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$50 PayPal Business Debit MasterCard Promotional Credit Received

Today, I received an confirmation email that I earned $50 PayPal credit of this promotion. The terms of the promotion was simple. Use PayPal Business Debit MasterCard (PPBD) for purchases of more than $5000 between around end of September and November 15th. Only signature purchases are eligible for the promotion.

I’ve spent at least $5000 during the promo period, but an amount I actually spent for *normal* purchases is $1500 or so. For the rest of it, I used for online reloads to American Express Serve and Chime Prepaid Card. I’ve reloaded Serve for $1000 each in Oct and Nov. And for 15 days from the beginning of this promo, I load Chime Prepaid card  for $100 each day. Back then, Chime didn’t charge a fee for reloading the card with PPBD. But after Oct 8th, they charge 3% fee. I haven’t been using PPBD for Chime reloads since then.

By only online reloads to Serve and Chime, I would earn $30 credit by online reloads. So, $1500 is a spending to get extra $20 credit. It is like 1.3333% cash back. It doesn’t sound great, but you can also earn 1% of PPBD’s regular cash back.

And, since I set PayPal Extras MasterCard credit card as funding source of PPBD, I also earned 1500 points (worth $12.50 for cash back=0.83%, $15 for gift card on sale=1%.)

What’s more? What I bought was $2000 American Express Gift Card. Topcashback offered 3% cash back for AmEx GCs at that time.

Considering all cash back, this was a very good offer. But I haven’t seen any other offers from PPBD. Unlike PPBD, PayPal Extras MasterCard credit card often sends me special offers, such as “Get $10 free GC for $50 or more purchase on eBay” and “Earn 3 x $10 statement credit for $50 or more purchase on eBay.” You can easily redeem these offers by purchasing GCs from the sellers “giftcardmall” or “paypal_digital_gifts.”

MoneyPak and Vanilla Reload Pack will end

I received an email today. It is from American Express Serve.

Hello,

We are writing to inform you of a change to the terms and conditions of your American Express Serve® Account. Please review the change below:

Beginning February 1, 2015, MoneyPak® will no longer be available for purchase. Beginning April 1, 2015, Vanilla® Reload PIN will no longer be available to purchase. However, you can still easily add cash* to your Serve® Account directly at the register using Vanilla® Reload Swipe Load.

You can still add money to your account in many other convenient ways including Direct Deposit and free cash reloads at the register at 27,000 CVS/pharmacy®, Family Dollar®, Walmart® and participating 7-ELEVEN® locations. Click here to learn more.

You can review this change in the Consumer User Agreement here.
Thank You,

The American Express Serve Team

MoneyPak and Vanilla Reload PIN are reload packs. You purchase and add money to them at stores. And then you can reload your prepaid cards online. These products have existed for a long time, and they are also well-known that they are used for frauds and scams by crooks, especially MoneyPak. I believe they will stop selling their products due to such activities by crooks, not manufactured spending.

These changes won’t be any impact on me because I simply don’t buy them. Since they charge lower fees than Visa/MasterCard/AmEx GCs do, they are better items for MS. But I just can’t find stores that allow to use credit cards for purchases. Besides, I will close Serve account in a few days in order to register Redbird.

As the email says, it seems that you can still add money by using Vanilla Reload Swipe Load even after April 1, 2015. As far as I know, a store that currently use VR Swipe Load is Family Dollar. They don’t sell VR PIN since they started using VR Swipe Load. The question is “Will the stores currently selling VR PIN be using VR Swipe Load after or by April 1, 2015?”

And the point is that whether stores will allow to use debit cards for reloads or not. I have visited 8 Family Dollar stores in my neighborhood and tried to use Visa GCs for reloading Serve. Half of them allowed, and the other half refused and said “Cash Only.” From this example, when other stores start using VR Swipe Load, you will need to make sure if your local stores allow to swipe not only cards to be loaded, but also cards to pay.

However, I don’t really care now. Again, I will close Serve and open Redbird soon. Redbird can be reloaded only at Target stores. My last transaction of Serve (withdrawing the remaining balance to my bank account) was completed. But I don’t see the same transaction in my bank account yet. Just in case, I will wait until this transaction shows up in my bank account.

Temporary Prepaid REDcard arrived, Closing Serve Account

temporary prepaid redcard packageI received my eBay order today. It is a temporary version of Target Prepaid REDcard (AKA Redbird.) In the package, there is a temp card and folded paper written of cardholder agreement. A card number and a security code of temp card are covered with tape. With the numbers, you can register for a permanent card.

temporary prepaid redcard

But first, I have to close Serve account because AmEx doesn’t allow to have both cards at the same time.

Before closing the account, take advantage of Serve for the last time. Redbird can’t connect to Amex Offer. Redeem all offers you are interested while you have Serve. And, remember you have to make sure that statement credit is posted.

Use another advantage of Serve, $200 x 5 online reloads with credit card. It will be the last online-reload with credit card, which is very easy and comfortable MS that AmEx officially allows. Reload online $1000 with debit card as well. I think I will be able to reload another $1000 to Redbird in the same month. So, it may be the total $2000 reload online with debit card only this month.

When you close an account, you need to make the balance down to zero. It will be easily done by paying bills and withdrawing to bank account. But, remember it takes days for these transactions to complete.

When I order a temp card on eBay, I had already done 0nline-reloads and Amex Offers, but there was one pending transaction that I canceled the order at Newegg.com. It took more than a week to be cleared. After it had been cleared, I withdrew the remaining balance to my bank account. Now, I am waiting for that transaction to complete.

Check and double-check all of these. Close an account by clicking “Close Account” located at the all the way bottom in Profile page when everything is good. Otherwise, you can’t close. You will see this page.

closing serve

Target Prepaid REDcard through eBay

I have been waiting so long for Target Prepaid REDcard (AKA Redbird) to show up at Target stores in the state (NY) where I live. However, there have been no sign of it. I asked store clerks several times, but they don’t even know its existence.

Since I don’t have family or friends in states where Redbird is available for purchase, I was just waiting, but I can’t wait anymore. I ordered a temporary card on eBay.

I’ve read and re-read all posts related to Redbird in Frequentmiler’s blog. According to the posts, it doesn’t matter if the information of the purchaser and a person who register don’t match so you can ask someone to buy a temp card for you. When you active (buy) a temporary card, you give your name, address, BOD, and SSN to Target. They check your ID. So, name, address, and BOD are supposed to be real, but SSN isn’t. I guess all eBay sellers use made-up SSNs when they activate temporary cards.

There are some different types of listings. Some sellers sell non-activated temp cards. The prices of non-activated cards are around $10 less than activated ones. If you order these cards, you will need to activate at Target store for yourself. And reportedly, there are some cases where temp cards may not be activated in states where Redbird is not available. Besides, I wonder how they got those cards. I don’t think they got them in the right way. You’d better avoid dealing with them. And also, there are sellers who lists temp cards that have been activated and loaded only a penny! I just don’t want to deal with such people.

The card I ordered is a temporary card that has been activated and loaded $1. The seller offers an option to send pictures of front and back of temp card via email so I could register online right after a check-out. I asked a physical card in the package to be sent by mail, though. One of the reasons for that is I have never seen the package other than ones in pictures. I just want to see it and touch it and open it. The other reason is that I can’t close Serve account right now. Recently, there are many good Amex Offers. I rushed to redeem all good offers, but statement credit from some offers hasn’t been posted yet. Even if I get information of temp card via email, I won’t be able to register right now.

Advantages of Serve

Both Serve and Redbird can reload in-store up to $5000 per month and online reload with debit cards up to $1000 per month. However, Serve has an advantage over Redbird by $1000 online reloads with credit card. And Serve can sync up with Amex Offers, but Redbird can’t.

Advantages of Redbird

Conversely, the advantage of Redbird over Serve is you can receive instant 5% discount for purchases at Target. And Target currently allows any types of payment for in-store reloads. 5%-discount alone isn’t great because I already have REDcard debit. But you can add money with reward credit cards and then use the card for 5% discount. That means you can get more than 5% discount for Target purchases.

When I compare each advantage, Redbird is more beneficial to me than Serve. There are several Target stores in my neighborhood, and I shop there very often. As for Walmart, it is not far away but further than Target, and I buy something there only when I visit for reloading Serve.

There is a couple of other reasons that I chose Redbird over Serve. I don’t buy less Visa GCs than I used to. The source of Visa GCs was mainly staples.com. I used Chase ink Cash credit card for those purchases to maximize the rewards. Chase ink Cash offers 5% cash back for purchases at office supply stores up to $25000 annually. It is unlikely for me to use that much for merchandises. So, I used to buy Visa GCs from time to time. However, I don’t need anymore since Staples started selling eBay GCs. eBay is a great place to buy discounted GCs. I spend a lot for discounted GCs on eBay.

Here is another reason. Before eBay GCs showed up at retail stores, I had been using AmEx GCs for eBay purchases. When I buy AmEx GC, I earn credit card reward and cashback from shopping portal. But AmEx GCs spending slowdown now because of eBay GCs. Redbird would recover the spending speed of AmEx GCs or rather boost up by reloading Redbird with AmEx GCs.

Summery

There are two types of listing of Redbird on eBay.

  • Non-activatedSellers will send you an unopened package, which is exactly in the same condition hanged on GC racks in Target stores. You will need to take it to Target store and have it activated. As some sellers say in listing pages, you may have trouble activating it at the store where Redbird isn’t for sale.
  • Activated & Loaded: Sellers purchased at their local Target stores and had them activated. Temp cards are loaded at least $0.01. Shipping options vary from one seller to another. Some sellers send the whole package to you, and some sellers send you photos of temp cards. There are also sellers who let you choose one between these two options.

Third Party Gift Cards at Newegg.com

There is a new Amex Offer for Newegg. “Earn $25 statement credit on $200 or more purchase at Newegg.com, Limit 1 per card.” I frequently shop at Newegg, but buy only free-after-rebate items. Usually, they don’t add up more than $200 because free-after-rebates are very timely and don’t exist many of them at the same time. So, I decided to buy Newegg Gift Card. I entered the website and click “Gift Cards” tab. Then I got to know that Newegg sells third-party gift cards.

3rd party gift cards at newegg

Here is a list of gift cards

  • 1-800-Flowers
  • 1800PetSupplies
  • 2K GAMES
  • Activision
  • Aeropostale
  • AMC Network Entertainment
  • American Airlines
  • American Eagle Outfitters
  • Applebee’s
  • AT&T
  • Barnes & Noble
  • Bass Pro
  • Bath & Body Works
  • BedandBreakfast
  • Belk Inc.
  • Black Angus steakhouse
  • Brinker International
  • Brookstone
  • BUCA, Inc.
  • Build A Bear Workshop
  • Burger King
  • Burlington Coat Factory
  • Cabela’s Inc.
  • Callaway Golf
  • Carnival Cruise Lines
  • Celebrity Cruises
  • Claim Jumper
  • Columbia
  • CVS
  • Deep Silver Inc.
  • Disney Club Penguin
  • Domino’s
  • Electronic Arts
  • Fairway Rewards
  • Foot Locker
  • FragranceNet
  • Gap Inc.
  • Gilt
  • Golfsmith
  • Great American Days
  • Groupon
  • Hibbett Sports
  • Hulu
  • Hyatt Corporation
  • IHOP
  • IMVU
  • Jagex Ltd.
  • JCPENNEY
  • Kmart
  • Kohl’s
  • Landry’s, Inc
  • Lands’ End
  • Lobster Gram
  • Maggiano’s Little Italy
  • McCormick & Schmick’s
  • Microsoft
  • NASCAR
  • NetDragon Websoft Inc
  • Newegg
  • Nexon
  • NFL
  • Omaha Steaks International
  • Overstock
  • Papa John’s
  • PlayStation
  • Pro Am Golf
  • Rain Forest Cafe
  • Red Robin
  • Regal Entertainment Group
  • Rixty Inc
  • Roblox
  • Royal Caribbean
  • Shutterfly
  • Skype
  • Spa Week
  • Sports Authority
  • Steak’n Shake
  • TGI Friday’s
  • Timberland
  • Ubisoft
  • Warner Brothers
  • Westgate Resorts
  • Wine.com
  • Zappos.com
  • Zeevex

It seems that all of them are e-gift cards (email delivery) except for Newegg GC (there are both physical and electrical Newegg GCs.)

While browsing gift cards, I happened to see this deal. “Free $5 Newegg promotional GC on $25 physical GC purchase, limit 1.” The deal is for a physical GC purchase only and costs you $1.99 for shipping.

free 5 promo gc on 25 gc at newegg

I added $25 Newegg GC and $25/$50/$100 Kmart GC (email delivery) to the cart and checked out. The total is $201.99, which is eligible for Amex Offer.

Online shopping portal sites don’t offer great cashback on Newegg purchases. But it’s good to know that Newegg sells third-party GCs, and it’s useful when Amex Offer and other similar deals are available.

Updated: Newegg charged this transaction separately ($26.99 for Newegg GC and $175 for Kmart GC.) It’s been hours since I placed an order, but I haven’t received Kmart e-GC. So, I canceled them. Then I made an order of $200 Newegg e-GC. You can choose from $10 to $2500. I purchased one $200 e-GC so there is no way to separate the transaction this time.

Cyber Week Gift Card Deals on eBay

In this cyber week, there are a lot of gift card deals on eBay. Even if a deal is not for the card for stores you are not really interested, just buy the cards and sell them to gift card exchange sites, and you can make a little money.

For example, Gap. This week, eBay sells $100 Gap gift card (email delivery) for $80. Limit to 2 per person. It is 20% discount deal!. Gap gift card is relatively popular. So, you can expect a good price for sale.

You can check the price and find the best offer at giftcardgranny.com. When I typed “gap” in the search box, there were four hits, “Baby Gap” “Gap” “Gap Kids” and “Gap Option.” You can use all these gift cards at Gap. It’s very interesting that they deal with them separately and offer different prices.

The best rate is 82.5% from Monster Gift Card for selling “Gap” gift card. There is one problem, though. They don’t accept e-gift card (e-code). To work around this, you may need to find the sites that allow you to sell e-codes. Cardpool, ABC Gift Cards, and GifCards accept e-codes of selected stores. While Cardpool and ABC Gift Cards accept e-codes at less price by 5% (of face value of GCs), GiftCards offer the same price as physical GCs. The rate of GiftCards for Gap GC is 80.5%.

If you sell two $100 e-gift cards, the profit will be only $1. It would be OK, considering eBay Bucks you earned and cash back or reward from credit card that links to your PayPal account. I used eBay GCs for Gap e-gift cards purchase, which I bought with 10% discount earlier. However, I’d like to make the maximum profit.

From my experience, the store’s GCs, which the sites (Cardpool, ABC Gift Cards, or GiftCards) accept both physical and electrical GCs, may have special features. For examples, you can combine all Target GCs with mobile app. You can also consolidate Best Buy GCs by purchasing a brand new Best Buy GC. And it works with Gap GCs as well.

Gap GCs can be redeemed at not only Gap but also Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime, Athleta. It means you can buy other store’s GCs with Gap e-codes. So, I needed to go back to giftcardgranny.com and check the rate again.

  • Gap 82.5% Monster Gift Card
  • Old Navy 82% Monster Gift Card
  • Banana Republic 81.5% Monster Gift Card
  • Piperlime 80% Monster Gift Card, Junkcard, Cardpool, ABC Gift Cards, Gift Card Zen
  • Athleta 80.5% GiftCards

After all, Monster Gift Card’s 82.5% for Gap GC is the best. I went to gap.com and checked out a $200 Gap GC. This comes with a decent gift card case.

gap gift card with case

I bought $200 GC for $160 on eBay and sold for $165. I paid $160 with eBay GC that I bought with 10% discount. The total profit is at least $21. Plus, eBay Bucks and you may have earned cash back from a shopping portal site for e-code purchase on eBay. And you may also find a portal site that pays out cash back for Gap GC purchases at gap.com, but don’t abuse on this one.

eBay Gift Card at Toys R Us

There is a new Amex Offer “$5 back on $25 or more purchase at Toys R Us.” It’s in-store only. So, I went to the store with the hope that I’d be able to find amazon-kindle GCs. I had no luck with amazon-kindle GCs but found much better one there, eBay Gift Card.

ebay gift card at toys r us

I wonder how long they have been on the gift card rack at Toys R Us. I went other two stores and found there, too. The denomination is $25 and $50. There are also Shell, Sears, etc.

eBay GCs recently reappeared in retail stores. Toys R Us wasn’t in the list of retailers and is still not. It’s a proof that retailers on the list are not all the retailers that sell eBay GCs. From now on, I should check carefully what GCs each retailer has, especially retailers that credit cards offer bonus reward on purchases.

The purchase at Toys R Us is currently qualified for many bonus offers.

Amex Offer

There is another Amex Offer, “$15 back on $75 or more purchase at toysrus.com.” This offer is valid online only. They don’t sell third-party gift cards online but sell their own GCs. You can redeem the offer by purchasing Toys R Us GCs. They offer free shipping with purchases $49 or more. Reportedly, the store allows you to use GCs for the purchase of other GCs in store. I’ve got to go check for myself if my local stores allow this transaction.

Citi Dividend Q4 Rotating Category

Citi credit card, Dividend, offer 5% cash back in each quarter. 4th quarter is eligible for purchases at Best Buy, Department Stores, and Toy Stores. Its cash back is limited to $300 per year. I have earned around $250 so far. So, I can still earn around $50 this year by spending $1000 at Toys R Us.

Fuel Rewards Network MasterCard Promo

Through 03/01/2015, Fuel Rewards Network offers 20¢/gal discount on every $100 purchase at Toys R Us (equivalent to 4% cash back, see details here.) I bought one $100 Toys R Us GC last month and confirmed 20¢/gal reward in my FRN account. I clicked through a link of Upromise, which offer 5% cash back, and a pending cash back was posted (although the term says GC purchases are not eligible for cash back.) I used the GC for merchandise several days ago. Cashback hasn’t been seen in my account yet. I placed another GC order for an experiment of buying GCs by GC in store.

What Else

I said eBay GCs are much better than amazon-kindle GCs because they are more versatile and may be churn-able. You can use eBay GCs almost everything for items on eBay including GCs. There are a lot of auctions of Toys R Us GCs. You will probably get GCs at discounted prices. Then go to the store…..come back to the site…….go to the store…..

I believe physical GCs are better than print-outs because they draw less store clerk’s attention. I will redeem Amex Offer of Toys R Us online only by purchasing GCs. And the GC on the way through FRN promo will be the first GC for the experiment.

25 Days, 25 Chime Offers! in December

Every day from December 1st to 25th, you will receive new offers. Each offer expires within 24 hours. You can check all offers in advance at www.chimecard.com/users/holiday. If you don’t have Chime card yet, please read “Chime Card Reviews.”

25 days 25 chime offers

There are many great offers. I plan to redeem ten offers out of 25. In the website, you can set up a reminder by clicking “Remind Me” on each offer. You will receive an email on the day the offers of your favorite stores are available so you won’t miss them.

Starting with amazon.com, “Free $5 Store Credit.” Free $x Store Credit means there is no minimum spending requirement. $5 will be back instantly to your Chime account after a check-out. We had the same offer just a few weeks ago. I redeemed it by purchasing $5 amazon E-gift card.

free 5 dollar for amazon

There are many other offers of the same type, as well as “Spend $XX Get $X” type of offers for major and popular stores. Check for yourself.

 

Payback Rewards of PayPal Prepaid MasterCard

rewards of paypal prepaid mastercardI applied PayPal Prepaid MasterCard a few months ago. The primary purpose of having this card is to earn interest from its savings account (see details here), but I have been making purchase with the card to see what kind of reward they offer. Their reward program is “targeted.” They review how you use the card and give you offers that are relevant to your spending. Thus, when I just received the card, there was no offers. I searched online to see some examples of offers so that I could use the card efficiently. However, I couldn’t find any examples.

So, I carried out an experiment. I exclusively used the card at supermarkets. To boost up the process (from my guess), I also asked cash back as much amount as each store allowed. About a month later, I received three offers for the first time.

1. Walmart

Shop at Walmart.com and receive 5% Cash Back on every purchase until a maximum of $500 in combined total spend is reached! Offer valid on purchases through 12/8/2014! Purchases must be made through this link. Offer not valid toward shipping and handling, taxes and other surcharges. Offer applied after all discounts and coupons. Offer not valid toward purchases from Sam’s Club and Samsclub.com, pharmacy, travel, financial services, tires, optical, Wal-Mart Connect Internet Service, gift cards, and online gift cards. Walmart.com – Save Money. Live Better

I wonder why I received an offer for the store I have never used the card. It is a very common offer. You can find the same one in many cash back portal sites. I was expecting offers that are similar to Amex Offer so I can use the card in stores and redeem the offer. But this offer is online only, and purchases must be made through the link. This is just typical cash back offer you can find in portal sites any time.

2. Peapod by Stop and Shop

Online Grocery Delivery: Shop with Peapod by Stop & Shop in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey to earn 15% Cash Back on a purchase amount up to $100. Shop at Peapod by Stop & Shop to find some of your favorite national brands, plus money-saving store brands! View the Peapod by Stop & Shop website to learn more. Peapod by Stop & Shop – Grocery shop anytime, anywhere!

Offer expires 12/13/2014. Payment must be made on or before offer expiration date. Payment must be made with your eligible debit or credit card. Offer valid online only. Offer valid one time only.

Another offer for online shopping. The terms don’t mention about the link. So, if I click the link of cash back portal site and use the card, I may earn both rewards. For example, BeFrugal offers $10 cash back for new customers. If I can earn both rewards, I will get $25 cash back in total. The problem is that Peapod charges $11.95 for each delivery and $2.95 for each pick-up. Besides, all my neighbor Stop&Shop stores are somehow excluded for pick-up locations. The closest store is 12 miles away. However, this will be an interesting experiment.

3. Verizon FiOS

Switch your TV, Internet and home phone services to Verizon FiOS & earn $75! Verizon FiOS gives you the ultimate in home entertainment. Plus, redefine what TV can be by upgrading to FiOS Quantum℠ TV and get more storage, more control and more access.

Verizon FiOS order must be placed online through this link. Account must be active for 60 days to receive reward. Reward can take up to 90 days to post to account. New customers with 2 year term only. Offer valid one time only. Other conditions apply. Offer expires 12/16/2014.

Like the offer for Walmart, I have no idea why I got this offer. And I’m not interested at all. So, I don’t check anything further. Probably, you can find the same offer in cash back portal sites any time.

Summery

These are three offers from PayPal Prepaid MasterCard for the first time. They are a lot different from ones I expected. I found an offer for Peapod interesting. Cashback portal sites pay only new customers. If I continue to receive an offer, it’s worth keep using the card at supermarkets.

Target MasterCard Gift Card is similar to Vanilla Visa Gift Card, But….

My order at Target.com arrived. It’s Target MasterCard gift card. When I placed the order, there were no purchase fee, and somehow REDcard 5% discount was applied (see detail here.) The back of the package says almost the same as one from Target Visa gift card.

Select any 4 digit PIN at first use………………………………………..Card issued by the Bancorp Bank…………………………..For card information, the Cardholder Agreement, refunds, or to request a replacement card, call 1-800-698-4952 or visit www.mybalancenow.com…………………………………

The only difference is that “pursuant to license by MasterCard International.” instead of “pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc.” I can check the balance, reset PIN, and assign ZIP code in the same website, mybalancenow.com.

You can do the same things in the websites, vanillavisa.com and onevanilla.com, for Target Visa or MasterCard GCs, and vice verse. It means that all those cards, Vanilla, One Vanilla, Target Visa and MasterCard GCs, have all the same features.

So, I thought I could reload American Express Serve with these gift cards at Family Dollar. But, it failed. After I swiped the card and entered PIN, a PIN pad said, “invalid card number.” I tried another card, but it was the same result. Only a week ago, I loaded with Target Visa GCs at Family Dollar. So, unless POS system has changed since them, the problem is it’s MasterCard.

target mastercard gift card at family dollar

Well, now I need to spend all GCs by purchasing. When I visit Walmart, I will try to use the card at Walmart ATM. I don’t think it will accept it, but it is worth a try.