geoff325

I am planning on stacking up HH points for some vacations in a few years. I currently have about 125k of student loans. There is a company called Gift of College that allows you to buy gift cards/directly gift money to somebody to pay their student loans. My servicer -Firstmark through common bond - allows GOC. Gift cards can be purchased through about 7 or 8 different companies like Target, HEB, Fred Meyer, Food Mart and some smaller companies, however they range from 100-$500 increments. Only 2 allow 500 at a time, HEB (an amazing grocery store chain in Texas) being one of them. My plan is to buy 2 gift cards every month for my 1k monthly payment. However I also get a 20k lump sum from my employer (15k) after tax. How large of a purchase at 1 time at a grocery store is going to raise red flags with AMEX? Should I make 3-4 small purchases of 3k? Or is that too large? Are they going to look at how much I spent at the end of the month or just each individual transaction? I know there is a 25k limit on grocery with Gold card - but if there is a limit then it must mean its ok to go up to it. I don't have a problem getting multiple cards to spread out.

mia

In the other thread you mentioned that you do not actually shop at HEB, and would be asking a friend to make the purchases. Is that still the plan? There is a difference between spending $500/week for a gift card mixed in with groceries, and buying nothing but gift cards.

In general, card issuers care about gift card purchases not because of the rewards, but because they may represent increased credit risk. It doesn't matter if there is increased risk in an individual case, these are mass market companies who establish rules based on statistical correlations, and detect problems using algorithms.

If you have not yet completed the minimum spend to earn the new account bonus for your card I would avoid buying giftcards until the bonus has posted. Then, I would begin mixing in card purchases with other goods and services.

geoff325

Sure, that makes sens I can to the minimum spend first. I may use some extra miles I have to fly to a location so I can make the big ones in person. Its a hassle but I think worth it. Then I can have my friend make the 1k monthly purchases which should fly under the radar pretty easily I would think. Also I have a long history with AMEX, a good score and multiple cards.

mia

I assume you are intending to order a supplementary card in your friend's name, and that you understand the risk because you are responsible for all charge s/he puts on the card.

RedSun

I think all card issuers care about credit risk much more than rewards. They should be just with your $1k or $2k grocery purchase each week and if that is just a small part of your total spending. Relationship and history do count.

krazykanuck

I don't have a sure fire answer for you, but I did $6k in grocery spend in 2 days on my Gold card at the end of December, $1k-1.5k per swipe, all MS via GCs, and it was no issue. Granted this was a fairly old card and I got 1 fraud alert text which I cleared while still at the register. I think it has more to do with your usual spend patterns than anything else, so I'd recommend a ramp up vs just going all out.

geoff325

thanks dad

geoff325

Where was it at? Was it HEB by chance? And were you going for the whatever X spend for grocery purchases? So the gift cards at the grocery store still counted as grocery purchase they were not somehow singled out?

krazykanuck

It wasn't at HEB. Not that it's terribly relevant, it was at a store long known to code as grocery (and is listed in the wiki here). I can confirm that HEB codes at 4x since I live in HEB-world, but I was MSing in foreign lands I don't know of any grocery stores that provide L3 info, so IMO there isn't much risk. The only real risk is triggering Amex's fraud triggers with a sudden ramp in spending.

geoff325

Yeah the only reason I asked about HEB was because I saw IAH in your signature. Is there any value in pre-emptively letting AMEX know? Like I am traveling to this location and will be making a large purchase? Again I have long history with amex and you the Blue preferred multiple times a week for grocery purchases and have amex SPG I use on regular basis