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Update 12/26/19: We just received word from our contact at Simon corporate that these $1,000 Visa Gift Cards have been extended indefinitely. This is awesome news; it will continue to be very easy to quickly generate a large amount of spend at low cost via Simon Mall.
Update 10/22/19: Simon corporate has reached out again to advise that this deal has been extended until at least December 31, 2019.
Update 8/21/19: As per communication from Simon corporate, this deal has now been extended once again and Simon Malls will sell $1,000 Visa Gift Cards with a $3.95 activation fee per gift card 10/31/19. As a reminder, this deal is open to all folks interested who come to the office and request the cards. New customers are welcome to buy, but see my post about Mistakes to avoid on $1K Simon Visa Gift Cards if you’re new to the field. I encourage those new to go slow and test what works before getting in over your head. Still, this is awesome news overall.
Update: We’ve just received word from Simon corporate that this promotion is being extended until the end of August! That’s awesome for those looking for more volume. Keep in mind that the $1,000 Visa Gift Cards are available for anyone who asks, even those new to purchasing Visa Gift Cards at the mall — you just need to go to the office / customer service desk at your mall and request these cards as they are not out on the racks. Nice to see this continue!
Simon Malls has confirmed earlier reported rumors that they will be selling $1,000 Visa Gift Cards with a $3.95 activation fee per card from July 17 – August 4, 2019 August 31, 2019 (update: this has been extended indefinitely) . That’s awesome news for those looking to rack up spend at very low cost. With the activation fee representing just under 0.4% of the face value of the cards, it will not at all be hard to find a credit card on which such a purchase would be a net win after accounting for liquidation costs. This is great news.
The Deal
- From July 17, 2019, Simon Malls now offers $1,000 Visa Gift Cards with an activation fee of just $3.95 per card
Key Details
- Not available online (in-mall only)
- Will not be available prior to July 17th, 2019 (no, your mall won’t sell them to you early)
- Daily limits are presumably the same ($10K / day until you’ve established a big buying pattern, at which point regular buyers can buy as much as $25K in a day)
- Call your mall in advance to let them know when you’re coming so they can be prepared and help you breeze through
Quick Thoughts
This is great news. While the numbers here might not beat a fee-free promotion at an office supply store, the convenience of $1K cards is worth the $3.95 fee for many people. That should simplify liquidation for those who live in an area where liquidation is possible. Even for those who don’t, a deal like this might make it worth stocking up and getting in the car for a road trip weekend to find a place to liquidate.
As noted at the top, the activation fee here represents such a small percentage of the face value of the cards that it certainly shouldn’t be difficult to earn rewards that outweigh your cost. Keep in mind that Amex has not been awarding any points on Simon Mall spend, so you will not want to use an Amex card for these purchases. Also be mindful of ramping up spend slowly on cards with other banks — going from zero spend on a card to a $10K purchase is one way to increase the odds of a shut-down.
I recently took a weekend road trip and unexpectedly passed by a Simon Mall I’d never been to before. The cashier in the mall office couldn’t have been friendlier or happier to sell me gift cards and even reminded me before I left that if I call ahead next time they will have the order set up so the process could be faster. I’ll definitely be back when it is convenient.
Keep in mind the money order limits that may exist at your preferred liquidation outlets if you’re ramping up spend and always have a backup plan in case one door closes.
Also see our list of best big spend bonuses and best rewards for everyday spend for ideas as to what cards may be worth using for various bonuses (again, keeping in mind that Amex cards are out).
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[…] the value proposition of this MS method, thus all of the excitement over Simon Mall offering a $1,000 gift card with only a $3.95 activation fee or when you see an offer of a no-activation-fee gift […]
[…] the value proposition of this MS method, thus all of the excitement over Simon Malls offering a $1,000 gift card with only a $3.95 activation fee or when you see an offer of a no-activation-fee gift […]
Bought and liquidated my first $1k simon mall card today. It was pretty easy, but two notes/questions:
1) When I bought the card, the simon mall rep. said the card was already activated and there wasn’t a pin. I didn’t think much of it until I was liquidating it at a WM 15 minutes later and it asked for a pin number. I put in “1111” and was declined. Then I wised up slightly and tried the last 4 digits of the card and was approved. Is this standard when you aren’t given a pin?
2) For smaller denomination gift cards (thinking like the $50 publix deal or $200 no fee staples offer), is it totally fine to just make a small purchase and then get the maximum cash back (often $100)? I’m just thinking of worst case scenarios in case I ever have problems getting a MO.
1) PIN is the last 4 digits on the vast majority of a Visa Gift cards (and yes, it always is on these cards).
2) Can’t do cash back. It won’t work. If it did, that’s what people would be doing.
Ah. Thanks for answering my newbie questions!
[…] up on the offer, mainly due to the potential hassle this might introduce. Meeting the $2,000 spend shouldn’t be difficult, but my wife is currently under 5/24 (I know, shameful yet awesome). If authorized user cards push […]
I’m very new to manufactured spending and somehow ended up here, so I apologize if this question is redundant, but would buying four of these (4 x $1,000) meet the minimum spend ($4,000) for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card?
The short answer: yes.
The longer answer: If you’ve never bought this kind of thing before, I may not recommend taking your brand new Sapphire Preferred to the mall and buying $4K in gift cards as your first purchase. I’d recommend perhaps buying one or two ($1,000 or $2,000) for your first purchase and make sure that you have ways to liquidate them in your area. In some areas, it is relatively easy to do, in other areas liquidation can be quite difficult. Give it a couple of weeks and some normal daily purchases on the card before you go back and buy a couple thousand more. As I said in the post, you don’t want to go from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds. You can certainly build that up over time and buy more, but it’s not a sprint to the finish line.
What’s the over/under on when the other issuers decide to squash this AMEX-style?
We don’t have a Simon Mall nearby. Can they be purchased online?
Also, is Capital One Spark Biz a useable card for this MS…I’ve got a big Min Spend to meet!
No. In person only.
But, I can buy the $500 card online that I could use for ms, just like the 1k one, correct? Just paying a little more?
False.
You can buy $1k cards. You just have to get a Simon volume account first & make 5 orders before being upgraded to the $1k cards
Not 1k but you can buy $500 cards online.
Yes, you can buy $1k cards. You just have to get a Simon volume account first & make 5 orders before being upgraded to the $1k cards
How do you get a Simon Volume Account?
Have a business, apply online, provide any info they request about your business. I was approved in less than 24 hours.
How do you do as sole prop
Any idea what the processing fees to the merchant is if processed as debit? Wondering if I can profitably self liquidate through my business.
That is not a good idea.
Why would anyone buy gift cards? This whole thread is ridiculous
To earn points.
Why spend on gift cards when you can buy what you need wi5 your credit card and earn the same points plus bonus categories. Just sounds ridiculous.
See my response to Anthony above. You are correct that this wouldn’t make any sense at all if the goal was just to buy what you need at the grocery store or pharmacy or whatever. The idea here is that you could spend much more than you would on “stuff” and (depending on the liquidation methods available to you) get most of that money back, thereby generating rewards at a very cheap cost. Some folks use opportunities like this to meet minimum spending requirements, others to earn large quantities of points very cheaply. Nobody buying $10K or $25K in Visa Gift cards in one shot is doing that in order to use them to buy cheerios and milk, because as you said that would be ridiculous.
@Ryan
May be you should learn more before making the ignorant comments?
As Nick said, most people would spend $3K to $5K in 90 days to buy what you do not currently need, just to be able to meet the minimum spend requirement to earn a sign up bonus on a new card.
That is just the starter.
I have a Simon Mall about 1 hour from me. What does it code as on various cards? Is it only good for meeting minimum spend or are there category bonuses? TIA.
Doesn’t code as anything special — no category bonuses.
That said, let’s say you were using the Chase Freedom Unlimited. Every $10K in cards costs you $39.50 in activation fees for 15,000+ Ultimate Rewards points. Add your liquidation cost, and that’s not a bad cost per point. If you have a CSR, those points get you $225 in travel through the Chase portal. If you’re able to do more volume, award tickets can have a pretty attractive cost. The Double Cash or Venture cards earn 2x everywhere. Even earning 1 Alaska mile per dollar means that the 50K necessary for business class to Asia would cost you about $200 in activation fees + liquidation costs. Depending on your use for the points, many different cards could make sense, not to mention cash back cards. Note that Amex awards 0 points for Simon purchases, so don’t use an Amex.
Caveats include that you don’t want to ramp up spend too quickly with any one issuer (shut down risk), you need to make sure you have multiple liquidation methods (you never know when one might die), bank account shut down risks, and you have to consider how much time cost there is between going to Simon, multiple liquidation stops, etc. It’s not all rainbows and sunshine, but it can be a great deal if you start slow and do some research. Here’s another post you should read:
https://frequentmiler.com/mistakes-to-avoid-on-1k-simon-visa-gift-cards/
Nick, I understand that the purchase does not code as one of the common bonus categories. Yet it still codes as something. Do you know how does the transaction code on Visa and MC?
It codes as a General MISC Retail purchase. I have a BBVA Clearpoints which gets 3% Cashback on Retail Purchases and this qualifies.
Thanks. Most informative post on this thread. The minimum I get on any spend is 2.625 and using a variety of cards I get 5 percent on well over 50 percent of my spend so this would not work for anything for me. I
was a MSer from years ago when MS was real. (Think Old Blue and vanilla reloads, red bird, blue bird etc etc) Now it’s basically means running around from mall to mall to make yourself feel like your getting a deal.
MS is basically dead. Sign up bonuses are okay to get 200 to 500 once in a while but the real deal is gone.
We just updated the post: Simon sent word that these are being extended indefinitely.
Excellent, thanks.
Great. Can you please ask them to introduce $10K cards? 🙂 This is a great method to pay my quarterly taxes but the two card limit limits the velocity.
Haha. How quickly we become greedy :-D.
Any word on whether this is to be extended into 2020? Thanks.
Same question here
I haven’t heard. I did reach out to our contact several days ago and I haven’t heard back — whether that’s because it is a holiday week or because they are waiting to make an announcement is anyone’s guess. At least I didn’t get an immediate response confirming that they plan to end it on 12/31 — I’ll take some encouragement there, but I have no further information yet.
so in the end what CC would you recommend using to by Simon CC
No Amex cards since Amex doesn’t pay out points on Simon GC purchases.
Since this won’t trigger a category bonus, you’re looking for the card with the best everyday rewards or one on which you’re working on a big spend bonus or new account bonus.
Some cards you should consider would be the best cards for everyday spend:
https://frequentmiler.com/best-everywhere-else-rewards-cards/
Simon could also be an easy way to hit the non-Amex big spend bonuses:
https://frequentmiler.com/best-big-spend-bonuses/
do you know if you can use the Capital One Sparks card to buy the Simon Mall gc
Yes, I’ve used the Cap 1 Spark Cash multiple times and have earned rewards
Did you use it at Simon to get the signup bonus at all?
I met the majority of my min spend through a combination of Simon and GCM
Appreciate the DP. I’m just nervous about doing minimum spend on Spark at Simon or GCM. I guess CapOne is not as strict about it as Amex. Thanks!
I did the entire $10K on a Spark Cash (for a targeted $1K bonus) on Simon GCs last year. YMMV of course — no guarantee that they won’t shut you down and some people indeed have been shut down, but I’ve been pretty lucky with it. Done plenty on Venture and Spark Cash this year.
Thanks. Wish you further luck. I have been shut down, because of Venture. At least I got the initial $500 bonus on Spark before they shut down all of the accounts.
How much were you putting on it?
YesssH!
[…] [EXTENDED to 10/31!] $1K Visa Gift Cards w/ $3.95 fee at Simon next week (Expires 10/31/19) […]