Tag Archives: American Express

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AMEX Offers: Free $5 from iTunes and Free $10 from Rhapsody

Good morning everyone, here are 2 new AMEX offers that might be interesting to you.  Spend $5 on iTunes and get a $5 statement credit; or, spend $15 on Rhapsody.com and get a $10 statement credit.  Both offers were found in my AMEX account, but not on all of my cards.

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Sam’s Club Membership and Complete AMEX Offer Ordering Process

Good morning everyone, this post has a lot of screenshots showing the entire ordering process to complete the SamsClub.com AMEX Offer.  As a refresher, the AMEX Offer will give you a $20 statement credit after spending $20 or more on SamsClub.com (does not work for in-store purchases).

Sams Club AMEX Offer

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Guest Post: Macerich Visa Gift Card Purchases Posting as a Cash Advance

Good morning everyone, my friend Nigel has written another great guest post for me.  If you are unfamiliar with NIgel, he has written a few other guest posts as well:

Without any further ado, take it away Nigel…

Year to date, I’ve already MS’d $125,000 worth of VGCs between my two local Macerich Malls.  Grant calls me a heavy-hitter, but I call myself a savvy MS’er.  There are people out there that cycle that amount or more in a single month.  In my experience, Macerich Malls are easier to do business with than Simon Malls, so I typically find myself at the Macerich customer service desk twice a week to purchase several VGCs.   Continue reading

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Random News: Citi Prestige & Premier, US Bank, British Airways, IHG, and Southwest Airlines

Good morning everyone, it’s been a while since I did a random news post, so I have accumulated quite a bit of random news.  So much news, that I will have to do a random news afternoon special.  Check back at noon for that.  In the meantime, here is the morning edition of the random news.  My first Citi Prestige statement closed and I received the full $250 airline travel credit.

Citi Prestige $250 Airline Credit Used

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Redbird Credit Card Reloads Dead: “Able to Load $0.00 with this Payment Method”

Good morning everyone, I just got back from Target in San Francisco and I have some bad news to share.  I brought my Chase Freedom (Visa), Citi Double Cash (MC), Bank of America Virgin Atlantic (MC), and AMEX Old Blue Cash to Target to see if any of those credit cards could load my Redbird Card.

Target San Francisco

During the loading process, I spoke with a cashier and the store manager.  Neither of them mentioned any memo or said anything out of the ordinary.  Both had loaded Redbird Cards before and knew the process.  This is how the transaction went:

  • Please load $987.00 to my Target Redcard
  • They swiped my Redbird Card and entered the amount on the cash register
  • I swipe my credit card on the POS credit card terminal and the screen shows $987.00 and the signature box
  • Before I even sign the screen, the cash register prints out a receipt and shows an error message on the cash register’s screen, “Able to Load $0.00 with this Payment Method”
  • We repeat the process a few times with different credit cards and at different registers
  • Every time the result is the same, “Able to Load $0.00 with this Payment Method”

Some ideas and thoughts:

  • AMEX for Target (AFT) credit card loads are probably dead as well, but I didn’t have my AFT card with me to try
  • Gift cards and debit cards might work, but I didn’t have either with me to try
  • Cash reloads probably still work, but I didn’t have any cash to try

Where do we stand now?:

  • Do gift cards with PINs (Visa and MasterCard) still work?
  • Which gift cards still work (Vanilla Visa, Bancorp, Metabank, etc.)?
  • How long will gift card reloads work before Target starts blocking those (like Walmart did)?
  • Will there be any online loading options similar to AMEX Serve?

If you have any data points, specifically related to gift cards, please let me know below.  Have a good day everyone.

P.S. NoonRadar has a great summary of what is currently working for Redbird reloads here.