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Last Monday, I published “American Express Gift Cards 2.5% cash back. Today only“. In that post I showed how it was possible (that day) to get 2.5% back when buying American Express gift cards with values of up to $3000 each. Since the gift cards have flat fees ($3.95 each, plus shipping), the highest value gift cards were the best deal. Then, about two days later American Express changed the maximum gift card amount to only $500 if you begin your shopping from a cash back portal (luckily there’s a simple workaround. See “Amex takes away $3K cash back gift cards“).
Because of the proximity in time between the two events, it appeared that the one day 2.5% cash back promotion had spurred on Amex to make the change. Then came GiftCardMall…
Yesterday I published “Visa Gift Cards 2% cash back. Today only.” By going through TopCashBack to GiftCardMall it was possible to earn 2% cash back when buying Visa gift cards. At the time that I wrote that post, it was possible to buy gift cards up to $1000 each. My post was published Monday morning at about 6 a.m. EDT. At around noon, the limit changed to only $500. What happened?
Many in the travel hacking community like to blame bloggers for killing deals. Undoubtedly the accusation is sometimes true and sometimes false. When a deal is too good, it is inevitable that it will end eventually. When it does end there is a tendency to blame the most recent or salient event on its demise. Sometimes that recent or salient event may indeed be the cause. Often, it is not. Either way, we rarely find out for sure.
Recently, Visa and MasterCard gift cards were changed to allow PINs. As a result, they could now be easily converted to cash (see “Gift card PINs“). Since there are many ways to buy gift cards to earn cash back or extra credit card rewards, buying gift cards suddenly became a very good deal. In my recent post “The Bluebird Metric,” I wrote:
I don’t know how long it will last, but as of the time of this writing it is possible to manufacture credit card spend for free […] Sometimes you can even make a profit while collecting points this way.
I suspected that things would soon change because buying gift cards had become too good of a deal.
Back to the question
Did I kill these deals? Did my publicity of the opportunities catch the eye of people who run Amex gift cards and/or GiftCardMall? Or, more likely, did the sudden traffic to their sites cause them to panic and make quick changes? Or, was it a coincidence? Were changes in the market already putting pressure on these companies to change, and so they did?
What do you think? Please comment below, but please keep your comments civil! For some reason debates like these tend to devolve into name calling. I’d rather not censor comments, but I will delete profanity and attacks on individuals.
Note that, regardless of the debate, I will continue to publish publicly available deals like these as they are discovered. I have always held some back, though, and I’ll continue to do so: Sometimes there is an opportunity that is too limited to make public. For example, if the deal requires buying something for which there is a very limited quantity, publishing it would only lead to frustration once people discover that they can’t get it. Another type of deal that I always hold back are the ones that cross my ethical line (see “Drawing the line“). I also try to avoid publishing deals that would be likely to put companies out of business (luckily these don’t come around very often).
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[…] With $500 gift cards, it takes only 2 swipes. And, while $1000 gift cards exist (at least, they used to!), they’re very hard to find. So, currently, $500 gift cards are the sweet spot to look […]
I don’t mind the information, although I’d prefer it not be step by step with tons of details. I’d think of it as a challenging puzzle that might help me to think up my own ideas. Alas, that won’t happen unless every blog did that.
What disappointed me the most was that special deals were made- the GCM one was specially made and timed so we could use the AmEx GCs!- and then they decided that it was too much and wanted to benefit from it more than they were.
I’m pretty sure that it’s not a matter of GCM “running out” of 1K gift cards. The money isn’t physical. It’s programmed into the cards because that’s what’s typed into the computer when they’re loaded and payment taken.
I thought GCM would be great. I wouldn’t have to get confused looks from cashiers anymore and could buy the cards online! Looks like I’ll be going back to the cashiers.
@MrWho: Trading is one of the oldest professions that exists – If you find your niche, have time and are able to take the risk & if you do get it going (profitably) i mean you would realize that points will soon become a second fiddle – your trade will be drive you. This again is my point of view.
Just FYI, staples $100 gc are back in stock.
@Phoenix
I agree, but this is a churn blog. It’s always been abusing loopholes and misusing whatever to get free points & miles for whatever ‘level’ of churning you are doing. Do you suggest buy real things and resell it risking losing principal & have tax burden on the profit made?
The issue is not about killing the “deal(s)” – it is about misuse of the products and eventually the “loophole” and misuse being stopped.
Spoon-feeding complains. So the FM gives partial information and then those people who can’t figure it out or did something significantly bad (leading to kill deals since banks get aware of what’s going on), they blame it on FM, and FM loses creditability?
@FM=Whores
It’s always the same. The country is in the debt and you get tons of tax free money? Really? I’m sure you are a republican who don’t want to pay for the money you earned from the border of the laws.
[…] Did I kill the deal(s)? […]
While we all hope things last and we also cant go about assuming that if something dies, something better will just come up later, I can say this: In 2002 these gigs lasted months or years. today they last days or hours. I do NOT think you killed this at all!
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GCM had a number. We either reached it in small amounts over time or big amounts in a short time.
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carry on my friend! 🙂
@Amol, @PointsToPointB, come on! It’s a new year. Time for a new video :)!
Thanks for your presentation at FTU and the opportunity to talk to you in person.
It’s not you who kill the deals or even sites like SD. Its the greedy people who aren’t satisfied with just 1
Sadly, bloggers are also killing newspapers, travel agents, middlemen, and dictators. Bloggers like you, simply make knowledge too accessible for the masses, most of whom do not deserve to have the information you provide. If people want useful knowledge, they should have to work very hard for it, or at least be a member of the elite, and not just have it given to them freely and easily. It is not fair to existing business models, elites, or current dictatorships, to have information freely and easily disseminated amongst the people.
Wait, which one goes in the bluebirds? Can you draw me a diagram?
FM:
I don’t mind if the deal was killed, all deals will be killed sooner or later.
But it still bothers me that you keep promoting TCB for long time. TCB is not a reliable Cashback site for most people. The only reason you get your cashback is because they knew you are a blogger and they use you to run their promotions. Try TCB as a non-blogger for a couple of months and let us know what the results are!