Update 6/3/14 at 8:00PM PST: Loading One Vanilla Gift Cards (OVGC) and other Visa/MasterCard Gift Cards at Walmart is slightly more challenging now. Please read this post for more information.
How to Load Gift Cards at Walmart to your Serve Card
The process is identical to loading your Bluebird Card at Walmart with gift cards. For more info, please read Load Bluebird with Gift Cards at Walmart.
Since April 22, you can now load Serve at Walmart, please read OMG You can now Load AMEX Serve at Walmart with Visa/MasterCard Gift Cards.
You will receive a confirmation email with details about your Walmart reload.
You can view all your recent activity and reloads in your Serve account.
Since you can also do $200 online debit card loads and $200 online credit card loads, you can actually load up to $1,400 in a calendar day.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
Can you use gift cards issued from Bankcorp to reload your Serve card
Yes, if you add a PIN to them, you can use them to load to your Serve Card.
Can you load gift debit cards online, or only at walmart?
Only at Walmart.
Walmart is no longer accepting any kind of gift cards. Associates have instructions to verify debit cards. If they have the word Gift on it they say, not allowed for MO, BB/Serve loads.
Yes, that is the official Walmart policy, but many Walmart locations do not enforce the policy.
Isn’t money loaded online with your credit card to the Serve Card considered a cash advance so you wouldn’t get any reward points?
No, all credit card loads are treated as purchases and earn miles/points. Just don’t use an AMEX credit card.
Hi Grant,
Did you mean to state Citi cards because of the cash advance coding or did you state AMEX because you don’t earn miles or points for loading an AMEX card to serve. Just trying to understand. Thanks.
Good question, this is the tricky part. All credit cards issued by Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express will work on loading to Serve. Citi cards do not charge cash advances, so you can use a Citi card without worry. The only strange part of loading your Serve Card with a credit card is that AMEX cards will not earn your miles/points. As strange as that sounds, you will not earn miles/points for using your AMEX card. So I advise using a credit card that will earn you miles/points.
Got it! Thanks for the clarification.
Is it true to load a serve card at walmart for free? it says it online but i still had to pay
It’s free to load your Serve Card online and at Walmart stores. What did you pay for?
Does anyone know how to load serve with the new walmart register machines?
I went to a walmart super center and the new machines didn’t work the same way. There was no “change payment” yellow button after I swiped the GC, and wasn’t able to complete the transaction.
Actually just outside of a WM I’ve loaded at before, and I wasn’t even able to load using the old registers. Wonder if my account has been flagged or anything. Yesterday had an over zealous employee give me a lecture on how I can only load $2000 a day, I doubt it but am wondering whether he flagged my account somehow.
Hmm, that is strange. It is always possible that Walmart is doing IT maintenance and the issue is only temporary. I would not jump to conclusions and try back later, maybe even a different store. I doubt the employees can flag accounts on their side.
Hi Grant, I just purchased $2k in Mastercard gift cards and was not able to load it on to serve? Do you know what might be the problem? I bought it from cub foods and went to load it at Walmart directly after but was not able to. Do you think I might have to wait a couple hours before doing it? I tried registering it, changing the pin but it would not work. I tried on the atm and the cashier but failed on both.
I would wait a few hours, try setting/changing the pin, then wait a few more hours before going to Walmart. Good luck!
If I do 1000 a day withmy credit card online would they shut down my account?
Are you referring to loading Bluebird, Redbird, or Serve?
I have $2000 worth of Vannila VISA GIFT CARD and I am not able to load to Serve Card. Can you please help. Do you know anyway to load these gift cards to Serve ONLINE?
Have you set the pin for the VGCs? Did you max out the $5,000 monthly reload limit?
Went back to using Serve after Redcard became useless.
I loaded our Serve card – 2x $500 Metabank Visa GCs last week (10/21) at a SOCAL WM Neighborhood Market; tried a third $500 GC during the same session and it declined. In the past, I have successfully loaded 3 of these $500 cards at the same time.
Since 10/21, I have been unable to load any more of the same brand of GCs.
Tried different Metabank Visa GCs both at WM and WM Neighborhood Market with same inability to reload.
Used one of the declined GCs to purchase a MO at WM, so that GC was good.
Today, the CSR let me take a screen shot of her register:
One line related to the GC stated:
“PAYMENT DECLINED DEBIT CANCELLED”
In the section related to the Serve Card:
“EFT DEBIT VOID FROM PRIMARY”
and a few lines (details on the serve card) later:
“WM DEBIT DECLINED – REASON 03”
I am hoping that the WM system hasn’t started to recognize and screen-out GCs for Serve reloads (and if so, why were the 1st 2 GCs successfully loaded?)
Tonight, I confirmed with the Serve CSR on the phone that debit card reloads at the register are still considered as cash transactions with the $2,500 daily and $5,000 monthly load limits. He said he saw no reason why I couldn’t continue to load with a debit card till limits are reached. He also said he didn’t see any of the reload attempts that were declined.
Anyone having trouble reloading Serve with GCs at WM?
Any decoder for “REASON 03”
Is my Serve card broken?? Perhaps WM is broken?
Serve CSR mentioned reloads are possible at CVS Pharmacy- has anyone tried that with PIN enabled GCs?
Thanks for sharing your story, Mike. It might be a technical issue with Walmart POS systems or a Neighborhood Market issue, I’m not exactly sure.
Hi Grant (I wrote this on another post, but this one has more recent activity),
Any updates on what works at WM these days? I have a Serve card and want to get $500 GC or whatever will be allowed to work and load $1,500 total. I live in Oahu and the WM does have a kiosk but I want to try to figure out what cards actually work. I have seen people say VGC no longer work at WM but I see WM sells the reloadable Vanilla cards. Is it better to find Meta or US Bank cards? Not sure where I can buy those, are these at Staples? Any help would be appreciated for this noob :)
Just realized we don’t have Staples here anyway. We do have Office Depot or I guess I could order online from Staples if those work to load to Serve? We have Walgreen’s, CVS, and Long’s if these sell cards that work?
Mahalo!
You should try to buy $200 gift cards from each of those merchants and see which cards work to load your serve card at Walmart.
Quick question, as I’m sure it has been asked before. So if my wife get’s a Serve card and I have one, we can load up to $10k per month total? We have a bunch of actual spend like mortgages for real estate, etc that we currently can’t pay with our cards outright but it’s more than $5k per month. So if this is true, and we want to maximize our points with our cards and pay actual spend, should she get a Serve card also?
Also, I can’t seem to find this but could post the facts about Serve…meaning, what is the daily load limit, what is the monthly load limit per card, what is the monthly bill pay (which I think I saw this post from you but would be helpful to have everything on one page).
Thank you.
Hi CB, here are the limits for each Serve card:
$200/day online credit and debit card reloads, up to $1000/month
$2500/day in store reloads, up to $5000/month
$2500/month of transfers into/out of Serve accounts
Bill pay up to $10000/month
Grant, appreciate this. So another quick one…can you provide (or others) a list of actual gift cards that still work and possibly with pics? Maybe a post on this would be good?
I have not been to a Walmart in several months, so I’m not sure which GCs still work. Purchase several $20 GCs from various stores and test them out to see which GCs work at your local Walmart.