Need Help Liquidating Gift Cards?
Happy holidays everyone! If you are lucky (or maybe unlucky), you may have too many gift cards in your wallet. Wouldn’t it be great to get all of your gift card balances on one card?
Here’s how…
You will need a Target AMEX reloadable gift card. I first learned about this card from Frequent Miler’s post last October (post). It hasn’t gotten much attention lately with Bluebird dominating the reloadable space, but this card definitely is worthy. It does not have bill pay, but what it lacks in features, it makes up for in “loadability”. This is the only reloadable gift card that can be loaded with gift cards that do not have PINs. You know, all those American Express gift cards you bought last week at Office Max? They don’t have PINs. Load them to your Target AMEX card and you are good to go.
Welcome Slick Deal members, here is my Target receipt from this morning:
After loading up my Target AMEX, I usually drive over to CVS and buy 2 Vanilla Reload Cards. There you go, all liquidated. For more info on the Target AMEX, read this post. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
Grant, did you see a promotion to buy Amex gift cards without fees in your Amex offers recently? Wouldn’t this work the same way…earning points as the old Chase git cards that had no fees did and were so easy to load to BB? Are we missing something here?
I’ll have to check my AMEX offers soon.
So you load to the Target Amex card. Can you use that card to pay for everyday things like groceries, etc.??? Can you pay credit cards and mortgage with it?
And speaking of Bluebird – they’ve changed their site and it’s impossible to pay some bills that go to a PO Box, like my mortgage. I attempted to “edit” out the PO, and it didn’t work. Anyone else have the same problem? How can I work around it?
I recommend ordering checks from Bluebird. You can write checks from your account and mail them to your mortgage company’s PO box.
The Target AMEX does not have bill pay but you can use it like a normal credit card to buy online or in-store.
Many CVS I went to in OC were very picky about buying VRs with the Amex GCs, so next time I try to liquidate them I’ll go this route. Are you sure there is nothing on the Target card that says prepaid or giftcard? The cashiers would look for things like that at many CVS.
The Target AMEX card looks just like a Bluebird card with your name on the front, so CVS will accept it. I’ve never had a problem using it at CVS.
I had an issue loading prepaid cards onto to my Target AMEX card. I failed twice, so I am surprised you got it to work. I had a manager even try to help me out, to no avail.
What type of gift card did you try to load? I find the $100 or $200 Visa/MC gift cards work the best. The $XX rebate gift cards sometimes do not work.
The XX rebate gift cards used to work on the AMEX target gc. It used to work. However, as of last month, I could not load anything on AMEX target gc. Have you tried using AMEX gift cards?
Yes, I had a few AMEX GCs that I bought from the Office Max deal and they worked fine on my Target AMEX. I have 8 $100 Visa GCs that I plan on loading at Target tomorrow. If anything goes wrong with my reload, I will let you know. If all else fails, you can buy a small Amazon gift card or use Square to turn your GC balance into cash.
Yeah, let me know. I hate to leave money on the table or resort to buying GCs. I thought Square only worked with debit cards, not gcs? I used to load up my Target AMEX with debit cards, and then make a microloan on Kiva. Earn karma points and miles!
Square cash is for debit cards only. But Square is for credit cards and they charge a 2.75% fee. I used to use Kiva a lot, but not much anymore.
Just got back from Target and loaded 8 $100 Visa GCs to my Target AMEX successfully. Drove down the street and bought 2 VRCs.
Ah does square cash work with visa gcs? Secondly why did you stop using Kiva. Bad experience? Thanks for testing out the Visa GC. I think you are right the xx amount may not work but full dollar amounts would work.
Square cash might work with Visa GCs. I stopped using Kiva because it takes them 2 weeks to send me my PayPal payment. I think I got on their bad side because I wanted to withdraw the money every month. There are much easier/faster ways to generate miles/points.
They got mad at you for withdrawing every month? How much were you withdrawing every month. I just started Kiva, and have been withdrawing every month. I only use it for AMEX gift card. I have been trying to get my hands on vanilla reload, but I have been shut down because it is cash only everywhere I been. Is that the fastest method you are referring to?
I was withdrawing like $100-200 a month, but I had like $3,000+ invested in Kiva at a time. Yes VRCs are the easiest way out there.
Did they send you a notice to stop withdrawing? I have about that much invested.
Not a notice but it just takes them a much longer time to send the PayPal payment. I have $5 left to be paid out.
Thanks Grant. I look forward to reading your blog!
Grant:
A friend of mine borrowed $600 from me long time ago and he managed to return it all in Target gift cards. He just can’t pay cash right now. I know I can buy stuff at Target, but I am in need of cash myself. Now I am aware of Plastic jungle etc., but I don’t want to loose a penny to convert into cash. Do you suggest any other way??
That’s a tough call. You can get 93% of face value for the gift cards online, but I don’t know a better way than that.