Astrophsx

Update 1/27:

Members are reporting that Amex gift cards are no longer being accepted as payment at the US Mint. Please check recent posts before ordering gift cards.

Some members are using gift cards purchased bigcrumbs>giftcards.com at the mint, but once again you may want to check recent posts to see if they are working before ordering.

If you have any un-used Amex gift cards you can call to return/cancel the cards and get a refund in two weeks.



Updated 1/05/2011:
Feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions. If you haven't signed up for Bigcrumbs.com my referral link is in my signature and your use would be greatly appreciated! If you would like to know more about the free rebate program click on the referral link and hit the "Learn More" tab to find out about the Bigrumbs.com cash back program to earn rewards on your purchases.



The Basics:

1. Sign up for a rebate website like Bigcrumbs.com
   
2. Sign in, search for American Express Gift Cards, click thru- the link.
   
3. Purchase up to $5,000 in Amex gift cards every 14 days. (~$80 cash back per purchase)
   
4. Use Fee-free code and sign up for 90 free trial shipping code to purchase the gift cards at face value
   
5. Use gift cards for non-pin based purchases like the US Mint for a quick way to liquidate the cards.
   
6. Wait for rebate to be paid out through paypal and collect whatever rebate/points/miles your credit card earns for regular purchases.

Things to be aware of before you order:

• Amex gift cards (GC) work just like a normal credit card, but cannot be used at an ATM or for pin-based purchases.
• Purchases via Bigcrumbs as of Dec 22nd are posting fine
• Cards must be registered before their use at the Mint or Paypal
• Currently the only card that has been reported not to work is the Citibank Amex AA.
• Please only post if a card has not worked for you. There are 1,000’s of CC's and there is no updated list of working cards.
• Bigcrumbs pays out the 15th of each month. Purchases you make in January will be paid March 15, purchases made in Feburary will be paid April 15th.
• Please read recent posts before making a purchase, or send me a PM and I will do my best to answer your questions.

Currently bigcrumbs.com offers the highest known cash back at 1.6%. You do not need a referral to sign up for bigcrumbs, but I would greatly appreciate it if you used my link to sign up. It takes nothing away from what you would normally earn in rebates. The commissions are really Bigcrumbs way of encouraging you to suggest the website to your friends so they can get more people to sign up and use their site as well as to gain your loyalty.


Gift cards at face value:
If you use an American Express card to purchase gift cards you can sign up for a trial 90 free shipping program. It has been suggested once you hit your 90 days to cancel and use a secondary card member to sign up for another 90 days. There are several codes available to wave the fees. If you make a purchase from the gift card website they will most likely email you a new code after a purchase. There are also codes for free shipping floating around but codes cannot be stacked, so if you are using the free shipping it is better to use the fee-free code.


Use at the Mint:
You will need to call and register each card before using them at the mint by calling the 800 number on the back of the gift card. If you are not going to go all out, I would suggest purchasing (1) $3,000 gift card and using it once every 10 days. This will allow you to stay within the stated terms on the Mint website of one order every 10 days. It will also cut down on the number of times you need to call and register the card.

The use of GC's has been shown to be a way to make several orders within the 10-day period at the Mint. You will need a unique card number and email address for each order. I cannot confirm if you need a unique name for each order or telephone, but will say that all orders can be shipped to the same address. You can order up to $5k in cards every 14 days. Most who go this route purchase (5) $1,000 cards.


Other helpful information and tips:
There is a limit of $5k per order for personal and $75k for biz, which can be done every 14 days. It has been suggested that if you try to go beyond this your order will be canceled and you will have to wait 14 days after the day the order was canceled. You may need to register with Amex in order to purchase business gift cards. Business gift cards have a separate link on bigcrumbs from the personal cards.

American Express gift card purchases can post to your account around 3-14 days after the purchase. Bigcrumbs updates your account every morning around 3 am central time. You will usually be notified by email of a newly posted purchase as well as money being sent to your paypal account. If a purchase has not posted after 14 days you can use their help section to report the purchase. All of your click-thrus are recorded and can be viewed in the cash reports section of the website. I have always been paid-out for Amex GC purchases.

Bigcrumbs and the commission junction network log and track IP's, cookies, as well as more detailed information. They have the right to cancel and void all rebate purchases for fraudulent secondary accounts. Rebates take 45-75 days to be paid out. All the time and effort you put into purchasing and liquidating for rebates could all be for nothing, and this also takes away from the spirit of the program.

Gift cards can be liquidated at paypal. You can register up to 15 cards. The paypal fee is based on the previous month's received cash. I believe the fees range from 2.9% to 2.2%. So if you need to quickly liquidate the cards or value the points you earned from the credit card spend over the fee you can use paypal as a faster method than the mint.

New Fee-Free Codes:
EMOCTWEL
EMDECWEL
EMNOVCM1

nydad

Thanks for posting this. This is intriguing.

So, if I understood you correctly, by purchasing $5,000 gift cards using your Amex SPG card, for instance, you earn 1) 5,000 SPG points + 2) $80 (1.6%). Of course, you need to find a way to cash out those gift cards, and I believe you're using Mint for that purpose. Am I correct?

Astrophsx

Correct, I created the thread for posting info about purchasing the cards and liquidating them using the mint. Sign up and refer others to buy the cards and liquidate to earn extra.

IMO if you are already going to make a mint purchase, you mind as well buy the gift cards and get the cashback since the free shipping program gets you the cards very quickly. It's also just a bonus to use it for regular online purchases and earning a little bit on commissions. There are people on there with marketing degrees that know great ways to sign up referrals.

Smidget

Just wanted to confirm that my Citibank Citi Select® / AAdvantage® American Express® card did indeed post the gift card purchase as a cash advance.

I did call up when I got the statement indicating the cash advance and they did reverse the charge after I called up. The interest I was charged (I did pay it off ASAP though) had to be elevated to a supervisor to reverse and they said that would take time, but my cash advance fee had been reversed already.

I'd love to know if anyone had any luck with the Visa version of the card...

Bikeguy

Would the AMEX gift cards be more difficult to use for everyday purchases versus a regular AMEX CC?

Any reason to not run all your spend thru the gift cards, adding 1.6% to everything purchased, not just mint and online purchases?

Smidget

The only hard part I would assume is keeping the balance of your cards in line and if any companies put temporary holds on your AMEX gift card for more than what you're spending? It'd be a lot of extra work, but hey 1.6% cashback + miles at the same time...

Also, I love how your question fits with your signature line

spangenberg

is the the giftcard you bought off of big crumbs? this one?

Smidget

Correct and correct.

Astrophsx

Ordering from the mint is just one of the fastest ways to liquidate the cards.

susieling

can this amex gift card be used at ebay / paypal?

also, will purchase a big amound (say $5k) of amex gc using amex card (like spg) possibly trigger a financial review?

Thanks

QL_714

Amex GC’s are not accepted everywhere Amex CC’s are. Most places yes, all places no!!!

Surgee

and no one has had trouble earning AMEX points (MR or SPG) using an AMEX CC to buy an AMEX GC, correct?

It strikes me AMEX would like this. You're fronting them cash and giving them the opportunity for float.

learningtime

Looks like Citi AMEX is treating these as cash advances.

Surgee

To clarify, I mean AMEX released AMEX cards (purebreeds ), i.e. SPG Cards, Gold/Plat/Centurion Charge Cards, etc. -- no one has had issue with this?

I suppose co-branded cards backed by different banks (like citi) are a different category.

Astrophsx

Yes, you will need to register your card by calling the 800 number and giving them your name/address/phone number. Beware that you can only add up to around 16 different cards to your paypal account. I do not know if this number is for the lifetime of the account or not.

Please keep the discussion of liquidating the cards to mint purchases.

I have read a good amount of the fatwallet forums and have not seen any recent mention of financial reviews.