Chime Offer Instant Cash Back on Amazon, some restaurants and more

Posted on December 8, 2015December 8, 2015 by admin

New Chime offer is available: $2 instant cash back for Amazon purchases. You can earn $2 cash back when you spend $2 or more. If you don’t know about Chime card, click here.

It’s a no-brainer because you can redeem it by purchasing $2 Amazon gift card. If you want to use Amazon GC for yourself, just reload GC to cut the step of opening an email and copy&paste a code.

There are also a few restaurant offers

Starbucks $1 instant cash back
Chick-fil-A $1 instant cash back
Panda Express $2 instant cash back

I remember I used Chime card and received cash back on Starbucks GC reload online. I checked the website today. The minimum for a reload is $10. 10%-discount on Starbuck GC is not really worth it. So, I will use it in-store by purchasing something cheap.

There are many other offers for cable and auto insurance companies, H&M, Express, J.Crew, and CVS. CVS offer is $2 cash back on $20 or more spent, but you don’t have to spend that much on merchandise because CVS gives you up to $40 cash back at the register.

$200 eBay Gift Card available at Target.com

Posted on December 5, 2015December 5, 2015 by admin

Target added $200 eBay gift card! They have been selling $25, $50, and $100 for quite a while. Now, $200 is the highest denomination available at Target.com. The limit is the same as other denominations, three ($200*3=$600) per day.

In my experience, the higher denomination gift cards are, the better, easier, and less stressful regarding eBay gift cards, especially when redeeming them. If you used eBay gift cards before, you might have the same problem. Sometimes, they won’t take multiple gift cards. Say you have four gift cards and want to use them all for eBay purchase. A total balance of four gift cards would completely cover the amount of the purchase. You apply one by one. GC#1, #2, #3 has been applied without problem. But, after you apply GC#4, GC#1-3 are erased. Even if you try to re-apply GC#1, it won’t take it anymore. An error message in a red letter says, “This coupon or code (xxxx) is invalid. You’re not able to use it with this payment.” However, if you remove GC#4, GC#1-3 come back again. Sometimes, I can apply as many as seven gift cards. Sometimes, I can’t apply as few as two gift cards. It just happens at random.

The problem has nothing to do with the $5000-limit of redemption in 180 days. If you change an order you apply those gift cards, it may be successful. If you log out and in again, it may work, too. But, anyway, it’s very frustrating. If you have a single gift card that has enough balance to cover, you won’t have the problem. The gift card will have some remaining balance, but you can use it for the next purchase with another large amount of gift card. In my experience, the fewer gift cards you use, the more unlikely the problem happens.

Bestbuy.com also sell eBay gift cards, but it’s only $25. I never bought from Best Buy, but probably shopping portal sites won’t pay cash back for GC purchases at bestbuy.com. If you have credit cards that offer bonus rewards for electric stores purchase such as Citi Dividend (Q4 category) or US Bank Cash+, you can earn 5% cash back. And Best buy gives 2% back in bestbuy’s reward. When you consider all of them, you might as well get 7% off eBay gift card, but remember that many $25 GCs may be going to give you the problem many times.

Staples.com has the same $200 eBay gift card. And if you have Chase ink or Amex SimplyCash, you can get 5% or 5x reward for purchases at office supply stores. It’s the same deal as eBay GC purchase with Target REDcard at Target. However, category bonus of ink or SimplyCash has the limit (apply to purchases up to$25,000 or $50,000 per year) while Target REDcard’s 5% discount is unlimited! Plus, with one trick at checkout, it’s possible to get 3 to 5% more discount at Target.com.

eBay gift card is the most versatile gift card if you ask me. You can use it for almost all items on eBay. You can buy other stores’ gift card with it. And some gift cards are difficult to get with a large discount from GC exchange sites. You can get those gift cards with at least 5% discount + 2% ebay bucks. (e.g. BestBuy, Staples, and even Target GCs.)

Earn Plenti Points for GC purchase at Rite Aid 11/29-12/5

Posted on November 29, 2015 by admin

Last week, I visited Rite Aid to redeem PayPal Prepaid payback rewards and earn Plenti points on GC purchases. That was my first time to earn Plenti points. I got $44 in Plenti point last week. They offered more, but the GCs I bought were for reselling purpose. I chose GCs that would make a profit after selling them to GC exchange sites. (I consider Plenti points as a discount.) Rite Aid weekly ad changes every Sunday. I checked it and found lots of GC deals this week, too. Click here to see weekly ad (GC deals are on page 7.)

Earn 1,000 points (worth $10) when you buy $50 of Applebee’s or IHOP GC, limit 2 offers
Earn 500 points when you buy 2 of Vanilla MasterCard GCs, limit 2 offers
Earn 500 points when you buy $25 of Kohl’s, Spa&Wellness, or Saks Fifth Avenue GC, limit 2 offers
Earn 500 points when you buy $25 of Netflix, GameStop, or Harley-Davidson GC, limit 2 offers
Earn 500 Points when you buy $25.00 of Google Play GC, limit 2 offers
Earn 1,000 points when you buy $50 of Sears, Bass Pro Shops, or Cracker Barrel GC, limit 2 offers

I checked resale value of each gift card at giftcardgranny.com. And I decided to buy Saks Fifth Avenue, GameStop, and Sears GCs. Last week, I bought Saks Fifth Avenue GC on eBay. It was an e-code from paypal _digital_gifts. Giftcard Zen accepted e-code without reducing payment unlike ABC gift cards or Cardpool. I already sold it to them. This time, they are going to be physical GCs. So, I don’t have to worry about such things.

Vanilla MasterCard GC deal is not good for me. First of all, you have to buy two cards to receive 500 Plenti points. I don’t know exactly how much a purchase fee of the smallest denomination GC is, but I believe that 500 points (=$5) won’t cover purchase fee of two GCs. If you have a credit card that offers a high reward for drugstore’s purchase, it may be worth it. Second, probably Vanilla MasterCard can’t be used for Serve reload at Walmart or even Family Dollar. In my experience, I tried to load Serve at FD, using $100 MasterCard GC from Target, and it didn’t work. Click here to see details. So, I had to use a bunch of MasterCard GCs for regular purchases. Reportedly, Walmart accepts $49.99 reload with Vanilla Visa GCs, but it’s not sure for MasterCard GCs. In general, MasterCard GCs are more problematic than Visa GCs.

Earned Plenti points are used for future purchase at Rite Aid. You can redeem them at Macy’s, Exxon/Mobile, and AT&T, too!

10% PayPal Prepaid Payback Rewards for Rite-Aid purchase

Posted on November 22, 2015November 28, 2015 by admin

paypal prepaid cash back rite aid I received a new PayPal Prepaid MasterCard’s offer for Rite-aid. This is the first offer I got for a drugstore. I don’t usually go to Rite-Aid. So, I don’t know much about selection of gift cards, maximum cash back with a purchase, or if there is a self-checkout lane. Now that I got the offer, it’s a good time to check them all. Here is a description of Rite-aid offer. (If you don’t know about PayPal Prepaid MasterCard, please read this first.)

Earn 10% Cash Back on your Rite Aid or RiteAid.com purchase, with a $10.00 Cash Back maximum. Offer valid one time only. Offer expires 12/10/2015. Offer not valid on prescription purchases, tobacco, alcohol, lottery, gift cards, cigarettes, licenses, money orders, money transfers, prepaid cards, stamps, or other mail services.

It says, “offer not valid …. gift cards …. prepaid cards.” But, I doubt that they can tell if you buy gift cards or prepaid cards because transaction history shows the only amount, date, and place. Here is an example, a transaction at Walmart.

Most of the amount is cash back, but the history doesn’t show that. Besides, I have received the Kmart rewards in that way.

Here is my plan. First, find out how much I can get cash back at a register. I will make a small purchase with other debit cards. I have many reloadable prepaid cards to liquidate, WM money card, GoBank, Mango, etc. PIN pad shows how much you can ask for cash back. The largest amount a PIN pad shows, I will consider it as maximum amount although you may press “other” and ask for more. And then, pick a gift card and choose an amount that will be at least $100 when it is added maximum cash back.

In this way, I will be able to get more than 10% cash back deal! I hope things are going well.

Update 11/23/2015, my in-store purchase of third party gift card successfully reflected towards payback rewards!

They have a great selection of gift cards, department stores, gas, eBay, Target, etc. My first plan was to find out how much I can get cash back at the register by using the other debit card. But thanks to R’s comment, I assumed it was $40 and skipped this step. I picked up variable Target GC and asked to load $60. PIN pad showed $10, $20, and $40 for cash back, and I pressed $40.

I happened to know that they offered Plenti points for the purchase of some gift cards this week. If you consider earned Plenti points as a cashback or discount, you can make a profit by reselling. For example, GCs of Nike, Chili’s, and Carte&Barrel will do. I have earned $44 in Plenti points that can be redeemed for the future purchase at Macy’s, Rite Aid, Exxon, Mobile, etc. This is my first time to buy gift cards at Rite Aid. I didn’t know they offered such great deals. And I don’t know how often they do, but I should check their weekly ad from now on.

Citi Smart Savings – Citi launched a new reward program

Posted on November 20, 2015November 20, 2015 by admin

Citi starts a new reward program, and one of my credit cards (Citi Dividend) is eligible. It’s called Citi Smart Savings. It’s like Amex Offer. You will earn a certain amount of statement credit when you use the card at a merchant specified by each offer. For starters, there are five offers available for my credit card.

Except for Starbucks, the offers are identical to my BankAmeri Deals and PayPal Prepaid Payback Rewards. I believe Sears’ offer is great for most people because they sell Visa gift cards. $200 Visa gift cards are sold with $6.95 purchase fee. When you buy two VGCs, you can make a profit, $35.00-$6.95*2=$21.10!

A type of reward is statement credit, not cash back or Dividend Dollars. So, it doesn’t count towards the $300-cashback-annual limit.

Like other rewards programs, you need to add the offer you want before using the cards. I already bought VGCs. Just like Amex Offer, a confirmation email was sent right after the transaction.

Starbucks offer appears great, but it only offers $4 max. To redeem this offer, I set up Auto-Reload as terms stated. For this offer, it took a little while, but I received a confirmation email as well. I think I can cancel Auto-Reload now, but I will leave it for a week just in case.

I hope more and more offers will be available soon.

Recent AmexGC purchases via TopCashback

Posted on November 19, 2015November 19, 2015 by admin

TopCashback has canceled cashback on my two transactions made at the end of October. Both orders were (5) $200 GCs with a promo code that waive $3.95 purchase fee (of all GCs).

On the other hand, I made four transactions of a single $200 GC with a promo code at the beginning of October. These are for redeeming Amex Offer ($10 statement credit for the purchase $200 or more Amex GCs.) Each cashback for these four transactions is confirmed.

I’m not sure of the reason for cancellation of cashback. Did the promo code cause it? If so, why were four transactions eligible for cashback? Did purchasing a large amount cause it although a denomination of each card was $200?

In either way, the cashback deal on Amex GC purchase is over. No promo code, no deal. 1.5% cashback doesn’t even cover a $3.95 purchase fee. Even if a promo code works, but you need to buy only one $200 at a time, you will have to make so many transactions. And I believe that Amex doesn’t want you to do that, either.

I made the same transaction ($200 x 5 with promo code) on November 9th. There is pending cashback for this purchase, but it will be canceled in a few days, I guess.

Target Secret Freebies via TopCashback (new members only)

Posted on November 19, 2015November 19, 2015 by admin

TopCashback offers $18.99 cash back for Minions Blu-ray DVD pre-order at Target.com. The item is currently priced at $18.99, and Target offers free shipping and free $5 Target gift card with this order.

Please note that cashback deal is for new TopCashback member only. And, the item is pre-order. It will be released and shipped on December 8th, 2015.

To receive $18.99 cash back, you have to make a transaction that contains ONLY ONE Minions Blu-ray DVD. If you buy multiple quantities or other items with the same transaction, cash back will be 1% or even 0%.

Cashback offer is valid until 23:59 PT on Friday, November 20, 2015, or stock runs out. They also mention that you have to act fast because the price may change.

If you have never used TopCashback and also want this DVD for free, create TopCashBack account and then click here.

Shop Your Way Rewards – Extra VIP Choice Benefit between 12/1/15-12/31/15

Posted on November 17, 2015November 17, 2015 by admin

I received a letter from Shop Your Way. It says that there will be another VIP Choice Benefit in December. SYW offers VIP Choice Benefit every quarter. I have already redeemed 4th quarters’, but they offer another one for December.

VIP Choice Benefit is a special deal for VIP members available every quarter. VIP members can choose one of the high-value coupons and redeem. Here are some examples from 3rd quarter of this year.

To receive extra VIP Choice Benefit, I will need to go to Sears and make a purchase between 6 and 9 pm on November 22nd. The letter doesn’t mention about minimum or eligible/excluded items. Probably, it’s only important to take this letter and have it scanned at that time. Here is the letter.

They call it “VIP Member Exclusive Invitation – Members Private Night.”

I won’t be able to see Extra VIP Choice Benefits until December. I hope they will be as good as regular ones (offered quarterly.)

If you want to know more about Shop Your Way Rewards, click here.

PayPal Prepaid MasterCard Rewards Dos and Don’ts

Posted on November 6, 2015November 18, 2015 by admin

This is about my TERRIBLE experience with customer support of PayPal Prepaid MasterCard. I needed to contact them because some of my purchases didn’t reflect towards cashback rewards correctly. There were two offers involved with the problem.

First, it is Kmart. They offered 5% cash back, up to $10 for purchase at Kmart, in store only. The previous one was only a one-time deal, but the offer from last month allowed you to make multiple transactions. I made several transactions at Kmart that sums up more than $200. However, some transactions didn’t count for cash back, and the website didn’t show pending cash back. I sent a message to customer support through the website. Misunderstandings made me send extra&extra messages until I got them to understand the problem. Their responses were quick. I thought they were reliable at least at that time. It concluded that they asked me to wait for the next statement to close. Pending cash back rewards show up a few days after the transaction, but they are actually credited at the end of the following month. They wanted me to wait until then.

Time passed. With no surprise, missing cash back wasn’t credited to my account. So, I sent a message again.

I made three transactions at Kmart in September. Those transactions were made during cashback rewards promotion. One of the transactions reflected towards the promotion, and cash back for this transaction was posted my account at the end of this month. But other two transactions were not. Last month, I already noticed this and contacted to customer service. And I was told to wait until the end of the following month and contact you again if cash back was actually not credited. Now, I can see that cash back for two transactions didn’t credit to my account. Please check.

They always responded in time, which it is shown in their website (within 48 hours.) But, that’s all good thing about them. The first email says, “Congratulations, you earned the rewards, and they are successfully posted to your account.” I replied and specified the problem. The second email says the same thing. I gave up resolving via email and called the customer service. I called, but I couldn’t even get him to understand the problem. He just kept saying my account balance, and amount cash back posted, etc. He never tried to understand the problem. After around 10 minutes of talking, all of sudden, my call went back to answering machine (which I came from before reaching to rep, like press 1 for the balance, press 2 for…..) I proceeded and then reached to the next rep, but no luck. After speaking with the second rep for about 10 mins, it went back to the answering machine again. There was no resolution. I believe the second rep didn’t understand the problem, either.

There was the same problem for Sears cash back promotion. They offered 10% back for the purchase at Sears, up to $45. I bought two $200 Visa gift cards and one $40 Sears gift card. A cashier needed to separate the transaction for some reason. So, there were two transactions, $413.90 and $40. The first one ($413.90) was tracked, pending cash back ($41.39) showed up. But, the second one ($40) didn’t. I sent an email to customer service last month, and their answer was the same as one for Kmart. (The problems happened to my two different PP prepaid cards.)

I sent email, but the responses were similar. I didn’t bother to call again. It was very frustrating. What I didn’t receive was only $8.11. It seems I need to give up because the customer service is not helpful, or they are so stupid that they can’t do a very simple calculation.

While I was trying to resolve the problem, another Sears and Kmart offers showed up! These are very good offers, but I will have to avoid the same problem as I just experienced. As long as I redeemed an offer with a single transaction, I have never had the problem. And I found the pattern which transaction would be potentially the problem.

Kmart (5% Cash Back on all of your Kmart purchases until a $10.00 Cash Back maximum, EXP 9/20)

08/29 — $40.00 — $2 cash back posted
09/01 — $70.00 — $3.50 cash back posted
09/12 — $40.00 — No cash back
09/12 — $40.00 — No cash back

Sears (10% Cash Back on all of your Sears purchases until a $45.00 Cash Back maximum, EXP 9/20)

09/01 — $413.90 — $41.39 cash back posted
09/01 — $40.00 — No cash back posted

As you see, the first transactions of each month have no problem. If you make multiple transactions in the same month, second, third, and later transactions won’t be tracked for cash back rewards. I guess this is it. It was a technical problem. And, maybe it will happen if I make multiple transactions in a month. So this time, I will redeem the current offers with a single transaction.

One more thing

I had a discovery about cashback rewards. For the first time, I got cash back reward for the online purchase without click a link of PP Prepaid website. There is a clickable link for each offer. When you click, the following message pops up.

It says “may not”, not “will not.” So, with a hope of receiving both cash back from portal and PP prepaid, I clicked a link of shopping portal site instead. I have tried the same thing before for 1800flowers’ purchase. For that offer, it wasn’t successful. So, I didn’t expect much this time, but as long as they say “may not”, it’s worth a try for other stores’ offers. I tried this for the offer of 10% back Advance Auto Parts (up to $10). And this time, it was successful. Of course, they are not yet confirmed and possible to be canceled. But for now, there are pending cash back in PP Prepaid website, and I received an email from a shopping portal site.

Here are the details of the offers

Kmart – 10% Cash Back on all of your Kmart purchases until a $20.00 Cash Back maximum is reached, in-store only

Sears – 10% Cash Back on your Sears purchases until a $35.00 Cash Back maximum is reached, in-store and online

I have three cards, Kmart offers are available on all cards. Sears offer is available on my oldest card only. I wonder what is the requirement for receiving Sears offer. There are many other offers, Restaurants, Sports Authority, Auto Zone, Peapod by Stop & Shop, etc.

If you’d like to know other benefits of PayPal Prepaid MasterCard, click here.

Re-apply for GD products after shutdown

Posted on November 4, 2015December 5, 2015 by admin

I used to have Walmart MoneyCard Preferred. That was a very useful tool for MS. However; it was shut down after a series of bill pays. Probably, a large amount of loads and withdrawals (bill pays) in a short time caused it. Actually, they didn’t shut down completely. My account still exists, but they restricted main features. I can’t load in any methods, and I can’t pay bills, either. All I can do is spend. Since I can’t load, they stop charging a monthly fee. After I used the remaining balance, I can’t do anything with it. It’s practically a shutdown. (click here to see details)

They didn’t give me a single warning. I received an email, and it told me to call the number on the back of the card. I called and was told about these restrictions by answering machine. It also said, “You are no longer able to open a new card with us.” I don’t know if “a new card” meant a new Walmart MoneyCard or all of GD products. But, recently, I had a chance to get a new phone with a new number, I decided to apply for their products.

First, I applied for GoBank. My name, address, and SSN is the same. I used a different email address. And, I tried to use a new mobile phone number, but they don’t recognize the number somehow (maybe because it’s too new?) So, I ended up using the same phone number that is attached to a dead WM moneycard. That’s to say, I used almost all the same information as I used for WM moneycard. However, I successfully opened up a GoBank account.

GoBank has almost the same features as Walmart MoneyCard, but its monthly fee is expensive $8.95. It can be waived by making qualifying direct deposits totaling at least $500. But I’m not sure if transferring from my bank account or PayPal account is qualified for it. I will try one by one. If none of them are qualified, I will close the account because the fee is very expensive.

Here are things I’ve done so far. I entered GoBank as an external account to my two bank accounts and PayPal account. They put trial deposits and those transactions are categorized as direct deposit. A question is “are they qualified for waiving a monthly fee?” I made $500 transfer from my bank account today. It will be answered in a month. And, it’s been a week, I haven’t received a personalized card yet.

Update 12/5/2015, I checked transaction history and found that $8.95 membership fee was waived. It means that a simple $500 transfer from my main bank account was counted as qualified direct deposit!

Next, WM moneycard. When I applied for the first one, I was able to do that online. But now, online application is for Basic version only. So, I went to Walmart and bought a starter kit. A starter kit costs $4, and you need to make an initial load at least $20. They accept only cash or debit card for that purchase. You don’t need to give any personal information at that time. All I could find were MasterCard version. I purchased one. So, my second card would be a MasterCard version (if everything goes well.) My first one was Visa version. It may be better that it’s different from the first one.

Then, I went home and tried to activate (apply for a personalized card.) My name, address, and SSN are the same. I used a different email address and a new mobile phone number (it was recognized by them.) I successfully open up a new account. A week later, I received a personalized card and then activated it. A monthly fee is $3. It’s waived if you load at least $500. Unlike GoBank, it’s not limited to direct deposit. In-store load at Walmart can waive the monthly fee as long as you load at least $500 in total.

To Avoid a Shutdown

In order to keep these cards alive, I will have to use them carefully. I believe a couple of large credit cards’ bills pulled a trigger of the shutdown to my first card. So, I won’t use Bill Pay feature anymore. And reportedly, GD doesn’t like multiple loads on the same day, for example, five loads with five $200 VGCs. I won’t do that, either. I will unload the cards by regular spending. Since they are PIN-enabled debit cards, I can get cash back at a register. If a store has a self-checkout lane, it’s comfortable to do so. For example, my local WMs have ones, and they can dispense up to $100 cash back with purchase.

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