PSA: Keep Track of your Bluebird or Serve Monthly Reload Limit
Good evening everyone, this is just a friendly reminder to keep track of your Bluebird or Serve monthly reload limit. You should always know how much you have loaded onto your Bluebird or Serve Card and how much you have left to go. If you have one card, it is easy to keep track of your reload amount, but it gets exponentially harder as you try to keep track of 2, 3, 4 or more cards.
I created a handy excel spreadsheet that you can download and fill out in my post Keep Track of Bluebird/Serve Transactions. If you are not sure if you need it, answer this quick question: how much have you loaded onto all of your Bluebird or Serve Cards from May 1 through today?
Don’t guess, you should know. There is no worse feeling that driving all the way to Walmart, standing in line for the Money Center counter/ATM, and being told that your gift card cannot be loaded onto your Bluebird or Serve Card. Whenever I hear someone say that they were unable to load a gift card to their Bluebird or Serve Card, I immediately ask people if they have already maxed out on their $5,000 monthly reload limit. Most will answer, no without thinking, then when they log into their account, they will see $5,000 in reloads magically appear.
There is no shame in keeping track of all your reloads and bill payments. You don’t have to follow my steps, but you should have some kind of system besides going to Walmart every few days and being rejected one day.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
P.S. I’m working on a few step-by-step guides about how to book a British Airways Avios award ticket for flights on American Airlines, a subsequent guide on how to cancel British Airways Avios award tickets, and another guide on how to use the Alaska Airlines $99 Companion Ticket. Hopefully I get these posts finished before this weekend.
Can a single person have multiple serve cards? How so?
It’s one per SSN, but I use my Mom’s and dad’s Bluebird Cards.
Thanks Grants, for the excel sheet. This will come in very handy! Keep up the great posts!
Thanks Kyle. It has helped me many times.
A few days ago I tried to load my Bluebird account with a prepaid VGC. I thought I had enough room to empty the VGC, but I had miscalculated by about $200 (in other words, I thought I had loaded only $4500 that month, but it was actually $4700). Obviously the transaction was declined by AmEx/Bluebird, but I was slow on the uptake, so I had the helpful WM cashier try again. The two declined transactions resulted in two back-to-back $500 debit/credit cycles on the VGC, as the $500 was taken out, then put back. This resulted in the VGC having a hold applied, because the activity appeared “fraudulent” to the issuer’s system. However it took some time for this, because when I checked the balance online immediately after the failed load, it showed $500, and all seemed to be well. After I figured out that I had tried to exceed the monthly $5K limit, I went back to WM the next day to try again, and the transaction failed again. When I checked the balance online, the server said the card number was not on file. The end result was that I had to call the issuer’s toll-free number and talk with their rep in India to get the hold removed. It was at least a 20-minute call. So yeah, watch those BB load limits.
Yes, keeping track of the limits is very important, especially at the end of the month. I went to my local Walmart and topped off my Serve card to reach the $5,000 monthly limit. Does the spreadsheet help at all?
I use a combination of Quicken and Excel for tracking everything, but the problem is that my head is more and more like a sieve as I push into middle age.
Haha I’m not looking forward to those years either :/