NathanL104

Just Heard Walgreens is setting up a prepaid card in November. You can load with a PIN Debit at any Walgreens location and take out Cash for Free at any walgreens.

It will also offer Bill Pay and all the other goodies. Any thoughts on this?

https://balancefinancial.walgreens.com/home/#use

LoveMountains

Hard to tell, but most likely it is useless for MS.
It is a reloadable card from Walgreens and ALL reload cards in Walgreens are currently cash only.

vagrants

Get 100 points every time you reload in store.

Get 1,000 points when your first direct deposit is made. Then, get 250 points for each month a direct deposit is received.

The maximum amount of the initial load is $500.00 if using cash, $1,500 from a PIN-based debit card, and $2000.00 via Payroll/Government check. See participating store for limits on check cashing.

Monthly Fee: No fee when $1,000.00 or more, per month, is loaded to your Card Otherwise, $2.95 (per month)

Reload Fee (At Walgreens or Duane Reade POS): $2.95 (per transaction)*

* This fee is not charged directly to the Card and will be paid separately.

Bill Pay Fee: $0.95 (per transaction)

Over the Counter Withdrawal Fee: $2.95 (per transaction)

They do not mention max ATM withdrawal amount.

The Balance Financial Prepaid MasterCard is only available in Detroit, Milwaukee and Nashville and will be available chain wide in November.

As always, getting it in is easy. Getting it out is....

pier11

to complete picture:

The Balance™ Financial Prepaid MasterCard is issued by The Bancorp Bank; Member FDIC.

Bean

This could be interesting......

pier11

The maximum cumulative amount that may be withdrawn from an ATM per day is $500.00.

The maximum amount withdrawn through a participating bank (over the counter withdrawal) per day is $2,500.00.

Reloads at Walgreens or Duane Reade stores can be made with cash or a PIN-based debit card or by cashing a payroll or government check. You may not load more than (i) $500.00 by cash per day; (ii) $1,500.00 by a PIN-based debit card per day; ...
The maximum amount that may be loaded on your Card via cash and wire transfer is $2,500.00 during any 24-hour period.

vagrants

Nice, I couldn't find these! Might be useful after all.

My next question will be...will the BillPay include CCCs?

oracles4444

Reload fee is $2.95

that is on top of what you are paying to get the pin base debit card.

I think i will stick with BB.

dukerau

but there looks to be some MS potential. If you can load $1500 in one transaction with a debit card and can bill pay the full amount out in a single bill pay, that's 0.52 cpm after their junk fees for a 1 mile per $2 debit card or 0.26 cpm for a 1 mile per $1 debit card. Using gift cards doesn't seem as lucrative due to the many fees per transaction.

pier11

Major question is whether they accept gc and do split transaction for $1500 (if it's doable at once at all).
Otherwise 2.95 per 500 reload is not extremely exciting. (Having paid 4.95 for that 500 already.)

On the other note, that recent moves from CVS/Serve and WG looks like they decided to build a bridge for people to be able to get rid of GCs. Thus encouraging to buy them. Overstocked?

vagrants

Yes.

Combined with Balance Rewards, it's not gonna be that bad for real debit card use. There are other ways to earn free Balance Reward points...although it takes lots of effort.

andyandy

"PIN Debit: You may transfer funds from any other account using PIN debit. Simply present the debit card and your Balance Financial Prepaid MasterCard to a checkout cashier at any Walgreens near you. The cashier will swipe your debit card and ask you to enter that card’s PIN number. The cashier will then load the funds onto your Balance Financial Prepaid MasterCard. Funds will be available on your card in minutes. A $2.95 reload fee will apply."

This only looks like an interesting play if you do not have a source of MOs nearby. Or if your bank doesn't want the MOs. After all, you still have the hassle of getting the money back off the card. I'm thinking this is one to skip.

Andyandy

vagrants

You can do it in addition to the MO route that you love so much...depends upon the BillPay for me.

pier11

Some MO sources desire to see your name on card. So that route (if works) would allow to consolidate GCs for extra $1 per card (assuming successful 3*500 load for 2.95 fee). Knowing gc cost 4.95 at that locations, total per card will be ~5.95 - equal to cost at grocery store... (Nice way for WG effectively increase GC cost )

pier11

My guess CC payments will be available. Have you seen prepaid products with BP feature that does not include CCC?..
Also that prepaid products often share the same technological platform... So if BP is available for other similar products on that platform, it likely will be available with all payees here as well...

~$1 fee, as you noted.