This is one of my rare anti-deals…
Many readers have been reporting that when they’ve recently bought Amex gift cards online from American Express, Chase has coded these purchases as cash advances. So, unless or until things change, I strongly advise you not to use a Chase card to buy Amex gift cards from American Express online. There should be no such problem with buying Amex gift cards (or any other gift cards) in stores. The same has been true (for a long time) with Citibank credit cards, but this is new to Chase.
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Confirmed Discover considers this a Cash Advance as of March 18, 2014.
Which specific Discover card did you use?
I heard you can set your cash advance limit to zero on any credit card, that way if a cash advance is going to be coded it will be rejected
I just made a test purchase of $150 in AmEx gift cards with my Discover Card. I called Discover right away and was told the purchase was coded as a Cash Advance and subject to the CA fee as well as the higher APR.
I recently ordered $1500 of Amex gift cards (one for $1000, another for $500) using a Chase Southwest card, and the purchase went through as a cash advance. I did end up disputing the charge, which caused Chase to issue a temporary credit and refund the cash advance fee. Amex ended up cancelling the cards and of couse I did not earn points on the purchase, but this appeared to be the only option as Amex would not refund the cards otherwise or change the way the transaction was coded.
Do you know the date of your order? In my tests, Chase had stopped coding these purchases as cash advances.
For me it was with discover . Attempted purchase of Amex GC for $1000, the transaction was declined and did one for $700 it went thru…but wait it went thru as CA in discover ;
Called Discover they said AMEX coded it as CA…,Called AMEX they say they can’t do much about it other than refunding the transaction
is Dispute transaction an option ???
I don’t know about disputing the transaction. When did you make that purchase?
I’ve noticed that in the past week or so, Amex gc purchases are showing up differently even within my Amex statements so my guess is that Amex has changed the way they code these and probably won’t incur cash advance fees anymore. Can anyone else confirm?
Just received the new Chase BA Visa. Tried small test with both Amex Gift Card and Visa Gift Card for $25 each. They were processed as purchases (not cash advances). This suggests that Amex is not coding these as CA but Chase may be reviewing large Amex GC purchases and recoding. Will try another test for larger amount after setting CA limit to zero.
Attempted purchase of Amex GCs on November 12 and 14 declined by US Bank (Club Carlson Business card), as I have my cash advance limit set to zero at US Bank. Customer service confirms that “Amex Gifting Products” was coding these attempted purchases as “cash advances”. Amex sucks.
I got the same thing… “cash advance” stupidity from amex and their support was equally bad. Chase gave up as well. Final resolution: there is a possibility to cancel the gift card altogether by calling american express… however, that can be done only if following is done:
1. gift card cannot be used for any amount.
2. you have to swipe the card at any terminal for $0.. i was told that it will make the funds available on the card failing which amex reps cannot cancel the card. I plan to go to local safeway in self checkout and cancel the transaction after swiping the card.
This is complete stupidity on part of amex and their phone service which has been outsourced doesn’t help much either.
same situation with mine today.
First time last September is fine when I purchase Amex gift card with chase credit card.
But today, it was corded as cash advanced.
it is very hard to purchase the Amex card with anther credit card.
Amex have declined many time any some reason with non amex credit customer.The representatives in customer service they also don’t know why and can’t explain.
Amex cards is terrible.There is no gift card company I can purchase like Amex gift card?
An Amex supervisor claimed to me that they do not control how Chase views the gift card purchase, nor how the purchase is coded. Regardless of whether this is true or not (and I told him it wasn’t), he wasn’t budging on the issue.
Similar to above, I was hit with $570 fees for CA. Called and was told all gift cards are treated as CA. Looked at prior statements where GC were not treated as CA. Called back and was told Amex changed and coded it as CA. Called Amex and they denied. Called Chase again and was told it was Amex and they couldn’t do anything about it.
I used Citi HH reserve card last week for $1000 and was not hit with a cash advance fee.
I got hit with $150 Cash advance fee on my Chase BA Visa. CS says it is because of how Visa/Mastercard codes the merchant (Amex). They won’t budge on the fee.
I used a Chase UAL Club card for $3000 and just saw a $90 transaction fee on my account. I have been a loyal Chase customer for years and run thousands in legitimate transactions as well as thousand in Mfg spend (though pretty well hidden and spread out). Has anyone had any success disputing the charge on the basis that no rational consumer would make a purchase like this if they knew this new policy to be in place (e.g. chase didn’t charge a fee on their own GC product).
Any one know if Barklays cards are working (priceline visa in particular)?
I just got the cash advance fee charged on my Priceline VISA, but not on my Discover IT card.
Dennis