DaveInLA

I'm not sure what subforum to post this in; this is the closest thing I can think of.

I bought about $1500 in Sears gift cards over the 1+ year when portal payouts were heavy. About 6 months ago, I was able to buy Amazon, Shell, and Visa gift cards at the Sears counter using the Sears gift cards. I went again today, and the cashier went through all the steps, but the system apparently could not complete the transaction. I took 6 Amazon $25 gift cards ($150) to the cashier and paid with 3 $50 Sears gift cards. Everything went as expected, but before the receipt printed out, the screen said "prepaid card rejected" and froze. The cashier called over the manager and said that gift cards can't be used to buy gift cards . She printed out a transaction file, and apparently 4 of the 6 Amazon gift cards were loaded but the other 2 were not. Unfortunately, her file didn't identify which ones were loaded and which weren't. After about 30 minutes (no joke), she was able to cancel the transaction and returned a single $150 Sears gift card to me.

Has anybody else experienced something like this? Any recent reports of successful purchases of merchant or Visa gift cards with Sears gift cards?

unkinected

I don't have any recent reports on this, but I think this is common. Many Sears will not allow this. You can try another store, or try KMart.

Mamibear

I suspect this is related to more KMart/Sears closing stores in Jan 2015:

http://news-goarticle.rhcloud.com/km...-january-2015/

http://www.sinewsweb.com/news/Kmart-Stores-Closing-2015

I'm not surprised at all about them not allowing GC payments for GCs; what surprises me are those KMart/Sears stores that remain open up to now.

hamokmonky

Kmart requires a managers override, so thats highly unlikely (FYI for those who havent tried it)

DaveInLA

The thing is that the cashier tried to ring it up, but it was the register that rejected it.

hamokmonky

No, what it sounds like is that the prepaid (amazon card) had a problem activating, and was therefore rejected (hence why 4 had value while 2 did not). When the manager came to assist, then of course they said "no gift cards".

DaveInLA

That's what I thought as well, but what are the chances that 2 out of 6 Amazon gift cards could not activate? You think I would've run in to the same problem if I had paid with cash or credit card?

hamokmonky

With sears? Im not surprised by anything anymore. I think you wouldve had the same problem on a credit card, except that you were lucky you used giftcard and the manager refunded, otherwise it likely wouldve been a nightmare getting your money back for those two unactivated ones.

cak144

Purchased 4 BP gift cards with $100 Sears gift card at Kmart register today. No problems. No manager override required.

brajalle

Man do I miss my local K-mart. That place was deal-city.

Before my local k-mart closed this spring there were no issues with buying gift cards with kmart/sears gift cards. Your only obstacle was the cashier - I always tried to pick the younger ones. Also, you never wanted to have the manager called over. Be very picky and stick with a cashier that says ok, never argue, and just pay for it with a regular card until you find those golden cashiers who dont' give you trouble.

The local K-mart rang up as department stores locally, and there was actually a few credit cards that has some small 2-3% CB. I'd buy kmart gift cards with it, then would buy gift cards to wherever I wanted. The local k-marts had a promotion at the register, that $50 in spend = 30 cents off a gallon of gas coupon. You could stack up to 3 of those, and the local stations they had deals with had a 15 gallon limit. Ergo, each $50 gift card transaction was worth $4.50 gas discount (I had a spare 5 gallon gas can). You could stack them 3x, so for $150 in spend, I'd end up with something like $27 off in gas coupons, $9 CB on a rebate site I use, and $4.50 CB on the card. There were all sorts of other stacking deals they'd run every so often, I remember one purchase I spent like $75, and ended up getting no less than 3 different gas coupons (the normal spend $50 promo plus 2 others - worth like $27 off in total) plus something like $28 of SYW points and another 5% from the CB site.

My local store employees called me the SYW man. Was really sorry to see that gravy train end when they closed both local stores. Sears also ran some great promos - less so than Kmart, but I got a set of tires last Thanksgiving for the wife's car stacking all sorts of deals (including plink/etc) - 80k mile warranty tires for like $80 in total on $680 worth of tires. If they run a similar promo this year I'll pick up a set for my car, even if I have to drive a ways. I still have about $300 worth of SYW points left over from 6 months of activity in my local Kmart/Sears (I earned about $1k in total in that time). Heck, I earned something like $325 just from transferring 8 prescriptions back and forth on top of that. It was ridiculous.

The SYW VIP program has some good stuff in it too. Sears/Kmart (if they don't go out of business soon) really has one of the best ecosystems to exploit of any out there and it gets almost zero exposure in the blog world. In fact, I figured out these deals totally by accident after looking for a new washer/dryer - I spent the next few months experimenting (including with their online marketplace) and keeping track of their promos - was about a month from having enough material & tracking their promos to start a blog dedicated to it, then they closed my local stores.

ShrinkingViolet

^^^ bummer that you didn't, would've read it. I just recently discovered the kmart through portals thing to buy BP gas cards, and had the cash register spit out the gas savings coupon. It didn't give me any kmart points, though, but it did get me started watching the portals for high kmart/Sears payouts, my plan for next time is to totally stock up on BP cards.

OHijAAzi73

Given the trajectory Sears is heading with more store closings....make sure you liquidate those GC as soon as you get them....otherwise they will be worthless once they go BK....Sadly.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sears-...160310485.html

brajalle

Correct, there's no doubt in my mind it has a few years left as we know it. Nevertheless, they are offering some killer deals as the different divisions compete against each other (and offer overlapping promos).

I suspect that Craftsman & DieHard will be farmed out as a label for sale anywhere. I believe that Kenmore may live on in appliance stores - the small footprint Sears stores that may be franchises may continue as a spin-off or post-bankruptcy chain. I think the rest will disappear. At this point, in terms of long-term investment, I'm only comfortable in banking on Kenmore warranties. It's a strong brand, it will likely survive in some form, and if a buyer or spin-off wants to keep customers they will have to honor those warranties or face a horde of pissed-off customers who say never again. Past that, take advantage of the deals while the company lasts.

hitman1420

Agreed. I'm invested in Sears until the ship sinks.

DaveInLA

I successfully bought a $100 Amazon gift card at Kmart using a Sears gift card today. Today, I went back to the same Kmart, same cashier and tried buying 3 of the $100 Amazon gift cards. She tried ringing me up, but after payment processed, the register indicated that the transaction had failed (all 3 of the Amazon cards failed to load). However, my Sears gift card was charged. She had to contact the manager, who predictably told me I can't buy gift cards with gift cards and gave me a $300 Kmart gift card. Is there a limit to the amount of merchant gift cards that can be purchased with Sears gift cards?