Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
I’ve written many posts showing how to earn points or cash back when buying bank gift cards (e.g. Visa, Mastercard, or Amex gift cards). For some examples, see (“5X everywhere!,” “Turn your Amex into Visa and Save $,” and “Almost too good to be true”). Buying gift cards can be a great way to earn extra points and to meet minimum spend requirements. The problem is that even though these gift cards are like money, they cannot be deposited into your bank account, and cannot be used to pay your credit card bill.
Below I’ve listed some ideas for how to turn gift cards into cash. Before using any gift cards online, be sure to register them with your home address. Some gift cards only allow registration of your zip code. In those cases, you’ll find that not all online options work. With one such card, I was successful in using it to pay my State Farm insurance online, but I was unsuccessful in using it at Amazon.com or Walmart.com.
Spending
The best way to deal with bank gift cards is to spend them in daily use. That way, you get 100% of their value. Of course, using gift cards this way can be a big headache, but it is a reasonable option. One good way to spend them is by paying your insurance bill. I’ve done this successfully multiple times with State Farm. Some people have also reported success in using $500 debit gift cards to pay taxes.
Amazon Payments
Amazon Payments is a service that allows you to send payments to friends and family members using credit cards. You’re allowed to pay friends up to $1000 per month. As long as you have a gift card that lets you register your full name and address, Amazon Payments should work. Caution: do not send money back and forth between two people with this service. Amazon Payments will shut you down if they see that pattern.
PayDivvy
This service is just like Amazon Payments but without the $1000 limit and without the “free” feature. It costs 3.5% to send money using a credit card with this service, so factor that in if you’re thinking of doing this. To try this out, I sent $193.24 to my wife. With the 3.5% fee, the charge came to exactly $200. This was just the right amount to liquidate a $200 Visa I had bought at OfficeMax.
Square
Square is a little device that attaches to your smart phone and allows you to swipe credit cards for payments. Over night, the money paid by credit card is deposited into your linked bank account, less a 2.75% transaction fee. In general this would be a great way to turn gift cards into cash, except for one little hitch: Square terms and conditions prohibit using their service for cash advances. They will notice (and freeze your account) if you run too many gift cards, especially if the gift cards are registered to yourself! I listed Square here for completeness, but I do not recommend using it for the purpose of cashing out gift cards.
Buying and Selling Stuff
Finding ways to profit from buying and selling can be a real struggle, especially since services like EBay and Amazon Marketplace take a pretty big percentage of each sale. However, if you do figure out a way to do this profitably (or at least with minimal loss), it can be a good way to turn gift cards into cash. One example of how I’ve done this successfully is when I found items on clearance at Kohl’s that cost less than the going rate on Amazon.com. I used every trick in the book to save a lot more (and earn lots of points), and I bought several hundred dollars worth. I then turned around and shipped the items to Amazon.com to be sold via their Fulfillment by Amazon service. Amazon did take a big chunk of each sale, but I was still able to make a modest profit.
Buying and Selling Merchant Gift Cards
This can be tricky and fraught with danger, but the possibilities are certainly there for turning gift cards into cash by buying and selling merchant gift cards (e.g. Walmart cards, gas cards, etc.). I’m in the process of running some experiments along these lines and I hope to report more soon. In the meantime, take a look at “Gift cards: buy low, sell high, get cash back.” Probably the easiest option for cashing in gift cards (but not the most profitable) is to buy high value merchant gift cards at face value, and then sell them by first going through a cash back portal. By going through TopCashBack to an appropriate gift card reseller and selling gift cards from Target, Walmart, or several gas companies, you can get back as much as 96% of your money. As, I said, it’s not a profitable route, but it’s pretty easy.
Micro Loans
Kiva.org is a micro loaning organization that allows loans to be funded by credit card. You do not get paid interest on your loans, but you do help real people when loaning money. Note that it can take many months to get your money back, but about 99% of all loans do get fully repaid. For more information see “How to maximize points and virtue through Kiva loans”.
Other Ideas?
Please let me know if you have other strategies for cashing in gift cards. I’ll keep this post updated as new ideas come along.
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do you know anything about adding gift cards to Venmo, then depositing in bank?
No, I don’t have any experience with that.
you’re one user was right go to grocery store and buy a money order then take that to a check cashing place and cash it. Dont fill out leave it blankonly cost a couple of dollarsand you will have cash in an instant
Ukash4cash takes almost all e-wallets like Paypal or Skrill and sends you the money by Western Union in 30 minutes…worth a look
How much of a fee do they charge for this?
I believe it is 8% and they guarantee 30 minutes or less not 100% sure
Devon: That doesn’t work because you need a PIN to buy money orders
I knew there was a catch. Struggling to find ways to unload $2k in gift cards bought at Office Stores each month on the Ink. My CVS has stopped taking them for VR’s and I can’t find any other place here in Louisville that sells them that will take a Visa GC for the VR. The Visa GC won’t load to serve for some reason even after adding a zipcode online.
Devon: Target Amex?
Haha I’ve scoured your site & thought that was it,but no Targets anywhere even remotely close to me that sell them. My only thing would be to pick one up in Ohio next time I head that way on a trip. That’s assuming I can load it at any Target AND that they can verify my identity. I could always just use the Visa GC’s for all my spend to get 5x everywhere but I’d prefer to unload that money and do even better.
Devon: You’ll just have to move to a better place 🙂
Has anyone done this, never saw a reply: buy visa gift cards(debit cards) at Office Depot or Staples and try to use them to buy money orders at a gas station, post office, or walmart?
How do you liquidate a gift card through paydivvy when the card does not have your name on it or a billing address? I bought the amex giftcards at 2.25% cash back to do this
Tyler: Have you tried? What happens?
[…] spend: There are some tricks people use to convert gift cards to cash (for example, see “Turn bank gift cards into cash“), but with these techniques, there are often fees involved. The 2.25% rebate can […]
You can use serve from AMEX to cash up on VISA gift cards. It would not work with Master Card. Don’t know if it works with AMEX gift cards. First, register the card and then fund your serve account with it. If you have a blue bird card it would not let you open a serve. Try opening a serve account on a family member with no bluebird account if you had left anyone out. Lol!
@D did anyone ever answer your question? My AMEX prepaid came with an incentive to use the MoneyPak and get the service fee credited back. I’m wondering where I can get away with using a Visa or Mastercard Gift Card…says my options are Walmart, cvs, Kmart, RiteAid, 7/11 and Walgreens…couldn’t find this discussion elsewhere.
Thanks!
Does anyone know if Citi considers the amazon payments route to be a cash advance? I’m looking to meet minimum spending requirement on my citi AA cards.
Thanks!
Moshe: I believe it is fine to use Citi cards with amazon payments as long as you select “good ands services”
I think Paydivvy is WAAAAYYYY too expensive. There must be alternatives. I am currently searching for such. Has anyone tried Neteller.com. Their fees are much lower, but don’t know if they work with prepaids. At 1.75% for Visa and MasterCard, they are 1/2 as much as Paydivvy.
Go to home depot Saturday mornings with a few 40oz beers. You will see many mexicans outside about to buy lots of materials in cash. Offer to pay it for them in return for cash. Then give them beers. Win win
If you buy pre paid cards with the ink bold card, it might be smart to buy in various amounts, instead only $500 + $5.95 fee. Like but it for $482, that way the charges look somewhat random instead of having 10 consecutive charges for $505.95.
Can I transfer the money from my Home Depot shopping card to the ink pre paid visa or MasterCard or and card
A sorta related question – I paid for a $100 Home Depot card at Staples today using my Ink Bold. It is pending on the account as “Staples contract”. At the risk of over thinking, what does that even mean? Can Chase ID this as a gift card purchase from this info? Does it matter if they do? Staples is around the corner from Home Depot and I’m in the midst of a lot of serious remodeling. The obvious answer is for me to buy the card at Staples and then use it at HD, but I’m curious if Chase is picking up and if “Staples contract” means anything pertaining to this purchase.
Congrats Sam, enjoy those travel miles 🙂