Some Suggestions for Manufactured Spending without Vanilla Reload Cards
Please read this post from this morning: CVS Memo Says Cash Only Starting Friday 4/4/2014
Honestly, it is too early to determine the best alternative to Vanilla Reload Cards, but here are some thoughts/suggestions that might help.
- Assuming CVS doesn’t block American Express Serve Cards from being loaded with credit cards, this would be my go to first choice. As of a few days ago, you could load up to $1,000 per day onto a Serve Card without any fees with a $5,000 monthly limit.
- Assuming CVS doesn’t block $500 Visa/MasterCard Gift Cards (from all banks/companies), I would buy them at CVS (or any other store that sells $500 gift cards), add a PIN to the gift cards, and then load them to your Bluebird Card at Walmart (link1, link2, link3, link4).
- Assuming CVS blocks all gift card purchases, you can use a Chase Ink Bold/Plus Card to buy $200 Visa/MasterCard Gift Cards at Staples, Office Depot, or Office Max and load them to your Bluebird Card at Walmart. (P.S. don’t forget to sign up for Plink, ShopKick, or Visa Savings Edge).
For those working on Minimum Spending Requirements, here are some other suggestions:
- Use Amazon Payments ($1,000 / month for free)
- Kiva Loans (float the money for 3-6 months)
- Prepay all your bills: cable bills, phone bills, anything that has a bill
- Buy gift cards for places you would normally shop at in the future (restaurants, clothing stores, hardware stores, toy stores, etc.)
- Pay for mortgage, property taxes, income taxes, student housing, student tuition, etc. These options usually charge a 2-3% fee
- Lastly, you can use Google Wallet or PayPal to send money from one account to another, but you will incur a 2.75% fee on all transactions. That equates to $27.50 per $1,000.
There are other ways, but those are some ideas off the top of my head. Gotta go watch Survivor and Modern Family now. Let me know if you have any other suggestions or questions in the comment section below.
Hihi. Cvs already hard coded the register today to only take cash in reloading serve. I could use credit card yesterday. Also at another store, manager said starting tomorrow they’ll all be hard coded for cash…
Thank you for sharing CL, I will go back to my CVS tomorrow and see if they still accept credit cards.
Hi Grant:
I read your blog and have learned a lot from it. I just got a bluebird acct but haven’t been
able to find VR cards without paying cash. I am wondering what the Amazon payment
of $1000 is? Please explain or refer me to the correct blog. Thanks so much. Johanna
Million Mile Secrets has a good explanation on Amazon Payments: http://millionmilesecrets.com/2011/07/07/fast-track-your-credit-card-sign-up-bonus-with-amazon-payments/
You can also fund bank accounts and get the bank account bonuses: http://travelwithgrant.com/2014/03/30/guest-post-from-doctor-of-credit-bank-account-sign-up-bonuses/ ;)
Not going to win any competitions, but more than enough to meet minimum spend requirements.
Good idea Will. I still have to do this.
Chase is my favorite to do, because they post your bonus the Tuesday after you finish the requirements. Nothing like instant gratification, you also get the 10% point bonus from the Freedom as well for having a checking account open.
How much taxes will it be for opening chase total checking & savings account with $400 code? Also I heard if you have Wells Fargo checking account(not sure which specific checking type) you can save some $$ for IRA Roth(commission & fees for trading stocks) Also what is the current best offer for WF checking acc? Thank you
Will should get back to you soon with an answer. Great question by the way.
Serve will still allow $1000 per month of direct CC load, even after CVS load ends.
Yes, that’s a nice feature of Serve but $1,000 per month won’t get you too far :(
Agreed. It basically becomes another Amazon Payments at 1K per month. I’ll be closing my Serve and moving back to Bluebird.
Why? Can you load Serve at Walmart?
Not that I’m aware of, but it would be interesting to try before closing Serve. Just tell the cashier to ‘use the bluebird’ interface…. :)
I still have my mom and dad’s Bluebird Card.
There goes the free flights…The window is closing fast. The Office Max near where I live sometimes has $200 Visa giftcards but not always. Now Walmart only allows $500 loads per day. Better get as many of these as possible while we still can! I was planning to make the bonus for my United Mileage Plus card using VRCs at CVS but that’s now impossible. I’ll probably need to cancel the Mileage Plus card when the fee comes up. I need to conserve precious miles for the important trips.
Yes conserve those precious United miles.
Found out that Office Max now only carries the $100 Visa G/Cs, so this is the final nail in the coffin for my cheap travel. Do you know if there are mail order G/C’s from Staples or Office Depot which are cheaper than the $100 plus $5.95 fee at Office Max? There are no physical stores (Staples and Office Depot) where I live. Are there any G/C’s available at Lowes that can be loaded onto a Bluebird? Lowes is on the 5X bonus this quarter for Freedom cards.
Lowes might have gift cards that will work. I haven’t checked it out yet. You can buy $100 Visa gift cards online from Staples, but there is a $5.95 fee. You can still go thru shopping portals to earn additional rewards.
I was probably the last person to arrive at the Vanilla Reload party. I had no idea about this process until last September. I’ve been using it to get miles on my US Airways Mastercard an my Delta Skymiles Amex, via Bluebird. Now that the party is over, could some one walk me through the process I’ve read about that’s referred to sometimes as the “Walmart Grind?” How can I use these same cards to buy gift cards and then take the gift cards to Walmart to be loaded onto my Bluebird? Exactly which gift cards do I buy? And where? And what do I do at Walmart? Sorry that I’m asking such basic stuff, but I’m very new to the manufactured spend thing. I was just using it as a way to earn miles by paying my mortgage, housekeeper, pool service, landscaper and other bills via Bluebird that I usually write a check for. I wasn’t using it to achieve minimum spends.
Check the 4 links on the post for more help.
Grant, the links and images were very helpful. With my Dividend Miles Mastercard, I bought a One Vanilla Pre-paid debit card at CVS exactly like the one pictured, loaded $500 and headed for the closest Walmart to me which is in Panorama City, a Los Angeles neighborhood in the valley. Thought I should do a trial run with that amount first. I have never been to that Walmart or Panorama City before today, and I may never go back. It’s not a very nice Walmart. The ATM machine was out of order. Stood in a very long line at the Walmart Money Center, only to be told that “no Bluebirds are working today.” The cashier had no explanation other than no Bluebird transactions had worked all day, and she wasn’t even able to sell new Bluebird cards. I convinced her to attempt my transaction, and sure enough, it didn’t work. She also said that the ATM machine is almost always out of order. So my choices are to go back there and stand in line and hope the Bluebird transactions go through or try the only other Walmart in LA that I know of, in Baldwin Hills, which, while only 12 miles from me could take 45 minutes to get there. Is there any other way to do this? I don’t have to use Bluebird. My goal is to use a miles earning card to buy *something* that can then be loaded into some type of bill-paying account and then pay that same credit card bill from that account. I don’t think Evolve is the answer.
You may be interested in American Express Serve. You can load up to $1,000 per month online with a credit card ($200 per day) and $1,000 per month ($200 per day) online with a debit card (or PayPal Business Debit Card). I recently closed my Bluebird Card a few days ago and am waiting for the new card to arrive by mail. I will keep you posted on how it goes.
As far as Walmarts go, I try to go early and beat the crowds, then it is more bearable.
Grant, yes keep us posted on Serve. I’ve read that the credit card loads onto Serve will be treated as a cash advance by the credit card company/bank.
I heard the opposite. Check out this post to learn more: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manufactured-spending/1199432-serve-another-paypal-amazon-payments.html
Grant, don’t forget about paying bills, mortgage, auto loans, etc with evolvemoney.com. Buy debit cards then use them on evolvemoney instead of unloading to Bluebird or buying MOs. For me this is much easier than going to WalMart. Also higher limits of $1k per day / $30k month
http://saverocity.com/bighabitat/manufacturing-miles/evolve-money-guide/
Good idea, I couldn’t find any of my billets on the list but it might be helpful for others. Thanks for the reminder.
Well, for what it’s worth, here’s my report on purchasing One Vanilla Pre-paid VISA cards with my Dividend Miles Mastercard at CVS stores near me:
1. April 3, CVS Van Nuys, purchased 1 $500 One Vanilla Pre-paid VISA card. They had 1 VR left, but the cashier said he’d just tried sell it to another customer via credit card and it didn’t work.
2. April 4, CVS Sherman Oaks, purchased 1 $500 One Vanilla Pre-paid VISA card with no issues or comments.
3. April 4 CVS Burbank, attempted to purchase 2 $500 One Vanilla Pre-paid VISA cards, and it didn’t work. Cashier showed me her screen: “Tender Denied” (this is also the store where I purchased my last 2 VR’s on April 2.)
4. April 4 at another CVS in Burbank, 1 mile away from the 1st one and about 5 minutes later, I successfully purchased 2 $500 One Vanilla Pre-paid VISA cards, but the cashier gave me a “just-so-you-know” comment about not accepting credit cards for those cards at some point in the future.
So what do you all think? Are the One Vanilla Pre-paid VISA cards going away just like the VR’s?
Thanks for the very detailed report Nora. I’m still confused. It seems like it is hit or miss with CVS. If it says “tender denied” on their system, then there is nothing you can do. I would be curious if you could go back to the same stores and try to buy the One Vanilla gift cards. Maybe you will get different responses. I appreciate all the driving around town :)
You have great ebay tips here. I plan to take the paypal route since the VRs went cash only. Correct me is paypal also cash only at cvs?@walgreens should be fine. I have paypal biz debit card(6+ yrs) I’m also top rated ebay seller & I withdraw funds to my bank acc quite often(3~4 times a month). Mostly I want to load my BB at Walmart & do money orders. But Is it safe to directly liquidate via paypal linked bank account? What is your experiences? A big thanks!
I haven’t tested this myself, but I think PayPal My Cash cards are cash only too. I would load the $500 to my PayPal account, wait a few days for a few Ebay items to sell, then withdraw the money on the weekend. I did that for a few weeks before the PayPal My Cash Cards were no longer sold at CVS with credit cards. I have around $650+ in PayPal cash back over the last 5-6 years of use.
Some good news from up here in the San Fernando Valley:
First, I found a Walmart Neighborhood Market that’s much nicer than the scary Walmart I first tried. It’s still an 18 mile roundtrip (same distance as scary Walmart) but it’s all freeway and goes pretty quick. Never a line at the money center (so far) and two different cashiers have allowed me to load $1k on each BB card (we have two) in $500 increments, on the same day. I thought the limit was $500 per BB card per day?
Also haven’t had any more issues using credit cards to purchase One Vanilla Pre-paid debit cards at CVS. Yesterday, a CVS cashier told me that One Vanilla Pre-paid debit cards were cash only. I convinced her to try it anyway, and it went through, of course. Went back to same CVS today and bought 2 more $500 cards without incident or comment. I do expect to encounter less-friendly cashiers who won’t even bother to try.
So, it looks like we’ve weathered the VR crisis and have settled into a new, albeit, more complicated, routine for our manufactured spend… for now!
Thanks for the update Nora. Bluebird reloads are $1,000 per day at Walmart. If you do more than a $500 reload, Walmart will ask you for more personal/financial information. Doing 2 $500 reloads per day per card should work fine. Glad you are having lots of success buying One Vanilla gift cards. You might want to purchase something with your $500 One Vanilla gift card so that the cashier will try to ring up the entire order. It’s easier for them to try the order than for them to remove a scanned item from an order. Anyway, sounds like you have figured out a new plan for MS that seems to work pretty good.
Grant, I was down in your neck of the woods this past weekend, and a cashier at a CVS in Huntington Beach said, “At THIS store, $200 is the limit for One Vanilla Pre-paid debit cards and gift cards via credit card. Anything else has to be in cash.” I asked if I could do $200 each on 2 cards, and she said no. I went 2 miles away to another CVS, and had no problem buying a $500 One Vanilla Gift card for $500. They were out of the One Vanilla Pre-paid debit cards. The policy continues to be inconsistent. But perhaps that ultimately works in our favor?
I think there was a “secret memo” to some employees to make up rules regarding gift cards. I would ask to speak with a store manager about the new policy. If he says what the cashier says, then you are out of luck.
Can Vanilla One Gift Card or Vanilla One Debit card be unloaded onto Bluebird or Serve? Do they have PINs?
They can only be loaded to Bluebird if you go to Walmart. The One Vanilla gift cards have PINs but you don’t need to set it up before using it.