Merchant gift cards, best options for stacking deals

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Last Updated: 10/19/2017

If you’re in the market for gift cards, you’re probably interested in finding the best options for saving money and/or earning extra points.  Or, if you’re planning big purchases, you might want to consider buying gift cards first in order to increase your savings or rewards.  Either way, here is a run down of the best options I know of for buying merchant gift cards.merchant gift cards, best options

Ebay discounts

I don’t recommend buying used gift cards from individuals through eBay.  Instead, look for sales of new, unused gift cards from companies such as PayPal Digital Gifts, Gift Card Mall, SVM Gift Cards, and Cardency.  To find discounted gift cards:

Gyft + Ink = 5X

Earn 5X points by paying with your Chase Ink card (through PayPal) for gift cards from Gyft.

Gift Card Mart + Ink = 5X

Earn 5X points by paying with your Chase Ink card for gift cards from Gift Card Mart.

Ink + Office supply store = 5X

Staples, Office Depot, and OfficeMax all carry a wide selection of gift cards in-store.  If you purchase these gift cards with your Chase Ink card, you’ll earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.

Via Staples.com, you can order a wide assortment of gift cards online.

Whole Foods gift cardClick here to shop for gift cards at Staples.com
(I may earn a small commission if you use this link, but they don’t usually pay affiliates for gift card purchases)

Backup plan: Pay with your American Express SimplyCash card to get 5% cash back at office supply stores.

GiftCertificates.com + Portal = Up to 11.0% cash back

The uPromise portal is currently offering 5% cash back for clicking through to shop at GiftCertificates.com (find current rates here).  If you pay with the uPromise credit card, you’ll earn an additional 5% cash back.  And, if you have the Sallie Mae High-Yield Savings Account, you can earn an additional 10% annual match on your uPromise earnings.  This will give you an additional 1.% cash back for a total of 11.0%.

Blue Cash Preferred + US Supermarket = 6% savings (on first $6k, then 1%) + fuel points

Grocery stores tend to have huge selections of merchant gift cards.  Some stores even offer extra rewards (fuel points) for gift card purchases!  So, buy gift cards at such a store with the Amex Blue Cash Preferred card to get 6% cash back (up to $6K of US Supermarket spend per year, then 1% cash back) and hopefully earn fuel points as well!

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Backup plan: Use one of many other credit cards that offer grocery store bonuses.  See: Best Category Bonuses.

5X card + drugstore (or gas or grocery store) = 5X

There are a few cards that offer 5X at drugstores, gas stations, and grocery stores either for a limited time or after meeting certain requirements (see “Playing 5X everywhere Whack a Mole”).  Drugstores and grocery stores tend to have terrific gift card options.

Credit card / bank offers

Sometimes your credit card company or bank will offer automatic incentives for shopping at certain vendors.  A good example of this is American Express “Offers for You” and “Amex Offers”.  Amex sometimes offers deals such as an automatic $15 statement credit when you purchase $75 or more at Home Depot (the exact deals vary. This is just one recent example).  In cases like these, you can go to the store in question and buy enough gift cards to meet the deal requirements and get automatic savings.  For more concrete examples, please see: Maximizing Amex Sync offers. Part 3: shopping elsewhere.

Second hand gift cards

There is a thriving resale market for gift cards.  It is often possible to buy merchant gift cards at a significant discount through one of many re-sellers.  The site giftcardgranny.com does a pretty good job of aggregating the options for you.  They’ll even let you setup alerts to watch for gift cards of interest.  You can sometimes even increase your savings by going through a cash back portal to the gift card re-sellers site. Also check Gift Card Wiki to find the best re-sale prices.

Once you pick a re-seller, go to cashbackmonitor.com to see if you can get cash back when buying these gift cards.

MileagePlus X

United’s MileagePlus X app allows you to earn bonus miles buying gift cards.  The app is advertised as a way to earn bonus miles for everyday purchases: When shopping at a participating store, you purchase a gift card through the app for the exact amount of your purchase and earn up to 5 miles per dollar. At the register, the gift card is then used as your form of payment.  Note that in most cases you can also use these gift cards online.

The MileagePlus X app has several advantages over buying gift cards online:

  1. Gift cards bought through the app are available immediately
  2. The app is more reliable than a portal for earning rewards.
  3. Some merchants, such as Amazon.com, don’t usually offer portal rewards when buying gift cards so this is a way to increase rewards that may not otherwise be possible.
  4. American Express seems to treat MileageX App purchases as United Airlines charges.  So, Amex cards that offer bonus points or cash back for United airlines purchases may offer the same for purchases made through this app.

Note: Many merchants do not allow buying gift cards with gift cards.  This app does not provide a way around such a restriction.

Buy from merchant

Last, but not least, sometimes the best savings or points come from buying gift cards directly from the merchant for which you want a gift card.  For example, Staples sometimes offers a $10 promo e-gift card with each $50 gift card purchased.  With some stores, you can earn extra points by starting with a shopping portal before clicking through and buying a store gift card.  This does not work with all stores.  Please see the Frequent Miler Laboratory to see what works and what doesn’t.

Reader suggestions

I know that I didn’t present every combination of solutions available, but did I miss any particularly noteworthy options?  Please comment below.

Options no longer available:

In the past I’ve written about a number of options that are no longer available today…

Earning portal rewards when buying gift cards from Staples is no longer available.

Staples no longer pays out rewards through portals for the purchase of gift cards.

Buying gift cards with Staples’ gift cards is no longer available

It used to be possible to buy Staples’ gift cards at a discount (or to get points) and then use those gift cards to buy other gift cards (and get cash back or points again).  Unfortunately, Staples.com now greys out the option to pay with a Staples gift card if you have any gift cards in your cart.  In-store it might still be possible to buy gift cards with Staples’ gift cards, but most cashiers are trained to not allow it.

Earning cash back at OfficeMax through Amex OPEN Savings is no longer available

Amex used to offer an automatic 10% cash back when you made a purchase of $250 or more at OfficeMax.com.  As of January 1st, 2014, that benefit went away (see more here).

Visa Savings Edge 1% rebate at Staples no longer available

Staples & Visa Savings Edge were partners until the end of 2014. They used to pay a 1% rebate on purchases over $200 when a Visa business card (such as the Chase Ink) was used at Staples.

 

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[…] I often describe tricks for earning extra points. One example is to buy Visa and Mastercard or merchant gift cards at office supply stores using a Chase Ink business card. Since the Ink cards give 5X for office […]

Al

Very instructive!

JAMES S WAGNER

[Comment for notification]

Bill

Anybody picking up GCs at malls with the regional option that rhymes with String? Looking for ideas on how to scale/improve this angle.

Bill B.

Enjoy reading your posts. Thank you.

[…] As if all of that wasn’t enough, you can find even more opportunities for earning rewards or discounts when buying gift cards here: Merchant gift cards, best options for stacking deals. […]

[…] Additional options for earning 5X with your Ink card for online gift card purchases can be found here: Merchant gift cards, best options for stacking deals. […]

[…] It is often possible to earn 5X rewards, or more, when buying merchant gift cards.  Some of the strategies for dealing with Visa gift cards, shown above, involve buying merchant gift cards.  If you’re considering that approach, you should look first to see if you can do better buying the merchant gift cards another way.  Please see: Best options for buying merchant gift cards. […]

Added Gift Card Mart as a 5X option with Chase Ink.

Removed CardCash as an option to earn 5X with Chase Ink.

[…] Best options for buying merchant gift cards […]

[…] Best options for buying merchant gift cards […]

Christopher

Thanks!

Avi Schwartz

Hi

[…] Best options for buying merchant gift cards […]

Shane

Gyft no longer giving 5x on INK purchases.

Shane

No. Just paid with ink. So if you buy just anything with PP does it code 5x? In other words buy from any vendor but checkout with PP?

[…] Best options for buying merchant gift cards […]

VM

FYI, buying GC using MPX app has not triggered 3x airfare category since January on amex PRG although it has been posted as united airline purchase.

David L

I can confirm 5x on Ink as well! Though I have yet to confirm the cashback through portal. Nonetheless, its fantastic to get 5x on discounted gc!

KT

Did anyone notice that Cardcash’s accreditation was revoked by BBB? It was actually back in Sep 2015 and remains revoked.

639 complaints in 3 years .. wow !

https://www.bbb.org/new-jersey/business-reviews/prepaid-debit-credit-cards/cardcash-com-llc-in-brick-nj-90028712/

David L

Does Card Cash still earn 5x on Ink?

Terri M

On 2/20, I bought a $25 Amazon gift card using the United app and my husband’s Prem Rewards Gold AmEx card (he specified United as his $100 annual credit airline). On the statement, it shows as MPX*AMAZON.COM 1-800-421… So far AmEx has not credited back the $25. Thoughts?

Terri M

Spoke too soon. The credit showed up today! 😀

[…] Best options for buying merchant gift cards […]

Tom

For second hand gift cards, I like http://www.giftcardwiki.com more, it has nice historical charts to show you whether the current discount rate is attractive or not comparing to the history.

[…] Best options for buying merchant gift cards […]

[…] the same, and C is product sold). You can get more complicated with buying merchant gift cards as FrequentMiler, Chasing the Points, BigHabitat and others (disclosure: I got tired of googling for […]

[…] Best options for buying merchant gift cards […]

dan ray

my local PDX Office Depot has told me they no longer sell Amazon gift cards with a credit card. Cash only. Is this universal?

[…] success for physical but not egift cards).  or other ways to purchase store gift cards (See this Frequent Miler post for more […]

SaySomething

Here is a cautionary tale on Bluebird + gift card loads. Bluebird allows $200 daily loads from gift cards. For example, the staples visa gift card loaded online fine until July 20.

Today, a simple load of $200 to a bluebird led to a big read message saying “you needed to verify your bluebird, if you have received a plastic card, call ….”. The gift card is fine. It registers as a funding source with bluebird (which some gift cards don’t), but bluebird will not take money from it.

First step: bluebird customer service. At first they want a drivers license and a picture of the card. It tell them it doesnt have a name on it. The say gift debit cards are no longer allowed. This has been detected as a gift card and the system wont let it in.

Next step: forwarded to “account protection services”. They claim you have bad funding source, so there is a “concern” on the account. I ask them to delete the funding source, “concern” removed. I rant about these “invisible policies” and take my leave.

Yes, one should not call humans in general. But this needed clarification. Perhaps a policy change for the worse (and technology update now detecting gift debit visa/mastercards as such), so bad news for the techniques mentioned above.

Anyone with a different experience today?

justSaying

Looks like Bluebird is acting like Serve……..

John

I am really looking for an alternative to Giftcardmall.com for the online purchase of Visa Gift Cards using American Express Gift Cards to purchase. I haven’t been at all happy with Gift Card Mall. Are there any others besides them that you can recommend? Thanks!

aftrhrs

Your Blog outstanding as usual. I`ve seen my MS options quickly dwindle down to nothing. Bluebird seems dead as there is no way to get debit cards in my area Hawaii. Am express GC wont ship here and I`d have to order GC`s from Staples with shipping its not worth it.
Is there any Visa/master Card that can be had online with a larger denomination then $200 from Staples

Marie S.

I am in Hawaii also ! you can get a nationwide visa Buxx to load BB. Also GiftCardMall offers Visa gift cards with values up to $500 each. I use the JCB marukai to buy them. ^_^

aftrhrs

Awesome advice thanks! I have one last Ace to play there is one lone Chevron Gas station that sells Netspend reloads up to $400 but they charge ugly fees…. they even charge if ya want to know your balance + every transaction & a monthly Fee.

JustSaying

Did I hear you say the Vanilla Visa card could be loaded onto Bluebird aka debit card? Isn’t CVS still selling Vanilla Visa with a credit card? They sure sell PayPal with a credit card…..

Scott

Thanks for the updated post. Is it still possible to buy Amex gift cards at any stores with a cc? I tried at Rite Aid the other day and the guy was quick to say only cash or debit. He said I could buy merchant, store-specific cards though…I ask because I hear from time to time that you can. Is it just luck of the draw, or luck of the cashier?

Mr Who

Store specific. If you are lucky, you can buy GreenDot MoneyPacks, etc. More useful ones.

Scott

I just use Serve and Amazon, so I’m just happy to buy ANY card at a grocery/drugstore that earns me 5% cash back. Which card (and at what store) will I have the best luck buying with a cc? I tried Amex gc at Rite Aid and that failed miserably. Thanks again!

Mark Fink

I just added a Staples VISA gift card to my Bluebird account this morning. I had to delete the previous one, then add this new one. I think there is a waiting period between adding a new card then deleting it for another one, but I don’t know how long that is.

Anand

UPromise does not pay out for buying VISA gift cards I have tried 4 times with no luck

JustSaying

uPromise alive? How do you cash out of that account? Has Bluebird now passed the dead as a doorknob test and we need to switch over to SERVE?

Mr Who

$10 min before they pay you by check or HYSA transfer.

Mr Who

There is no waiting period switching to BB -> Serve/Serve ISIS or vice versa so whatever is useful now & utilize it.

Gabriel

Huh…they FINALLY greyed out buying gift cards with Staples gift cards, huh? I had a great run on that (until recently). Starting July 9th…every order I placed was getting cancelled automatically by the computer. They got better at it i suppose.

Wicked Gringo

Once you have them, are any gift cards usable for loading Bluebird?

MileageUpdate

I havent

anon

Has anyone had success with upromise giving 5% for staples.com after calling?

Mr Who

You have to wait like 45 – 90 days before you can contact them. If you don’t wait, they’ll tell you to wait. Good luck for people just starting now.