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.

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.