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A few weeks ago I reported that GiftCards.com had disappeared from portals (see: “What happened to GiftCards.com?”). Now, they’re back.
iConsumer is again offering 1.6% cash back (+ stock shares) [2/29/16 EDIT: Now at .8%]:
This link will take you to the iConsumer GiftCards.com page. If you haven’t yet signed up for iConsumer, I’ll earn 100 shares of iConsumer stock.
SimplyBestCoupons is offering 1% cash back:
(here is my referral link which gives me a small commission on top of any cash back you earn)
And, Yazing is offering 2% cash back (this worked for me with one test purchase, but a reader reported that the portal stopped tracking after his first two purchases):
And, as reported by EndPoint, Dollar Dig is offering 1.2% (this is another portal I haven’t yet tried):
Visa gift cards from GiftCards.com
There has been a lot of confusion about gift cards from GiftCards.com. One issue is that the name of the merchant is very similar to another: GiftCardMall.com. Another issue is that the Visa gift cards from GiftCards.com are issued by Bancorp which is the same company that issues Vanilla brand Visa gift cards (which are known to have problems at Walmart in denominations of $50 or more). Here are a few clarifications:
- Visa gift cards from GiftCards.com have PINs. The PIN is shown when you register your gift card online. You can, optionally, set your own PIN at that point as well. Visa gift cards from GiftCardMall, though, are sometimes fulfilled by Incentive Card Labs and come without PINs.
- Visa gift cards from GiftCards.com have been known to work fine as debit cards at Walmart (to load Bluebird, for example). However, there have been a few recent reader reports in which readers were unable to use the cards. It is unclear whether this was a temporary issue, an issue with the readers’ Bluebird or Serve cards, or a real issue with the Visa gift cards themselves (any additional reader data points would be welcome).
| Name / Link | Offer | Frequent Miler Notes: |
|---|---|---|
| Dollar Dig | You will receive a standard enrollment bonus, if any. We'll earn $2.50 once you have earned a total of $25 or more cash back. | We do not have much experience with this portal |
| iConsumer | Earn free shares shares of iConsumer stock (promotion details vary over time) | With this portal you earn both cash back and shares in the iConsumer business. Requires $25 payable before they'll pay out the cash back. |
| Simply Best Coupons | You will earn a $5 bonus after you register, and I’ll earn 5% of any cash back you earn, up to a maximum of $50. | I've had very good luck with this portal. |
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[…] Giftcards.com returned to some portals back in late February but for the most part the rates kind of sucked, or were with unknown portals. It’s nice to have the higher 1.5% rate back with a well known portal. Who knows if this will last or not. […]
iconsumer site shows it can not track Giftcards.com again for me. Does it happen to you?
Yes, I have the same problem with iConsumer when I try to order gift cards today. None of the other portal seems to be working for giftcards.com either today.
Don’t see giftcards.com on any portals either.
It’s back up on iconsumer – 1.5% cash back, with no expressed limit or restrictions beside the typical “purchases deemed inappropriate by the merchant may be reversed, resulting in no Cash Back rebate.”
Me too, a problem with loading Visa Gift Cards that I bought from Giftcards.com on Jan. 29.
1) My new SERVE One VIP account was opened after the “Jan.8 BB/SERVE Kill”;
2) Tried two RiteAid stores on Feb. 27, both failed loading one $500 VGC from Giftcards.com (the cashier told the funding failed so it was void. Later, I checked the balance on Giftcars.com, the transaction activity showed -$500, b/c failed funding and void, the balance remained $500.);
3) Then tried KATE machine on Mar. 4, Sat., failed again and no receipt. Worse, I checked the balance again on Giftcards.com, this time the $500 was gone, the transaction activity was not shown up right away, next Monday, I called Giftcards.com, the Rep. told that it might take 2-3 days to see the transaction activity and unable to tell how soon the $500 will be refunded to the card.
4) As of Mar.10, today, the transaction shows -$500 at Walmart, balance is still $0, I called Giftcards.com again, I was told that at least it takes 7 business days, weekend excluded so at least 10 days to see the money refunded. I’ll keep updated.
I hope it doesn’t happen to you. I know such risk is a part of MS.
Tom, thanks for the detailed cautionary info
So iConsumer has giftcards.com at 1.5% now (my guess is matching Yazing, but who knows). Anyway, has anyone received a payout yet from iConsumer? I just recently cleared $25 so I am curious. Thanks!
I don’t think iConsumer is old enough yet for people to have received payouts since it takes 90 days for rewards to become payable.
What is anyone’s take on Yazing? I feel pretty comfortable with iConsumer but now that they are down to .8% I am thinking that Yazing at 1.5% is intriguing. 1.5% back almost makes giftcards.com free with my Venture card but only if they are reliable and actually pay out. Any thoughts?
The Yazing Terms of Use have a part that reads: Yazing reserves the right to withold payments to any member who is fradulatnly using the platform, abusing or gaming the platform, or suspected of manufactured spending.
Fraudulently is grossly misspelled, so that isn’t exactly a vote of confidence. However, it appears to be the best option for cash back if you are trying to score VGC through giftcards.com. I’m willing to roll the dice. YMMV
Iconsumer is showing %.08 cash back
I made two purchases for VGCs through the iConsumer giftcards.com portal on 2/26. I got an email on 2/27 that confirmed my purchases and showed my cash back + stock in my shopping report on iconsumer.com. However, the cash back only calculates out to 1.2% of the purchase, not the 1.6% that they are advertising. I submitted a ticket to see if they explain why this is.
Also, they are advertising for double cash February for purchases made from 2/22 – 2/28 for qualifying purchases. I’ve tried to read into it but can’t tell if that is supposed to mean that I will receive double the cash I made already, for a total 3.2% (or 2.4% right now) return, or if it is already doubled. Any thoughts?
I got 1.2% too. I will submit a ticket later.
I got a response from my submitted ticket that they forwarded my ticket to their accounting department. Will see what happens.
iconsumer.com claimed that what they were showing earlier as 1.6% was a mistake, but were going to honor any purchases made when their site showed 1.6%. They dropped down to 0.8%.
I was also able to confirm that VGCs from giftcards.com will load to serve via CSR. No Problems.
Also saw that Yazing is down to 1.5%.
I am trying iconsumer.com with Giftcards.com {this week iconsumer has a double cash back promo but not sure if it is for Giftcards.com…}. Anyway – I completed the transaction yesterday and it shows my clicks in iconsumer.com. How long should I wait before the transaction appears in iconsumer.com ? I am concerned because few days back whenever we clicked giftcards.com from iconsumer it said that the transactions will not be tracked.
I’m with Aby. I would like to take advantage of the double cash back offer (essentially makes the gift cards free with my Venture card) but need to rack up over $25 in rebates before the end of the month.
Has anyone confirmed the cash back for giftcards.com for this new promo? I just purchased $500 today so we’ll see if it posts before end of month.
It usually takes about 24 hours until you get an email confirmation from iConsumer. I did get one for my Giftcards.com order from yesterday
I just got confirmation that iConsumer has recorded my purchase…here we go!
Great!
I actually had 3 orders 1k each from giftcardmall recently , believe or not they all came in as metabanks..
Yes, they send either Incentive Card Labs or Metabank.
Only the first two of my yazing orders tracked. After that I stopped getting emails of cashback.
That’s not good!
And if you’re unlucky enough to get one of the PINless variety, what’s the liquidation strategy then?
and even if you get one with a pin, I’m sooooo confused. Above, Greg, you reference walmart and then use the so unhelpful reference to bluebird ???
How the vast majority of us who no longer have the bluebird/serve options. Your compadre Shawn today is out depressed with all the recent methods of liquidating vgc’s that aren’t working…. and then soooo unhelpfully (and vaguely) mentions others that aren’t working. (and buying gc’s at wally world w/ vgc’s is apparently on the endangered list)
ah, posted that silly lament without editing….. then again, it’s a symptom of my general sense of malaise with ms. I’ve followed this site for several years, so I’m not, so to speak, a newbie….. but at the moment, I’m the proverbial deer caught in the headlight…. terrified of buying and being stuck with gc’s that I can’t even use for bill paying….. so much fear/confusion afoot. (and please don’t refer me to the flyertalk chaos)
No one is going to spoon feed you anymore. I think the bloggers have realized that pimping MS methods are getting them killed. They’ll give you the tools (i.e letting you know that portals are offering cash back on giftcards.com) but it’s up to you to figure out how to use them.
Did you read my posts about other prepaid reloadable cards? There are many options besides Bluebird and Serve. https://frequentmiler.com/reload-cards-with-free-bill-pay/
These are from Giftcards.com, not Giftcardmall.com. The two are different, and you’re thinking of the latter. There have never been any reports that cards from Giftcards.com are PIN-less.
You’re right. I misread. My bad.
As Arneal said, order from GiftCards.com not from GiftCardMall.com. That way you’ll get cards with PINs
Hello
I am trying to purchase gift cards from Giftcards.com and keyed in my Amex card. It is accepting an Amex card…
I went back to the emails and blogs where I thought there is an issue with using Amex card. Is it considered as a cash adv or something OR is it that the transaction will be cancelled ?
Kindly highlight.
Thanks
Aby
For a while, they removed the ability to add new Amex cards. If you had one previously saved, you could still use it, but they just wouldn’t let people use any new cards. So far as I know, there are no known reports of purchases being coded as cash advances, but I may be wrong.
I signed up on Yazing yesterday and ordered Visa Gift Cards from Giftcards.com yesterday through Yazing and received the following email today from Yazing.
——————————
Congratulations! You earned $49.83 from GiftCards.com!
Although we are still in the process of building our backend reporting system, rest assured we are keeping track of all the transactions and will pay out the funds directly to your email address on file via PayPal as soon as we have received payment from them. Typically within 30-60 days.
Thanks for using Yazing and congratulations on your earnings!
Adam
The virtual gift card limit is 250. But is it not difficult to liquidate virtual gift card?
Yes, that’s true. I didn’t mean to recommend virtual gift cards, I just thought it was interesting that some of the portals have stopped differentiating.
There is definitely a problem with loading VISA gift cards that I purchased about 3 weeks ago from giftcards.com. I tried two different KATE machines (two different stores), tried to use 3 different BB/Serve cards, tried to buy a MO and none of that worked at Walmart. Have to try Family Dollar I guess.
Thanks for that info. Maybe these cards are dead at Walmart. Anyone have success recently?
Bought $2k worth of MOs on Friday at Walmart with no issue.
And you paid with Giftcards.com Visas?
Unloaded $950 at Walmart last night.
AJ, Can you confirm that they were from giftcards.com?
I stand corrected. After calling GiftCards customer service it turned out my cards were not activated even though I’m pretty sure I activated them and their website told me they were activated. According to CSR it happens sometimes. Was able to load them to Bluebird at Walmart after that “second” activation.
Great! Thanks so much for following up.