Good morning everyone, I just updated my Chase Freedom vs. Discover It vs. Citi Dividend 5% Cash Back Card Comparison page and thought I would share my Q3 strategy. If you want to learn more about each card and activate the quarterly cash back bonuses, click the above link.
For Q3, Chase is offering 5% cash back at gas stations and Kohl’s. Some gas stations (and convenient stores classified as gas stations) sell VGCs and PayPal My Cash Cards. Each gas station has different rules, so you may have to try a few different places before you will be able to find one that accepts credit cards. Kohl’s also sells a variety of gift cards and VGCs. Most Kohl’s stores carry $50 and $100 VGCs, but some carry $200 VGCs. You may need to check out a few stores to find the best GCs.
Up next is Discover It with their 5% cash back stores. For Q3, Discover is offering 5% (actually 10% when you activate the double cash back promo) at home improvement stores, department stores, and Amazon.com.
According to the merchants listed below, you can go to Home Depot and Lowe’s, which both carry several types of gift cards including VGCs. You can easily purchase $1,500 in VGCs in one trip. If you head to department stores, you can stop at Sears and Kohl’s for more gift cards. I’m not sure what GCs Sears sells, but they might sell VGCs. Since I already have $300+ in Amazon gift card credit, I will not be using my Discover It on Amazon.com next quarter.
Last but not least, the Citi Dividend is offering 5% cash back at Hilton Hotels and for airfare. If you have the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve (10x at Hilton) or American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass (12x at Hilton), you might be better off using those cards since you get more points and elite status bonus points on paid stays. 5% back on airlines is pretty good, since most other airline credit cards only offer 2-3% cash back. I wonder if buying airline gift cards would count as an airline purchase. You can buy Southwest Airlines gift cards and many other airline gift cards for future use.
What is your Q3 strategy? If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone.
Does lowes or Home Depot sell $500 visa gc?
Just looked through photos I took of my Lowes rack and saw no Visa, MC or AMEX.
Bummer, when were you at Lowe’s? Each store might have slightly different GCs on the GC rack.
Not $500, but I think $100
Was wondering about 2nd qt with Freedom. We don’t eat out enough to spend $1500 and was thinking about buying Restaurants and/or BB&B gift cards to resell but the resale price to Cardpool and others would be a loss resulting the cost of acquiring UR points very expensive. Do you have any ideas?
BB&B sells $200 VGCs (at least the one near me does), so that might be an option for you for the 2Q bonus.
Thanks for the data point DJ.
@John – I completed my entire Q2 spend w/Freedom by buying lots of $200 Visa GCs at BBB, and then Redbird. You may want to check if your nearest BBB sells those.
Thank you Laura, I need to max out my Freedom Q2 MS as well and will do this myself.
Thanks for the tip. Will check that out tomorrow.
I believe BBB sells various GCs including VGCs.
Last year Giftcardmall also gave 5%, any updates (i.e. CA fee, etc) for this year?
GCM should still work this year, but it will just cost more since the max load amount is $250 now.
ok
Kohl’s has $200 VGC?!?! Never seen them there. Discover definitely needs to be maxed out next quarter on account of the double cashback promotion – each $200 VGC = about $13 profit.
I’m not 100% sure if Kohl’s still carries $200 VGCs, but I thought they did at one point.