Tag Archives: American Express Bluebird Card

Vanilla Reload Card. The Girl. The Story.

VRC with Hair

Vanilla Reload Card.  The Girl.  The Story.

Yesterday afternoon, American Express sent out emails to all Bluebird and Serve Card members alerting them to changes in the way you can load Bluebird and Serve in the future.  In both emails, we learned that Vanilla Reload Cards (VRC) would no longer be available for purchase (and subsequent loading to Bluebird or Serve) beginning on April 1, 2015.  Here are the emails I received:

Serve Card VRC Message

Bluebird Card VRC Message

I thought it would be fun to have an analogy to the Vanilla Reload Cards, to make it her more lifelike and relatable.  This is her story…   Continue reading

Random News: AMEX Small Business Saturday, New Serve Card Design, BankAmeriCard Deals, and Staples Easy Rebates

AMEX-Offer-Logo

Random News: AMEX Small Business Saturday, New Serve Card Design, BankAmeriCard Deals, and Staples Easy Rebates

Good morning everyone, I had a great time at the OC Meetup yesterday afternoon.  It was a great mix of new and old friends/readers.  I was even given a giant birthday cupcake by my friend from Long Beach.  My birthday isn’t until November 27 (Thanksgiving Day), but I gladly appreciate early birthday presents.  I will probably have the next OC Meetup on Saturday, December 13, time and place TBD.  I will post more info closer to the date.

Birthday Cupcake

Other than my birthday being less than 2 weeks away, the other major news item that was announced today was enrollment for Small Business Saturday (November 29) has begun.  If you log into your AMEX online account, you should see the Small Business Saturday offer at the very top of your offer list.  You can add the offer to all of your AMEX credit and charge cards.

If you have never participated in Small Business Saturday, the concept is simple.  For every $10 or more purchase you make at a qualifying small business on Small Business Saturday (November 29), you will receive a $10 statement credit.  You can receive up to 3 $10 statement credits per registered AMEX card.  From my understanding, you can use the same AMEX card to make all 3 purchases at the same small business.  See the link below to see which merchants qualify for Small Business Saturday.

Small Business Saturday AMEX Offer

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Facebook Messenger Entering the MS Game with Debit Card Payments and takes on Venmo and Square Cash

Facebook Messengers Logo

Facebook Messenger Entering the MS Game with Debit Card Payments and takes on Venmo and Square Cash

(Hat tip to The Flight Deal Twitter team for the link)

Tech Crunch, a technology website, recently posted an article called Hacked Screenshots Show Friend-To-Friend Payments Feature Hidden In Facebook Messenger (link).  The article has a few screenshots showing the peer-to-peer payment platform built into the Facebook Messenger app.  These features are *not yet active* and Facebook has not officially released any information about the new service.

facebook-payments-select-method

Picture from http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/05/pay-with-facebook-messenger/

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Random News: Ebay and PayPal Split, Hilton Free Night Certificate, RebAgents, Emirates Miles, $160 AirTran Credit, and Nickelodeon AMEX Offer

Ebay Baby

Random News: Ebay and PayPal Split, Hilton Free Night Certificate, RebAgents, Emirates Miles, $160 AirTran Credit, and Nickelodeon AMEX Offer

Before I dive into the random news, today is the last day of September.  Make sure you max out your Amazon Payments, Bluebird reloads, Server Reloads, etc. before the limits reset tonight at midnight.  With that said, here are some random news topics…

I just received the following email from Ebay.  Sometime in 2015, PayPal will become a separate company (probably going IPO as well).  I’m not sure how this will affect anything, but I think it is worth sharing.

Ebay PayPal Split Announced

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Citi Hilton HHonors Free Night Certificates (link) and received a helpful email response regarding how Citi calculates your $10,000 annual spend to qualify for the free night certificate:

The screenshot you posted says you only get credit for charges after your annual fee date. I assumed that was the day I activated the card so I spent $10,750 on the card in my first year with some cushion to be safe. I never received the annual certificate and when I asked, Citi said I only spent $9,800. I checked my statements and that number excluded the $950 I spent in the few days between when I activated the card (around 7/25) and the date the first annual fee was charged (8/2). Citi is investigating for me and it seems like this is a technicality that will ultimately be resolved in my favor, however, if I had known I either would have not spent anything until I saw the annual fee hit or would have spent the extra $200 to hit the bonus before moving on to a different card.

Hopefully this warning can help avoid potential time spent on the phone with Citi for you and others that may be cutting it tight on the $10K spend.

 

A friend of mine writes for the blog RebAgents (rebate + agents) and sent me the following link: Why finding a Real Estate Agent or Realtor should be the last step in your home search checklist (link).  If you are in the market for buying or selling your house, check out the link to learn more about how to reduce your real estate agent’s commission and buy/sell your house faster.

 

A reader of mine has Emirates miles and wants to know what to do with them.  Any advice?

I have like 14500 skywards emirates miles what will be best way to redeem it ?? I tried to do some research on it , I cannot find anything.

Also I have 5 different accounts with emirates ( my relatives ) all has 8k miles

 

I have $166.45 in AirTran credit that will expire on October 30, does anyone have any experience converting this credit to Southwest Airlines credit?  Any way to extend the expiration date?

$160 AirTran Credit

 

Last but not least, I checked my AMEX accounts and this AMEX Offer caught my attention.  If you have kids (or are a kid yourself), you probably watched Nickelodeon at one point.  I spent a large chunk of my childhood watching these shows and it would have been awesome to go check out Nickelodeon Suites Resorts when I was younger.  I am too old now, but maybe you can take your kids and give them the best vacation ever!

Nickelodeon Suites Resorts AMEX Offer

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!

Random News: Gas Savings with Bluebird, Free Avis and National Car Rental Elite Status, Cautionary Tale for Loading at Family Dollar, and Many AMEX Offers: Fig & Olive, Kate Spade, Wine.com, and Others

BB Card

Random News: Gas Savings with Bluebird, Free Avis and National Car Rental Elite Status, Cautionary Tale for Loading at Family Dollar, and Many AMEX Offers: Fig & Olive, Kate Spade, Wine.com, and Others

Good evening everyone, I haven’t talked about Bluebird much since I switched over to Serve, but I received an email from Raul about a cool promo from Bluebird and Walmart.  If you go to this site, you can see if your state is eligible for a gas saving offer.

Bluebird Gas Savings

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