Tag Archives: Gift Cards

$500 Visa Gift Cards for 95 Cents at Ralphs (Possibly other Kroger Grocery Stores)

Ralphs Logo

$500 Visa Gift Cards for 95 Cents at Ralphs (Possibly other Kroger Grocery Stores)

Greetings fellow long time readers and first time readers from Prior2Boarding.  As most of you know, I live in CA and post later in the evening (usually between 7-10PM PST).  If you are on the East Coast or other parts of the world, please note that 90% of my blog posts come at this time.  I try not to talk about the same thing as the 100+ other miles and points travel blogs do.  I’m sure all of you have probably seen your fair share of SPG transfers to US Airways and American Airlines miles posts and American Airlines dining reward posts.  Are you ready for some new reading material?  If so, please read on…

A few days ago, my mom went shopping at Ralphs (the Southern California grocery store owned by Kroger – thanks Wikipedia).  She brought home this offer and it looked interesting to me.  The offer “says” you will get a coupon for $5 off your next purchase after you buy 2 or more Visa or MasterCard Gift Cards.  It also “says” you will receive one coupon per transaction per day.  Well, the coupon is not exactly right…

$5 Gift Card Offer

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Breaking News: AMEX Serve and Bluebird Raise Daily Reload Limit from $1,000 to $2,500 per Day

Serve vs Bluebird

Breaking News: AMEX Serve and Bluebird Raise Daily Reload Limit from $1,000 to $2,500 per Day

Frequent Miler (link) reported that Bluebird has increased the daily reload limit from $1,000 a day to $2,500 a day, with the same $5,000 monthly reload limit.  I checked Bluebird FAQs and it looks like they quietly increased their online debit card load from $100 a day to $200 a day, with the same $1,000 monthly limit.  I have no idea what else Bluebird changed…

BB New Reload Terms BB New Reload Terms Asterisks

According to Serve’s website (link), you can now load $2,500 per day with “cash” (hopefully gift cards too).  Everything else looks the same.  This is really interesting.

Serve New Daily Limits

I loaded $900 today to my Serve Card so I am eager to try to load $2,500 tomorrow.  Please report your success/failures loading more than $1,000 at Walmart.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.

Crazy Weekend: UCLA Graduation, San Diego Wedding, LAX Flight, and My Credit Card App-O-Rama Updates

San Diego City Logo

Crazy Weekend: UCLA Graduation, San Diego Wedding, LAX Flight, and My Credit Card App-O-Rama Updates

TGI Friday everyone!  This might be my last post for a few days, but I will still be able to answer comments with the WordPress iPhone app.  Here is my schedule this weekend:

  1. Friday Night – My younger brother’s UCLA graduation
  2. Saturday Afternoon – My older brother’s wedding in San Diego
  3. Sunday Night – Family vacation from LAX to Spain/France for 2 weeks

My dad scored 4 award seats 11 months ago for LAX-DUS-BCN on Air Berlin (economy baby, woo hoo!) returning on 4 separate awards seats from MAD-FRA-LAX on Lufthansa (economy again!)  We are doing a big road trip from Barcelona up to Carcassonne, France west to San Sebastián, and down to Madrid.  I imagine some epic World Cup viewing parties in my future.

Spain Road Trip

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UPDATE: There is a Glitch with Walmart/Serve that Results in a $3.95 Fee being Charged for Each Gift Card Reload

UPDATE 6/20/14: Do not use OVGCs or VGCs at Walmart.  Use other gift cards from other banks.
AMEX Serve Logo

UPDATE: There is a Glitch with Walmart/Serve that Results in a $3.95 Fee being Charged for Each Gift Card Reload

If you load your AMEX Serve Card today (June 11), double check your account to see if you got charged a $3.95 fee for each gift card reload.  I talked to AMEX Serve this morning and they are aware of the *glitch* and are working to fix it soon.

If you notice that your AMEX Serve reloads are missing $3.95 per reload, please call the number on the back of your Serve Card and Serve will credit your account $3.95 for each reload made today.

The refund shows up as a “Good Faith Credit” on your Serve Card.

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My Favorite Credit Cards for Manufactured Spend

Which Credit Card

My Favorite Credit Cards for Manufactured Spend

First off, I am not saying that these are the *best* credit cards for manufactured spend, these are just *my* favorite credit cards to use.  With that said, your travel patterns and preferences might be different than mine, so you might have different credit cards you like to use.  I guess I should also state what manufactured spend means to me:

  • Using your credit card for the sole purpose of earning miles, points, or cash back
  • Converting whatever you purchased back into “cash”
  • The amount of “cash” lost during the transactions should exceed the “value” of the miles, points, or cash back you received from using the credit card

Without further ado, here are my favorite credit cards…  Continue reading →