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’ll be on vacation until January 6th. Until then, I’ll publish a series of “mini posts” with an occasional regular post if something interesting comes up. I may or may not answer blog comments or emails during this time. Thanks for understanding!
American Express gift cards are currently available to buy through online portals for up to 3X miles or 3% cash back. Via Delta SkyMiles Shopping, you can earn 3 miles per dollar when clicking through to buy Amex gift cards. Or, via TopCashBack, you can earn 3% cash back.
TopCashBack’s 3% rate is scheduled to end at the end of this year. I would guess that they’ll then revert to 2% cash back, but I don’t really know for sure. I’m also just guessing that SkyMiles Shopping will also reduce their rate when the clock strikes 2014, but we won’t know for sure until then.
While the 3X opportunities last, it’s possible to earn “5X everywhere”. Simply go through one of these portals and buy Amex gift cards with a “2X everywhere” card (such as the Barclay Arrival World MasterCard – the one that earns 2X on All Purchases). In total, you should earn 3X from the portal and 2X from your credit card. Then, spend the gift cards where you would normally pay with a credit card, or find ways to cash them out (see “How to spend down Amex gift cards“). If you don’t have a 2X everywhere card, 4X everywhere isn’t so bad either.
Of course, you can earn even more than 5X by going through portals again to online merchants to buy things, and pay with your Amex gift cards.
Note that some credit cards are known to charge cash advance fees when used to buy Amex gift cards online. You’ll want to avoid that, of course. As far as I know, Chase and Amex cards are currently safe. And, I know people who safely use the Barclay Arrival World MasterCard. In all cases, you can reduce your risk by calling the credit card company and asking to have your cash advance limit lowered as far as possible.
$500 Limit
When you click through from SkyMiles Shopping, you’ll see that gift cards are limited to a maximum of $500 each. You can increase that limit to $3000 each in several easy ways:
- Log into your American Express account. Once you log in, you should see values up to $3000. (Hat Tip: HikerT)
- Or, hover over the “Business Gift Cards” or “Consumer Gift Cards” menu and click “Select a Card Design”. The screen will basically just refresh, but now you should see values up to $3000.
- Similarly, you can hover over the “Business Gift Cards” or “Consumer Gift Cards” menu and click “Personalized Cards”. This will allow you to get cards up to $3000 in value and even put your name on them if you want.
Via TopCashBack the $500 limit has been removed for now, but they’ve been told that it will come back in 2014. Regardless, many people have confirmed that they’ve received cash back or miles even when circumventing the limits.
Discount Codes
Portals always claim that you won’t earn cash back or miles if you use discount codes not found on their site. In practice, though, I’ve always received cash back when ordering Amex gift cards despite using codes. A good one to try for eliminating gift card fees is: SYNCGIFT.
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[…] fee from Chase a few months ago (which pretty much negated my profits), however reports from Frequent Miler and others say that Chase is now safe to use again (due to a change in merchant coding). The […]
I always have this dilemma of using prepaid Amex card. In your post of how to use Amex prepaid card, you listed “buying reload card”. So most of the time we have Amex prepaid card in 100s, say I have a 500 bux card, but when purchasing a reload card, it will have fee, so I can’t turn the 500 Amex to 500 VR directly and I’m 3.95 short right? What’s the easiest way to do this transaction? so I pay 3.95 use other credit card, and then the 500 amex prepaid right? (per Amex instruction, you would have to use the prepaid card last, and do the math of what’s leftover to pay with other card first by yourself).
Yes, you can pay the $3.95 fee with a different card (or with cash) or you can ask to put $496.05 on each Vanilla Reload card. That way, the total will come to exactly $500.
has anyone gotten a confirmation from TopCashBack on these? And if so, did you use the “SYNCGIFT” code?
Also, is there any reason not to get a high value $3000 and $2000 card instead of 50 $100 cards?
i would definitely go for higher value cards. Dealing with many $100 cards would be a nightmare.
[…] 5X everywhere Amex is accepted, until the New Year […]
[…] 5X everywhere Amex is accepted, until the New Year […]
[…] fee from Chase a few months ago (which pretty much negated my profits), however reports from Frequent Miler and others say that Chase is now safe to use again (due to a change in merchant coding). The […]
Can anyone confirm whether TopCashBack tracks when using the “SYNCGIFT” code???
are the AmEx gift cards debit cards? can they be used for tax payments?
No, they can’t be used as debit cards. You can use them to pay taxes with a 1.89% fee.
Do we know whether purchasing Amex gift cards with BOA credit cards will be coded as cash advance? Thanks much.
Cool info, thanks!
Avoid this at all costs. only my first 2 orders tracked, all remaining 7 orders have not tracked at all. It is run by cartera so no surprise. No point in suing since it states points awarded on purchase fee only. Please avoid at all costs, waste of time and effort.
2X everywhere is just a gimmick. You are not earning real airline miles. Both Barclay and CapitalOne “miles” are worth only a penny per “mile”. There is no way to get high value redemption the way you leverage real airline miles.
Would you rather have 1x? I’ll take 2.2% Arrival over 1x miles or points any day of the week.
FWIW, the Alaska portal is also offering 3x. Unfortunately only 1 of my 6 orders has tracked. I am told the Delta portal is also having tracking issues. Both Alaska and Delta are powered by Cartera Commerce. As bad as TCB has historically been with tracking issues, it’s probably the safer bet. All my recent TCB orders have tracked.
Isn’t the Skymiles x3 limited to the purchase fee?
It appears to be a typo. I got miles on the purchase amount.
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