 5%.

I appreciate your business and the time you have taken to contact us today. Thank you for choosing to use Discover Card. 


I don't know what happened to the last $1.30, but I'm not going to get too upset about that.
The whole process took about 3 minutes and I was able to get over $40.


In a separate note, I was able to get 5% back from transferring money from Discover to my Serve account.
A serve account is a prepaid card from American Express and funds can be loaded onto the Serve account via a credit card ($250 monthly maximum).  I loaded $250 from Discover and I got $12.50 back.  This can be done again this month and next month for a total of $37.50 back over three months.  You can also get a $25 bonus for opening a serve account

Don't have a Discover More Credit Card, apply for one now!

Serve - Spend $20 Get $10 Back

Serve Credit - Spend $20 and get $10 Back

I got an email (at least four others got the same email ) from Serve that if I spend $20 on my serve account by the end of November, I will get a $10 credit.  No sign up necessary, but only for those who got an email so check your inboxes and your spam if you are a serve member and didn't get an email.

I honestly don't know how American Express makes money, but here's hoping that they keep throwing more free money our way!

Once you get the $10 credit, you can immediately withdraw the money back into your checking account.

If you don't have a serve account, you can sign up between now and December 31st and get a $25 credit (without spending anything).  Serve is a prepaid card so there is no credit check or income verification required.


Thank you YP and MW for the tip.

Serve Prepaid Card from American Express - Load $25 and Get $25!

Update - Alive again, but new serve accounts only.  Expires December 31st.


Serve Prepaid Card from American Express - Load $25 and Get $25! - Expires September 30, 2012


The best part is that once you verify your checking account and you load $25 onto your card they credit the $25 the same day and you can withdraw your money back to your checking account for free immediately!

One bonus per new account.  You can get one for you and another for your spouse or anyone else in your family who is over 18.

This is not a credit card!  You don't give your full full Social Security Number and there are no credit checks.  This is will not affect your credit score!

You can load money with a credit card, but that isn't free.  Use your checking account.


Here's how to do it

1. Click on this link
2. Click on "sign up to get started"
3. Put in your info.  When you get to the next screen make sure you follow the directions for the password.  If you do it wrong you will get a "template error" that doesn't mention anything about the password not meeting the requirements
4. Once you set up your account verify your checking account for at least one user.  You will need to do this to withdraw your funds for free.  You can either choose the option of instant verification or through trial verification.  
5. Start over for any additional accounts
6. From your serve account, send all your money to one account (all you need is an email address) and accept the money to that account and you can with draw the money once it has posted

Note: You can't load money on two account with same checking account.  It won't work.  You can load one with a checking account and then another with a separate checking account or debit card.  Once you have gotten both bonuses, transfer all the money to the account with the verified checking account and withdraw.

I got my bonus money within 20 minutes, but it can take up to 30 days.

Here are the Terms and Conditions:

Offer expires September 30, 2012 and is not available to existing Serve account holders or any person that has previously canceled his or her Serve account. To receive the $25 from Serve, you must open a new Serve account (subject to approval) and add $25 or more, which must post to your new Serve account on or before September 30, 2012. In some instances, it may take several days for added funds to post to your account, so please allow sufficient time for that process to occur. Serve will provide a one-time credit to your Serve account of $25 within thirty (30) days of you satisfying the above requirements. Funds loaded via person-to-person send/receive money transactions will not satisfy the account funding requirements. Limit one (1) $25 credit per new Serve account. Subaccounts are not eligible for the credit.  Offer subject to change or cancellation at any time and cannot be combined with any other offer(s).

Thank you J Combs!

Use Serve Prepaid Card to Consolidate your Prepaid and Gift Cards

Serve prepaid card is currently running a promotion where if you load $25 onto you card, Serve will load another $25 instantly

In addition, serve can be used to consolidate your prepaid cards in your name or your nameless visa gift cards (I assume Mastercard works as well, but not confirmed.  Amex nameless cards do not work)

Here is how to do it:

1. There are many ways to load money onto your serve card, one is through a credit card.  
1. When you are on the main page of your Serve account, you will have to click on "additional ways to fund your account" to choose a credit card.
2. Serve's official rules are that after March 15, 2013, they will charge you 2.9% to load with a credit card.  When I loaded from my prepaid and gift cards, I was able to transfer my whole balance without incurring any fees from Serve or my card companies.
3. There is a limit of loading $100 a day from a credit card so depending on how much you are adding, it may take a few days.
4. This only works if the card is in your name.  Nameless visa gift cards work as well.  Nameless Amex gift card will not work.
5. After you have loaded all the money into your serve account, you will have one card with all of the money on it so you don't have to constantly check your balances on different cards.
6. If you and your wife have gift cards you can send money from one serve account to the other and consolidate even further.

Do not immediately try to take the money out to your checking account or from an ATM.  Many people have gotten their accounts closed and their bonuses taken away.  There is no problem as long as you then spend the money.  The idea is to make it more simple (who wants 20 gift cards that you need to keep track of), don't try to take it further.