This has likely been covered in the many comments here, but was not able to find an answer with a search.
With regard to the giftcards.com purchases, they are now doing 3X, and a 30% bonus (at 100K LP) makes that 4X. And using an AA card makes it 5X as I think these count for this.
Most people talk about Visa/Mastercard eCards. At $250 each, these can be difficult to spend as they are, effectively, credit cards for payment purposes and most merchants limit the number of cards.
So, one can buy gift cards for something where they will spend enough.
In cases where giftcards.com sells cards for a desired merchant, why would one not just buy those GCs directly. In many of these cases these have no added fees (unlike the Visa/Mastercard). In this case, the cost for LPs is, basically, zero.
Is there a reason that this would not work?
(In my case, I'd likely buy AA GCs, and they're not listed, so this is a general question).
Cheers.
It can work well, but the retailer-specific GCs are harder to keep track of I think. For example, I want to spend about $310 at Home Depot. I will buy a $250 HD GC for $250, and get 1% giftcards store credit, plus earn about 5x. I’ll pay for the balance with a virtual visa. But personally, I would not buy a $250 for HD if I only needed to spend $220, because I don’t want to have to try to manage a spare $30 HD GC. With a visa I can just demo the leftovers into Amazon.
I’ve now had two merchants reject my virtual visas outright, which is a pain. I’m tempted to to buy a physical MC gift card to try to get my water bill paid. They have a $6 fee but return 1% in GC store credit, so net $3.50 for a $250 card. But I’ll be irritated if I buy it and they don’t accept it, even though it’s only a few dollars.