Tag Archives: Gift Cards

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How to Redeem City National Bank CNB Visa Infinite Points for Cash Back, Gift Cards & Merchandise

Good morning everyone.  After yesterday’s massive devaluation of the City National Bank CNB Crystal Visa Infinite Credit Card (Doctor of Credit and Frequent Miler), I started planning to close this credit card since my $400 annual fee is scheduled to be billed later this month.  But first, I had a few orphaned CNB Points that I wanted to redeem.  If you only have a few thousand CNB Points, there are not many good redemption offers, but I will show you what I saw and what I learned during this process.  To get started, sign into your CNB Rewards account or create an account.

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My Oversold Delta Flight: $700 AMEX Gift Card, Hotel Voucher & Morning Flight

Good morning everyone.  Last week, I was flying back from Salt Lake City (SLC) to Oakland (OAK) on Delta.  The flight was oversold, so the gate agent was looking for a few volunteers to take a later flight (depart SLC at 10:30pm, land in OAK at 11:30pm) in exchange for a $700 gift card.  Since I didn’t need to get back to OAK right away, I asked the gate agent if I could take a morning flight into OAK (depart SLC at 8:30am, land in OAK at 9:30am – I would then take BART into SF for work) and I also asked for a hotel voucher for the night.  The gate agent said that was possible, so he added me to the volunteer list, and I waited near the gate for all passengers to board.  After all passengers boarded the flight, the gate agent called me up, changed my flight to the new morning flight, printed out a hotel voucher, and showed me the list of gift cards that I was eligible to claim.  I didn’t take a photo of the laminated sheet on the counter, but I believe these were the same gift cards that were offered.  I decided to go with an American Express gift card since that was basically cash to me.

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Expecting an Ebates/Rakuten Quarterly Payment? Choose an eGift Card with up to a 15% Boost [Updated with Redemption Process]

Updated 7:45pm on 5/1/19: I decided to redeem my cash back for a Nike eGift Card.  Scroll to the bottom of the post to see the redemption process.


Good afternoon.  Last year, I wrote a similar post: Expecting an Ebates Big Fat Check? Get up to a 20% Bonus with an eGift Card Instead! I decided to do an updated post with May’s quarterly payments.  I just got the following email from Ebates / Rakuten with an option to select an eGift Card with a boost of up to 15% vs. waiting for my Big Fat Check to arrive in the mail.  Let’s see if those eGift Cards are good deals and which merchants are offered.  I clicked the See All E-Gift Cards button in the email.

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eBay MC999 Account Warning Notice: Did I Buy Too Many GCs & eGCs During eBay Deals?

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great Easter or Passover Weekend.  Earlier this morning, I received this email from eBay telling me that my purchasing behavior is violating eBay’s Site Interference Policy.  Basically, eBay is accusing me of buying items via eBay Deals for the purpose of reselling.  I have been known to buy a few discounted GCs/eGCs from eBay, but I didn’t think it warranted a warning letter.  It’s not like I have 10 different eBay accounts and buy as many discounted GCs/eGCs as possible.  Here are the main parts of the email:

Listings promoted on the eBay Deals have a limit on the amount of items you can purchase, primarily to maintain an equal marketplace for all members and allow other eBay members the opportunity to take part in the eBay Deals.

The activity involved with these purchases appears to be related to the procurement of inventory for re-sale by a separate entity. If there is another reason for the volume purchased during this sale, please bring this to our attention.

Here is the complete email:

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Keep, Cancel or Convert? American Express Hilton Aspire Credit Card ($450 Annual Fee)

Good morning everyone.  As part of my “Keep, Cancel or Convert?” series, I like to evaluate and reevaluate credit cards to make sure they still deserve a spot in my wallet (or credit card drawer).  In today’s post, I will share my thoughts regarding my American Express Hilton Aspire Credit Card.  I was reviewing my recent credit card statement and spotted a reference to the annual fee (it was very subtle and is probably overlooked by most people).  I decided to check out page 4…

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