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This past weekend I went to D.C. for the Freddie Awards, the Travel Executive Summit, and Frequent Traveler University (FTU). As always, I had an awesome time making new friends and catching up with old ones. Activities and hallway conversations ran non-stop all weekend and I barely had enough time to kill a deal or two let alone write up any new content for this blog.
So, today I’ll simply spit out a number of miscellaneous items…
FTU Presentation past and future
I gave a presentation at FTU titled something like “You can still earn 5X everywhere”. I’m not one to give the same presentation twice so this was very different from the presentations I gave last year at FTU LA, and at the Chicago Seminars. I thought it went well. People laughed at the right moments and seemed engaged throughout. It was fun!
Photo courtesy of Kadence @ Iluvtravelfotos
Mileage Update generously tweeted:
@FrequentMiler Who knew you had a stand up routine as well?? Great speech at the #FTUDC
I’ll run a few posts in the near future to give readers an overview of my talk. For those who’d like to meet up in person, I’ll also be at the Ann Arbor Art Fair DO in July (wait listed), at FTU Tampa in September (maybe speaking there – don’t know yet), and at the next Chicago Seminars (definitely speaking there) in October.
Staples: Save $15 when you buy $150 or more in MasterCard® gift cards after easy rebate
Valid through Saturday, May 4
You have to go into the store for this one. Buy $150 or more of MasterCard gift cards (not Visa gift cards!) and you should qualify for a $15 Easy Rebate. The rebate should print automatically along with your receipt.
Limit 1 rebate per household (no, I don’t know if this limit is easy to circumvent)
It should be possible to set PINs on these gift cards to use at Walmart, but I haven’t tried these yet and some people have reported issues with MasterCard gift cards and PINs, so as always, it may or may not work for you.
Hat Tip: Joshua
Staples: $10 off coupon
Valid through Saturday, May 4
UPDATE: The coupon is no longer working for gift card orders
This one is online only. $10 off any order of $100 or more. Seems to work with some items that you wouldn’t expect (see photo above for an idea of a related product). Limited to one order per household. Use coupon code 43994 at checkout. Start your session from uPromise to possibly get 5% cash back. Pay with a card that gets 5X at office supply stores (see “Best Category Bonuses“).
Here’s an example checkout receipt:
Hat Tip: Grant
Venmo ups limit to $3K
Hat Tip to Travelomania on FlyerTalk. This may be exciting news to those who have a debit card that earns rewards. A friend reminded me that Venmo does not like people to swap payment sources too often so this is not a good option for draining gift cards. I don’t use Venmo, nor do I have a rewards debit card (details coming in a future post) so I can’t really help you with details.
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Hi there! I could have sworn I’ve visited this blog before but after browsing through a few of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Nonetheless, I’m definitely pleased I found it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back frequently!
correct phone number is 1866-952-5653 not 63
Got it done without a problem, just hit change payment type not cancel, and it worked for me! Thanks guys!
JOe ORban: Bluebird only charges $2 per $100 if you load debit online. At Walmart it is called “swipe reload” and it’s free. Limit $1K per day, $5K per month
[…] Catching up after FTU […]
No, it’s free. Don’t look for reasons to not do it, just do it!
Isn’t there a $2 fee per debit card deposit to BB?
I went to the money center checkout, but I think a regular one would work.
The first time I went to customer service and they did all the swiping for me (I didn’t have the option to hit the cancel button), the second place had a seperate money center and I did it there. I don’t know if you can do it at any register or not (worth a try?) I think $1,000 is max per day you can load.
Quick follow-up, so you just go to the customer service place and load or at a regular cashier just say you want to load bluebird?
Is there a limit how much you can load onto BB from walmart?
@JOe ORban yes, hit cancel after you have swiped your mastercard gift card and when it says “Waiting on cashier” or whatever it says…..
Yahtzee! I just successfully loaded 6 $100 MC GCs onto my BB accnt using Royce’s cancel workaround. Thank you Royce – I could’ve found a way to spend the $, but I prefer putting GC money on Bluebird whenever possible.
Will be trying this out at two walmarts today! So you hit cancel as soon as it goes to the cashier menu?
@JakePB I hope it works for you and is not just some fluke! Let us know. Does anyone know if it is this hard to get it to work for Visas (not that it is that hard if this trick continues to work)? This was my first experience actually loading my Bluebird (I’ve had it for a long time ago but got it right as OfficeDepot was getting rid of vanilla reloads so never got the chance to load it).