Yeah, the trick has a trap - the cardinals will be waiting for you with a stake, some rope, and a BIC lighter. But if you can stand your money being tied up during a fraud investigation, the trick will work.
That said, better to go long on grocery store gift cards, especially those from stores that also sell gas.
Originally Posted by
Happy
My advice? DONT ever try to pull this credit / debit card trick on any amount larger than a few hundreds. Once upon a time Expedia agreed to issue several hundreds credit to me as a "compensation" gesture after I agreed to give up a sizable hotel booking on error rate. The supervisor revealed that they would enter a special code to indicate this was initiated from the merchant without prior charge to match so my bank would not flag it. Whether it is true or not, I have no idea. But I have been told privately several incidents that bank accounts being frozen due to the refunds that did not match any prior charges on the debit card from the same merchant. While things were eventually sorted out, there were no lack of headache and such in the process.