$300 Visa Gift Cards Available on Staples.com - Shameless Money Grab!

Staples is now selling $300 Visa Gift Cards online for an $8.95 fee, as reported by Dan's Deals tonight,

Many of you will be interested in buying these gift cards online with a Chase Ink car for 5x Ultimate Rewards points.  I won't comment on whether it is a good deal or not, but it is certainly better than the $200 denominations which were available until now.  Lower fees as a percentage of the gift cards and larger denominations are always better.



Considering there is no shopping portal which pays out for buying Visa Gift Cards at Staples, the "Keep Oren from Getting a Normal Job Fund" would definitely appreciate it if you were to use my link to buy them  ;)

I don't even know if I will get paid for it, but I'm willing to take the sacrifice and test it!

AmEx Offers for You - $15 off $79 at Walmart - Targeted

HT - Points for Later on Twitter





Update: For some reason, Walmart is accepting orders for eGift Cards and then you get an email cancelling it.  I recommend buying physical gift cards or $100 Visa Gift Cards to avoid the cancellations.  


I only found this offer on one of my accounts, but on almost all of my wife's accounts.  The offer is for $15 off $79.








This is an easy money maker.  Walmart eGift Cards can be sold to SaveYa for 91% which is $72.8, you are paying $66 for $80 of eGift Cards (2 x $40 eGift Cards).  That's almost $7 for free.


Alternatively, you can buy a $100 visa gift card for $105.38.  That leaves you paying $90.38 for the $100 gift card.  For many, this is the best deal since most people can liquidate visa gift cards for their entire value.    This is almost $10 for free.



Important:
If you have the offer on multiple cards in the same online log in, before you add it to any one card, open a new window in your browser for each card.  Activate them all at the same time.  Otherwise the offer will disappear from the rest of your cards in the same online account.

If you don't have many AmEx cards, you should get more.  The Offers for You have been incredible lately.  Here is some info on taking advantage of extra Authorized Users for more promotions.


Enjoy!

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.

$200 Visa Gift Cards fee Free at Staples, 1 per Order?

Twitter Follower @dcatast tweeted the following picture

Update: Fee is now being charged correctly.


Picture shows that there was no fee when purchasing a Blue $200 Visa Gift Card at Staples.  He then bought another four and got the $6.95 fee waived once.  It may be that every purchase can have one fee waived.

I have no personal experience here but I think it is worth it to check it out, especially if you are going to Staples anyways.

Make sure to use a Chase Ink card for 5x points.

$20 off $20 purchase at Sam's Club with American Express and $20 off $300 purchase of Visa Gift Cards at Office Depot and Office Max

HT - Frequent Miler Quick Deal #1 and #2


If you don't already get quick deals directly to your inbox, sign up now and you will get great deals as they occur.








1)  American Express has a $20 off $20 purchase at Sam's Club through American Express "Offers for you".  Open each of your cards in different tabs before you add the offer to any card so that you can add the offer to all of your accounts.  Once you add one the offer to one card, it will disappear from the other accounts unless they are already open elsewhere.


Once the offer is added, you have until 9/30/2015 to spend the money!


Update: online purchases only.  I've added the offers to 26 of my cards so far!  Only about 20 more to go!












2) Office Depot and Office Max are discounting $300 worth of Visa Gift Cards by $20 instantly.
Offer valid from 5/3/2015 until 5/16/2015.


Buy it with a Chase Ink card for 5x points at office supply stores.

Buy Money Orders at Western Union with Visa Gift Cards

I've talked about buying money orders with Visa Gift Cards at Pathmark before.  My local Pathmark has a Western Union area that sells money orders and you can pay with cash or debit cards.  Visa gift cards count as debit cards.  Your pin does not need to be set for One Vanilla or Metabank visa gift cards is the last 4 digits of the card number on the front.

The fee is $0.99 for up to a $1,000 money order and you can use two Visa Gift Cards to pay for one money order (split payment). There is a $1 fee for each debit card.  Total fees are $3.

Refer Friends and Family for Super Cheap Gas at Shell!

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Fuel Rewards Network



I just went to Shell and saved $1.85 per gallon as my receipt shows.  I paid $5.24 for 15 gallon of gas! That's a pretty amazing price.

How did I do it?  I referred family and friends to Fuel Rewards Network.

If you sign up with my link, you will get $0.25 a gallon off your second purchase of gasoline at Shell with the card.  You first purchase must be 8 gallons or more.

When you refer friends, they will get $0.25 a gallon off and you will get $0.25 a gallon too.

The best part is that the $0.25 for the referral posts to your account even if your referral person never goes to Shell!




You can sign up for multiple accounts in your household (or for anyone else who let you).  It seems that multiple people in the same household can have the same name :)   I signed up family members with my link.  I got free gas and they got free gas.  It is a win for everyone.

All you need is a name, phone number, email address and postal address.  Sign up your whole family and your gas can be super cheap too!


You can also have super cheap gas by buying Visa Gift Cards at Stop & Shop tonight!

$30 off $300 at Best Buy with American Express - Targeted

Check out the link here to see if you can register for an offer for $30 off a $300 purchase from Best Buy with your American Express card.

Update: 12/11/14 -  I went to Best Buy and found Visa Gift Cards and the manager told me that he hasn't seen them in a while and he thought they stopped selling them.  He tried to ring me up and the cards would not scan into the system even though they say Best Buy Visa Gift Card.  Then I looked for Amazon Gift Cards and it seemed that they stopped selling those as well!  I guess you have to actually buy merchandise, oh well.

What you can buy from Best Buy:

- Electronics

- Amazon Gift Cards - Usually in the form of Kindle Gift Cards, which can be used for anything on Amazon

- Visa Gift Cards - $200 variable load cards.  Try to buy 3 and split the payment among two American Express cards.

$300 can be reached on multiple purchases as long as it is before 12/31/2014.  I have successfully registered the first two cards I have tried.

For every $250 you spend at Best Buy you will also get a $5 Best Buy gift card if you are a Best Buy Reward Zone member, which is free to join.  The $5 gift certificates can be used to buy Amazon gift cards.

Staples - $100 Visa Gift Cards Back in Stock

$100 Visa Gift Cards back in stock in staples.

Check out this post on how you can save $20 off these cards from American Express

Thanks SW for the tip!

$20 off $100 purchase at Staples with American Express

Check your American Express "Offers for You" for a $20 cashback offer for a purchase at Staples.  I have it on 8/9 accounts so far and I've just started checking.

You can use the offer in store or online to buy Visa Gift Cards including a $100 Visa gift card for $86.95 or 13% off (14% assuming you get at least 1% cashback from your credit card). They are currently out of stock, but save the offer anyways because it doesn't expire until 12/31/2014 and hopefully they get back in stock before then.

If you have the offer on multiple cards in the same online log in, before you add it to any one card, open a new window in your browser for each card.  Activate them all at the same time.  Otherwise the offer will disappear from the rest of your cards.

Discover Credit Card 5% Possibilities

Update 11/23/2014 - Gift cards will likely not qualify for 5% cashback.


From now until the end of the year, Discover it is offering 5% cashback for Online Shopping and Department Stores, on up to $1,500 of purchases which is $75 cashback.  You must activate the 5% cashback before your purchases to qualify for the 5%.

In addition to your regular spending online, here are some possibilities of how to maximize your 5%. As usual, we are also on the look out for ways to Manufacture Spending.  Let's try to get $75, or at least some of it, without actually spending money.




Here are a couple of suggestions:

1) In Store Google Wallet NFC Payments

• Google Wallet is one of many companies that allow you to pay for purchases with your smartphone.  Doctor of Credit reports that in store purchases using Google Wallet might be coded as online purchases. 
• Many pharmacies, including CVS, allow for NFC payments and sell Visa Gift cards and Paypal Reload cards.

2) American Express Gift Cards - Update 11/6/2014 - I've seen reports of Discover considering Amex Gift Cards as Cash Advances, I would stay away.

• I haven't actually tried this, but it makes sense that it will work.  They don't sell $1,500 gift cards so you can buy 1 $1,000 gift card and another $500 gift card.  Purchase and shipping fees come out to $16.85 for the $1,500 of gift cards.

• Start you purchase from Top Cashback and you will get 1.5% cashback as well for $18.75 cashback, which more than covers your fees.
• You can either use this as a possibility to get 5.13% cashback wherever AMEX is accepted or you can cash out via Google Wallet for a $43.50 fee for a net $33.35 gain.

3) Online Simon Mall Visa Gift Cards

• I haven't tried this either, but once again there is no reason it shouldn't work.  You can buy $500 Visa gift cards for a $2.95 fee.  $1,500 of gift cards will cost $1,519.12 total with shipping
• Advantage of Visa Gift Cards is that they can be used as Debit Cards in some places to buy Money Orders for cheap, load onto Serve/Bluebird at Walmart or pay bills with Evolve.
• You are basically getting 4% cashback with slightly less work than with AMEX gift cards.

Oren's Money Saver Beginner's Guide Part 4 - Manufacured Spend

Check out the other posts in the Beginner's Guide Series

Part 1 - Introduction
Part 2 - Maximize Savings Through Credit Cards
Part 3 - Savings Without Using Credit Cards

Manufactured Spend

What is Manufactured Spend?  Manufactured Spend is a way to create credit card spending (and the points that come with them) while keeping your fees to as close to zero as possible.  Usually, this involves buying American Express/Visa/Mastercard Gift cards, but not always.

Some of these techniques are lucrative and don't require much time commitment. Others require more time or aren't as lucrative.

In general, manufactured spend is most lucrative for sign up bonuses where you need to spend a certain amount of money to get a very large bonus. It is less lucrative on your credit card's category bonuses, but it can still be worth it.  Most of my personal Manufactured Spend is on the credit card category bonus type.  It can really add up over the course of the year

Ongoing vs. Limited Time Offers

There are two types of manufactured spend; ongoing offers and limited time offers. 

Limited Time Offers

Sometimes, a store will run a promotion that works very nicely for manufactured spend.  For example, in 2013 Office Max ran a promotion that gave you $15 off $150 of American Express gift cards.  The promotion negated the fees and in fact you made money before any credit card bonuses.  These types of promotions can be very lucrative, but they are by nature limited time offers so you can't count on any specific deals.

Ongoing Offers

Ongoing offers are where it's at and where you want to be.  The problem with ongoing offers is that sometimes they turn into limited time offers, like Amazon Payments A"H.

Here are a couple of ongoing offers.   

• Serve
• $1,000-$1,500 a month of no fee credit card spending, depending whether you have the app formally known as ISIS.  Withdrawals are simple as well.  See this post for more details. 
• No specific credit card required, but don't use a card that is processed by American Express, unless you don't want the credit card points.  You will receive rewards with your Fidelity American Express since it is processed by FIA Card Services, not American Express.  Confused?  Me too.  

• Visa Gift Cards at Grocery Stores
• Some grocery stores sell Variable load Visa/MC/AMEX gift cards that can be loaded with up to $500 for a $6 fee.   American Express Blue Preferred gets 6% cashback at grocery stores so you will get $24 cashback after fees for every $500 you buy (4.8%).
• $75 annual fee is well worth it, but cuts into your profits.

• The Power Trio
• Combination of 5% cashback at pharmacies, Paypal Business Debit and Serve.  'Nough Said.

• $200 Visa Gift Cards at Staples
• These come with a hefty $7 fee (3.5%) so why on earth would you buy these?  The Chase Ink series of business credit cards gives you 5% cashback at Office Supply stores so you will get 1,035 Ultimate Rewards points.
• If the card is a Visa Card, you will get an extra 1% cashback for signing up with visasavingsedge.com  Those points can be transferred to lucrative airline and hotel partners if you have a Chase card that earns Ultimate Rewards points with an annual fee. You need to travel a lot to make this worthwhile.  I don't personally go this route because even I think it is too annoying.  Check out this post from Dan's Deals for more details.

• 5% categories with Specific Credit Cards
• Chase Freedom
• 5% rotating categories included Gas for 6 months of the year.  7-11 is usually considered a gas station and you can buy Visa Gift Cards and Paypal reload cards there.
• Discover it
• Same thing as Chase Freedom for 3 months of the year and also have online purchases for 3 months of year.  Visa gift cards can be bought online for 5% back.
• Citi Dividend
• 5% rotating categories included pharmacies this past year when you could still buy Vanilla Reloads at Pharmacies.  We will see for next year.

• American Express Gift Cards
• For the moment these are on hold, but it used to be possible to buy up to $5,000 worth of American Express Gift Cards and receive 4.66% cashback.  Hopefully this deal will come back, but we'll see.

Our last discussion in this series will revolve around liquidating all of the gift cards you just bought after this post.

Oren's Money Saver Beginner's Guide Part 2 - Using Credit Cards for Maximum Savings

Check out the other posts in the Beginner's Guide Series

Part 1 - Introduction
Part 3 - Savings Without Credit Cards
Part 4 - Manufactured Spend

Using Credit Cards for Maximum Savings

I have a George Costanza wallet.  

I am currently carrying 16 cards.  I have credit cards, debit cards and gift cards and I actively use each one of them.  The number will vary, but I always have plenty with me to save extra money over the course of the year.  It's probably somewhere between $3,000-$5,000 a year, but I don't know exact numbers.  To me, that's pretty significant. For others, it may not be as important.  

To be fair, much of that is from Manufactured Spend, as I will outline in a later post, but a lot is also just from using the right credit card in the right situation.

I am well aware that it isn't normal to carry so many cards.  I also don't give my wife quite as many cards, though she has plenty and is a good sport about it.  I think most people would get a headache from it but, check this out, I really enjoy it.  

If you don't want to carry so many cards, don't, but just because you don't want to carry 16 doesn't mean that you don't want to carry 2 or 3.  You never know, you may start adding cards as you learn more.  I know, wishful thinking.

Which Cards Do I Actually Use?

First of all, check out the list of My Favorite Credit Cards.

This is my list with a short blurb on why I have it, but it doesn't include any cards that I happen to have in my wallet because I need to spend money for a signup bonus.

1. American Express Gift Cards
1. Over 4% cashback everywhere.
2. Visa Gift Cards
1. Over 5% cashback everywhere.  Not for normal spend if I can avoid it because I don't have an unlimited supply and Visa gift cards are more valuable than AMEX gift cards for manufactured spend.  More, in later posts.
3. American Express Fidelity
1. 2% cashback everywhere
4. American Express Blue Preferred
1. 6% cashback on groceries, $6,000 max spending per year.  $75 annual fee.
5. Bank of America Cash Rewards
1. Soon to be 5.25% cashback on gas for highrollers with Bank of America (100k)
6. American Express Blue Cash (AKA Old AMEX Blue)
1. 5% cashback at pharmacies, grocery stores and gas after $6,500 spending per year in those categories.  Very useful for manufactured spend.  Part of my Power Trio.
7. Chase Freedom
1. 5% cashback in useful rotating categories.  Very useful for manufactured spend.
8. Discover it
1. 5% cashback in useful rotating categories.  Very useful for manufactured spend.
9. Citibank Dividend
1. 5% cashback in useful rotating category (hint: pharmacies).  Very useful for manufactured spend.
10. Bank of America Better Balance Rewards
1. $25-$30 per quarter for making one purchase per month.
11. Chase Ink Business Cards
1. 5% cashback at office supply stores.
12. PenFed American Express Airlines
1. 4.25% cashback on airline purchases
13. Paypal Business Debit
1. Debit card that can be reloaded from purchases at Drug Stores.  Very useful for manufactured spend.  Part of my Power Trio
14. Charles Schwab Debit Card
1. Refunded ATM fees anywhere in the world without limits.  You can go to ATM without thinking about it.

Notice that I have no Airline Credit Cards, no cards that are exclusively points/miles since I personally prefer cashback over miles.  Also, none of these cards have an annual fee except the Blue Preferred, which is clearly worth it in my opinion.

Am I missing anything?  Please comment with your thoughts.

Activating Visa Gift Cards without Activation Code

Recently, I bought a $200 Visa gift card from Staples and I either threw out the activation code or I lost it and I didn't have my order number either.

I thought I had just lost out on $200.  Manufactured spending has really low margins so if you lose $200 it can take some time before you make that back.


Luckily, I saw that Travel with Grant gave some advice on how to active your gift card before the activation card comes.  I assumed it should work just as well for me.  I called Gift Card Mall and was able to activate the card by talking to a rep who only asked my name and address and the gift card number.  2 hours later my card was active.  Boom!  Thank you Travel with Grant

Pathmark - 1 Money Order with 2 Visa Gift Cards!

I went to Pathmark the other night armed with 2 $500 Visa Gift Cards.  I had already confirmed that I could buy a money order with a Debit Card (Read = Visa Gift Card) at Pathmark.  The fee is $0.99 for up to a $1,000 Money Order, but I wondered whether you can combine 2 cards in one purchase in order to pay the fee one time.


I walked over to the Western Union area (the same place you return items to) and asked for a Money Order for $999.  I did not mention that I would be paying with two cards.  I swiped the first card and was approved for $500 from the first card automatically.  The POS machine asked for a new form of payment so I swiped the second card and was approved again.  Success!



Next, the cashier asked for the card and my ID to check to make sure they are the same.  Well, the card doesn't have a name on it.  I showed her the card and said there is no name, but I pointed to the "Debit" sign on the card.  She had already charged the card so she said, "ok, I guess."


Moral of the story:  Don't mention anything unless they ask beforehand to see the card.  Just start paying.  Just like every other deal, every store manager can have their own rules.  If they say ask for an ID, say "Ok, thank you," leave and come back when another manager is working.   The same thing if they say Cash only (my brother reported this).



Technically, I could have bought a card for $999.01 since the fee is $0.99, but I thought that would sound awfully strange and my goal is always to stay under the radar.

Coming Soon

Even better would be if we can figure out a way to get a Debit Card with you name on it that can be reloaded with a credit card.

Hmm, working on that now.  We'll see where that goes.  Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks as I experiment.

No More Shop Discover Money for Visa Gift Cards at Staples?

I got an email from a friend who said:

Cashback from discover was for .08, (added garbage item)  so it seems "gift certificates" is for real this time. 

It was great while it lasted, but I guess discover is not interested in footing the bill.

Basically, he bought a Visa Gift Card through Shop Discover and only got 5% cashback for the non gift card item.

I thought this might come, as it was earlier reported from Frequent Miler.

It was nice while it lasted.  As always, it's a game of Whack-A-Mole.  An opportunity comes up, we utilize it and then it gets shut down.  Something else lucrative will come up, I'm sure of it, just not sure when.  Meanwhile you can always buy American Express Gift Cards for 4.8% cashback everywhere with Fidelity American Express or even up to 6.4% cashback everywhere with Barclays Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard!


Thank you AR for the tip!  Anyone else have a similar experience?

$5 Free From Evolve Money

Evolve Money is a company that can process bill-payments for thousands of companies electronically.  If you don't need the bill paid same day, it is almost always a completely free service.  In addition, they allow you to pay with Debit cards for free (not credit cards).


Visa gift cards are considered Debit cards so you can use Evolve to empty your Visa gift cards to pay bills that don't normally take credit cards.  Read more about Evolve here.


Now you can use promo code Save5April to save $5 off any bill.  Pay any bills with evolve and they will charge you $5 less than the bill with this promo code.  Promo code works one time per account.

Use Discover Rewards for Staples Gift Cards and save off Visa Gift Cards!

Discover it® is one of my favorite credit cards.  I don't actually use the card for very much spending, but having the card gives you access to Shop Discover, the Discover Shopping Portal, which sometimes has the best cashback options.

When you redeem Discover cashback you can get better value if you redeem for partner gift cards.  In the past, I have always redeemed for Bed Bath and Beyond gift cards.  $20 in Discover rewards could buy a $25 gift card.

The "problem" is that lately I have been earning Discover money at a far greater pace (see Best Buy and Staples for the details) and I can't possibly use that much Bed Bath and Beyond money.  I felt bad about it, but I started redeeming the money for straight cash.


Recently, Frequent Miler reminded me that Discover money can be redeemed at the same rate for Staples gift cards.  $20 for a $25 gift card.


My brain started churning.  I'm already using Staples Gift Cards to buy Visa Gift Cards.  Now I can recycle the rewards I'm earning to buy Staples gift cards for 20% off using Discover and buy new Visa Gift Card for 20% off!  I have found my new Discover money redemption partner!

With the link above, you will also get a $150 sign up bonus for spending $750 in the first 3 months.

$100 Staples Gift Card for $85 - Today Only

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Fat Wallet

Update: Dead!



Gift Card Mall is selling a $100 Staples Gift Card for $85 via their Ebay Store.  The sale is limited to today.  Limit 2 per buyer.

Start your eBay shopping at Fat Wallet and you will get an additional 1% cashback


Staples gift cards can be used to buy Visa Gift Cards online ($7 fee so you will "only" get 8% off).  In addition, if you go through Shop Discover (requires a Discover Credit Card) you will get an additional 5% off the purchase of the Visa Gift Card for a total of 13% off the Visa Gift Card.

I recommend buying Visa Gift Cards with Staples Gift Cards in $300 purchases or less at a time. Otherwise, they will likely call you to cancel the order.

Final Math

Costs: 
$170 for the gift cards + $14 fee for Visa Gift Cards =  $184

You Get:
Buy the Staples Gift cards with American Express Fidelity = $3.40 in cash back.
Fat Wallet will give you $1.70 for starting shopping there.
Use a Chase Ink business card for the extra $14 in fees and you will get 70 Ultimate Rewards points which are worth a minimum of $0.70 and worth more if you transfer to Airline and Hotel partners.
Start at Shop Discover and you will get $10.2 in Discover money.

So you will have $200 in Visa Gift cards, $16.10 in cashback while paying $184 so you will save over $30 or 15% on the purchase of the Visa Gift Cards!  Not too shabby!

Using the Final Balance of your Visa Gift Cards

Manufactured Spending with Vanilla Reloads

The point of Manufactured Spending is to artificially create spending on your credit card for little to no fees and still get points or cashback.  A perfect example is using your Citi Dividend at CVS for the first quarter of the year.  The dividend card is offering 5% cashback on up to $6,000 in purchases at drugstores until the end of March.  You can buy Vanilla Reload cards that get 5% cashback with only 1% in fees.  After fees, I am able to get about $252 without actually spending any money.

Manufactured Spending with Visa Gift Cards

One of the usual methods of Manufactured Spending when Vanilla Reloads aren't available is to use Visa Gift Cards.  It is quite simple to extract the money from a Vanilla Reload card back into your bank account online without any extra fees.

Visa Gift Cards, however, while they are getting easier to liquidate with methods that treat them as true Debit Cards (see Evolve, for example), are still more difficult to unload without fees.  You can always bring them to Walmart to load to Bluebird for free, but that is time consuming and can be a pain especially if Walmart isn't close to you.  You also have to deal with the People of Walmart.


One method to unload them is to spend them, Heaven forbid.  The obvious drawback is that you aren't using your other credit cards so you aren't generating any new points.  That being said, this method keeps things simple and some people aren't quite ready for that level of complexity yet (Your day will come, JF, we just aren't there yet).

Spending the Final Balance

The problem is what do you do with that final $1.37 when you keep getting rejected for insufficient balance?  Such a pain.  You can try to ask the store to split up the transaction, but sometimes it's hard to remember which card has $1.37 and which one has $0.52 on it.


Here's what I do: After I am rejected, the Visa Gift Card goes into a pile of cards that don't have much money on them.  I keep a few of them in my wallet at all times.

There are stores that will automatically remove the balance from that card and you don't have to know your exact balance.  If my purchase is $4.50 and my balance is $1.25, I swipe and the price goes down to $3.25 automatically.  This is not an exhaustive list.  I just know that these three work.

Dunkin' Donuts
Walgreens
7-11
Starbucks
Ralph's


Walgreen's is perfect for me because I can spend $4 on prescriptions every month and spend down my gift cards.

Do you know of others that work too?  Leave a comment and help everyone out!