Currently the Mid Atlantic AAA region is offering a fee-free holiday promotion on Visa gift cards. Each region seems to operate differently, so this deal may or may not be available in other areas as well.
The Offer
Purchase variable load Visa gift cards without a fee from November 1, 2015 through December 31, 2015
Details
- These gift cards are issued by Metabank and can be loaded up to $500 per card.
- The pin can be set by calling in.
- Cards must be purchased at a AAA office.
- Membership is not always required. It depends on the region.
It is possible that other regions are also selling these Visa gift cards without a fee, however currently only the Mid Atlantic region lists the sale on their website. I would suggest calling your local AAA office to see if they are running the promotion as well.
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HT: Reddit
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Long delayed update on the NW WA AAA situation. Went back to try the VGC and the “Nice” lady that was there before was not there. Whether day off or what I do not know, but the “Not Nice” lady that WAS there made it fairly clear that my kind of business was not overly welcome whether I was a member or not! So…. did not buy a VGC and won’t bother with this angle, at least for now. They are WAY across the city and now that I have not needed to see my friend Kate for a while, I do not get over that way.
[…] AAA Is Selling Visa Gift Cards Without a Fee in Some Areas […]
[…] AAA Is Selling Visa Gift Cards Without a Fee in Some Areas […]
[…] AAA Is Selling Visa Gift Cards Without a Fee in Some Areas […]
Spoke to my local (WA) AAA the other day. The lady was friendly, etc but advised that ALL credit card spending there was coded by the bank that handles their stuff as Cash Advance.
I did not know that could be done. Any advice on whether to go ahead and test waters with a card I have zeroed out the cash advance on?
Any advice would be nice!
You can always lower your cash advance limit to $0 before running a test. In that case if it is coded as a cash advance then the transaction will be declined.
@Shawn Coomer - Senior Editor, that is pretty much what I have decided to do. I will try with a zero cash advance card on one GC. If that works, THEN I will join AAA, as members up here pay but 2.95 per VGC Variable load and the lady told me she had no problem with me buying multiples. No,m it ain’t free money, but for that to be there when there are no free $$$ options around is way better than 5.95 at Kroger or whatever. Not to mention hooray for Rite Aid! Five in town, one a half mile from the casa! Tested last week and working wonderfully.
Carl
Can you please post if this works for you and which area in WA are you at? I was told in WA (eastside) that GCs can’t be bought with Credit cards, only cash.
I’ve read reports of Metabank blacklisting members after liquidating these cards. So additional purchase is impossible once they decide no more purchases are allowed.
Is there a “safe” way to liquidate these cards?
Yes, appreciate that AAA runs this promo twice a year, but wow, some of the the local AAA affiliates make you feel profoundly unwelcome for buying them. First, as somebody noted above, it takes FOREVER to process the transaction. Why is THAT? Happens I am a AAA member, and I walked into my office, about half hour before they closed. I was the ONLY person in there. (There were five different people working there, and even the smallest of small talk felt like it was being blasted around the whole cavernous room) Still, it took about 10 minutes to process the transaction for a single card… I was given a ten page printed out “terms and conditions” — which I was told would make good reading if I ever couldn’t get to sleep.
I’ve heard from various blog sites that you’re treated essentially like a criminal, guilty until proven innocent, when you buy one of these cards…. I suspect this office knows what ms is…. and they don’t like it, and they’re going to make the process as slow/difficult as they can.
Tried calling local AAA office on Long Island – but calls are forwarded to a larger call center and they couldn’t confirm if the promotion was localized to New York. If someone has had success with this on Long Island – please post. Thanks!
I’ve stopped MS after redbird is no longer an option. Anyone have a link or advice on an updated article regarding MS w/Serve? Thanks in advance.
[…] AAA Is Selling Visa Gift Cards Without a Fee in Some Areas […]
This reminds me of the good old days when I was in high school (over 25 years ago) and I was an AU on one of my Dad’s mileage cards with a huge CL.
AAA sold fee free Am Ex travelers checks. Each month I would cycle through his CL at least twice. We were earning over 80k miles a month, plus 5-6% interest on almost $40K per year.
This died when either the Chicago Tribune or WSJ wrote about it.
Aaa is an old institution which has a mainly older clientele. These type businesses aren’t used to seeing big denomination anything. While most of us think buying 1k in cards per day is small, these type folks don’t understand the ‘why’ and then think ‘fraud’. I wish these periodic aaa deals were scalable, but reports over many years shows us they’re still living in yesterday and shut you down. Tread lightly for just a couple unless you really know someone.
San Francisco area – negative, they do not carry Visa GC’s
After calling to confirm they had them (I was told I could buy 2), I went today to AAA Mid-Atlantic. It wasn’t a great experience. First, they don’t take AMEX for gift cards (“fees are too high”). This was bad for me because I had gotten a promo from my sock-drawered PenFed AMEX for a $100 credit for spending $1000 by New Year’s. Since I was there anyway, and the cards were fee-free, I had to think fast on my feet. I whipped out my Citi TY Premier. AAA would be “travel,” right? If it is, and I pay my Citi card with my NW Buxx card, I’ll basically net $40 for my effort.
But the process was VERY slow, even though I was pretty much the only person there. If I came in every day (or even a few times a week), I don’t think they’d sell to me. Bottomline, unless you can sweet talk them and establish “a relationship.” you’re probably not going to get a lot of cards from them.
My neighbor in NJ works for AAA and said I could come in every day to buy. Didn’t pin down how many per day b/c we were interrupted but I plan to follow up.