New Simon Spend Card: $250 Visa Gift Card With $6.95 Fee (But Easier Liquidation Options)

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Simon Mall is launching a new type of Visa gift card tomorrow (July 1) called the Simon Spend Card. At first glance it doesn’t look too appealing due to the lower maximum load value and higher purchase fee, but it might prove to be useful for some people due to the easier liquidation options compared to other Simon Visa gift cards.

Simon Spend Card

The maximum load value of the Simon Spend Card is $250 and the purchase fee is $6.95 which means the fee works out to be 2.78% of the card value. That’s very high, especially seeing as that’s before you take into account any kind of liquidation costs. For comparison, the $5.95 purchase fee on a $500 variable load card from a grocery store is 1.19% of the card’s value, while the $3.95 fee on a $1,000 Simon Visa gift card is only 0.4%.

It’s liquidation though which is where this card is a little more enticing. The $1,000 Visa gift cards that Simon Mall sells are issued by MetaBank. Those cards have become harder to liquidate over the past year as many large grocery chains have hard coded their systems to not allow you to buy money orders with them. The Spend Card is different because even though it too is issued by MetaBank, Simon has confirmed that the card isn’t blocked and so will be accepted at grocery stores and big-box retailers.

This card can be purchased from July 1 at simon.com/volume which hopefully means that it’ll be eligible for the regular promotions Simon runs where they offer up to 50% off purchase and shipping fees. That could make the economics of this card a little more worthwhile, particularly if you’re trying to hit the minimum spend requirement on a card that requires a lot of spend and you’re out of other options. Just remember that American Express doesn’t offer any points/miles for gift card purchases at Simon Mall even when you’re not working on a minimum spend requirement, so there’s no point in buying these with Amex cards.

I imagine though that for most people wanting to buy Visa gift cards, this card will be a last resort rather than a first choice.

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