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Buying American Express gift cards through online shopping portals can be a great way to increase rewards or save money. On September 2nd, though, American Express completely withdrew their gift card business from all online shopping portals (see “Amex gift cards withdrawn from portals”). Fortunately, Amex has now brought their gift card business back to at least one portal (hat tip: Miles to Memories), but for one day only. TopCashBack is offering 1.5% cash back until midnight tonight (9/30/2014).
For full details of how and why to buy Amex gift cards, please see this post: Everything you ever wanted to know about Amex gift cards.
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Abdul,
I had this happen earlier this year with Club Carlson from US Bank. Rep from the card said it was coded as a CA and they would not do that on a business card, thank goodness!! I am hoping to try my Virgin Atlantic M/C from BOA, I have never tried that one before, hoping it is not C/A as well.
US Bank is known to preauthorize the purchase as a cash advance, but then the actual purchase is coded as a purchase. At least, that is how it has worked in the past.
I to had my $2000 purchase declined. Everything seemed to go smoothly and then early this morning I received an email from Amex stating my order was declined. I used a BoA Travel Rewards card to make the purchase and I am assuming it was declined for the same reason as Abdul’s was
Amex declines purchases all the time for no apparent reason. This was probably not due to your cash advance limit.
Hello – I tried using the USBank FlexPerks card and the transaction did not go through while trying to buy Amex Gift Cards to complete minimum spend. When I connected to Customer Service – they said that the transaction was declined because it was considered as a Cash Advance and I do not have that much limit on the card. I asked them as to why they are charging it as a CASH ADVANCE, when in the past it has not been so. They said that it is not US Bank which is doing this BUT AMEX is coding the gift cards as a Çash Advance.
Please take note of this.
US Bank is known to preauthorize the purchase as a cash advance, but then the actual purchase is coded as a purchase. At least, that is how it has worked in the past.
I haven’t had a terrible experience with TCB, but prefer Lucky or BeFrugal, so I think I’ll hold out. Fingers crossed the percentage takes a jump tomorrow as well.
In the email I got from TopCashback about this today, there is verbiage in the header that reads, “24 Hours (EST) before anyone else – 1.5% cash back from American Express”
This could be read to mean 10/1 is a possible return date for AMEX GCS.
Great find! I was thinking that the appearance in TopCashBack meant exactly that, but I wasn’t sure. That email suggests it really is coming back to portals in general tomorrow. I’ve sent a message to a contact at TCB. Hopefully she’ll give me the scoop.
I got so excited I just peed in my pants.