In my recent post “Better than free manufactured spend” I showed that it is possible to make a slight profit when buying Visa gift cards at GiftCardMall.com by first going through the cash back portal, TopCashBack. I suggested, too, that you could earn even more money by first buying American Express gift cards to get cash back and then using those American Express gift cards to buy Visa gift cards. Here’s how…
1. Go through a cash back portal to buy American Express gift cards.
TopCashBack and BigCrumbs currently offer the best cash back rates (1.5% and 1.4%, respectively). Via either portal, search for “American Express Gift Cards” and click through to the Amex gift card store. When going through a cash back portal, American Express has recently added a top limit of $500 per card that can be purchased, but you can get around this limit by buying a personalized card (for details, see “Amex takes away $3K cash back gift cards“).
2. Register your American Express cards
Once you receive your American Express card(s), call 1-877-297-4438 to register each card with your full name and address. You will need to talk to a person to do so (press 0, I believe).
3. Go through TopCashBack to GiftCardMall to buy Visa gift cards
You can buy Visa gift cards with values of up to $1000. You will be charged $3.95 for each card, plus shipping charges. Since you can’t easily split the payment across multiple credit cards, I’d recommend picking a value less than $1000 to cover fees and shipping.
For example, let’s say you have a $1000 American Express gift card. You can’t easily use it to buy a $1000 Visa card because the total charge will be $1003.95 plus shipping. If you choose the cheapest shipping option, the total will come to $1006.94. You won’t be able to use your $1000 Amex gift card for that purchase. To make things work, you can instead buy a $993 Visa gift card so that the total will come to $999.94. Trackable shipping is $2 more, so you could order a $991 Visa gift card to stay on the safe side.
Shipping charges go down slightly as you add more cards to your order so it may be necessary to test different combinations to find the optimal Visa card value for your needs.
When you check-out to pay, make sure to use the exact same name and address that you registered to your American Express gift card in step 2.
Also, do not try to place this order from a foreign country or when browsing via a VPN service. I recently had my order stopped when going through a VPN. I called GiftCardMall and found out (after they investigated) that the order was blocked due to a foreign IP address (even though I had chosen a Washington DC gateway).
Alternate Plan
Instead of buying sub $1000 Visa gift cards, another option is to buy GiftCardMall Choice Cards to cover fees and shipping. For example, buy a $10 Choice card and then use it along with a $1000 Amex card to pay for a $1000 Visa card. This approach takes planning, though. I tested it successfully, but it took two days for my Choice e-gift card to arrive.
Cash Back Portal Tips
Things can go wrong when going through online shopping portals. The main risk is that your click-through may not be tracked properly. To increase your chances of success, please see “How to ensure your portal points“. Also note that if you place more than one order (e.g. you check out and pay more than once), then you should go through the portal each time first.
Related Posts and Links
- Sign up for TopCashBack and/or BigCrumbs: Sign-Up Links
- Read more:
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does anyone know if this still works?
I don’t know. I’d bet against it, but I’m not sure.
If the $3000 AMEX gift card actually pays (topcashback says anything higher than $500 is not eligible for cash back) than you would make more money by just going to the store and getting the Visa Gift Cards. GCM charges $18.64 for shipping 6 cards ($3000 worth) on top of the $3.95 per card activation fee. You wouldn’t have to pay the shipping if you just go to your local gift card outlet and buy them with the AMEX.
Not sure if you check this, FM, but does this process still work? I did another round of AMEX through TCB recently but when I enter my info in at GCM it gives me an error every time – ‘Unable to complete transaction at this time…’ I called into AMEX to register the cards and they said they don’t need to be?
Thanks. I just sent a message today but I will send an email after the holiday if still nothing. For what it’s worth, I (stupidly) just bought another $3k of AMEX cards through Topcashback yesterday and the TX still has not posted, so I think I’m in for the same runaround again. I won’t be using them again.
KL: try emailing: contact@topcashback.com
MaryAnn: It works for me. Maybe they were doing system maintenance at the time
Can anyone help me? I bought $3k of AMEX cards through the Topcashback promo on 4/22 and the transaction has STILL not appeared in my Topcashback account, one month later. I have lodged a missing cashback inquiry but have heard *nothing* from Topcashback. The status of my inquiry still says “waiting on Topcashback.” They owe me over $70 and it looks like they’re not doing anything. What do I do in this situation?
I know this is a little off-topic, but I suddenly can’t log in to Topcashback.com. Is anyone else having an issue with their account?
Ian: That’s true. GiftCardMall pulled out of all of the cash back sites yesterday. Hopefully they’ll come back sometime soon!
It seems like the TopCashBack Giftcardmall 1% back for Visa GCs is over. I didn’t see the link on the site, instead there is a generic message about deals and coupons. If this is the case the deal is no longer viable as the shipping and purchase fees will be more than the value in miles or points for most people.
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dealseaker: it may take about a week or so.
luchex: That’s a great question. I wish I knew!
I Have 4 CC in chase and I already spent 2k in Gift card mall on my sapphire. Since this deals using TCB are either a moneymaker or at the worst you do not loose money, It’s not necessary to use it just to complete min spending. I can be using My Sapphire, My UA card, ny SW card and keep accumulating miles. How much money can I spend in GCM before Chase start giving me some sort of Hard Time?
I made a $3K purchase on giftcardmall.com on Monday with the cheapest shipping. How long dies it take to get this order?
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