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Cashback on Amex GC through TopCashBack, BigCrumbs, etc.

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Old Oct 25, 2013, 7:07 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: ericdabbs
Please read the wiki before posting a question.

UPDATE 01/17/15

BeFrugal: 1.5%
Big Crumbs: 0.9%
TopCashBack: 1.5%


For other cash back or airline portals, check here: http://www.cashbackmonitor.com/Cashb...erican+express

Public Service Announcement: Do NOT use fee-free codes if you want portal cashback / miles. CB/Miles will post and then be clawed back.

FAQ

Will it post as a cash advance (CA)?

Citi - Yes.

Cards from Chase, BoA, FIA, Barclay, AMEX, CapitalOne, US Bank, Discover, HSBC, etc., have posted as purchase. PNC Visa Cashbuilder - posts as purchase but does not earn CC rewards

Note: Some issuers (Discover, US Bank, etc.) will decline the authorization if it exceeds your CA limit. This does NOT mean it will post as CA. It simply means you need to lower the purchase amount below your CA limit for authorization, but it ultimately posts as a purchase.

How do I set PIN on AMEX Gift Cards and use as debit to load Bluebird, buy MOs, etc.
You cannot set PIN or use them as debit to load Bluebird, buy MOs, etc. You can only use them as credit where AMEX is accepted.

How do I cash out AMEX Gift Cards?
Use manufactured spend techniques (load RB, buy Visa/MC GCs, VRs, AP, AFT, etc.) or normal spend where AMEX is accepted.

Why buy AMEX Gift Cards then?
To reduce the cost of manufactured spend, to mask your manufactured spend (i.e unusual high spend at Target or CVS), earn additional cash back on spend, or meet minimum spend targets faster.

Next day shipping that isn't?
The next day shipping is from when they ship the cards to UPS, which can be as long as 10 days from the order submission if you order personalized cards (more recently this has been under a week). For next day shipping, you are notified late night (once your card finishes processing, see above) and the package arrive that same morning before 10:30AM in your area.

What is with the charge disappearing from my credit card?
Once the order is placed you will see a pending charge on your CC account. Quite often once the card ships this pending is removed but does not show as a charge. Don't panic (or celebrate) it will show up as a charge within a day or so.

Personalized GCs?
Either Biz or Personal GCs can be personalized with your name. This helps when shaky cashiers who demand to see your card are prevalent. These take approximately 4 biz days to arrive compared to the non personalized which arrives as quickly as the next day.

UPS Tracking?
If you logged in to your AMEX account when placing the order you can get tracking info by logging in to your AMEX account and clicking on cards > gift cards > order history > order details. Unfortunately tracking information may not appear until well after your order has shipped so it's best to sign up for UPS My Choice to get faster tracking info and reroute your package if needed. Since UPS may drop your package off at the door if you're not home, it will be useful to know when your package will arrive.

The portal terms indicate that coupon codes will invalidate cash back. Is this true?
Yes (as of July 2014)

What are the purchase limits? (Updated Dec 2014)
10K personal every 14 days
100K business every 14 days

Do declined orders count toward the purchase limits?
YMMV

Do fees and shipping count toward the purchase limits?
No

Why was my purchase declined by AMEX?
There are several possibilities:
- Your billing address does not match 100% with what the credit card company has on file. This could be anything from apt/suite/condo # on the wrong line to zip code requiring 9 digits instead of 5. If your first purchase does not go through, call your bank or login to your acct to verify that this matches what you used.
- You have gone over the $10k every 14 day limit on personal gift card purchase.
- Even if you are sure the first two are correct as you have ordered before on that card and it's been more than 14 days, you might still get declined. No one has any idea why.
- You placed a business order and you don't really have a business (at some point AMEX does a background check for a valid business) or you have exceeded the 14 day limit for business orders.

My order was declined but my credit card still shows a pending authorization. How long until this falls off and my credit line is freed up?
I typically takes 1 week for the pending authorization to fall off after a declined order.

Can I order from the business side using a personal card? Or does it need to be a business card?
You can use whatever credit card you want to pay for business or personal orders. About the only restriction is you can't use an AMEX GC to buy another AMEX GC.

How long will it take the portal to track my order and confirm the pending cash back or points?
For non-Cartera portals (TCB, BC, Befrugal, etc) your order will usually track within a day or two.
For Cartera portals (Barclay Reward Boost, Lucky Rewards, USAA, Alaska, Delta) it will take 3-4 weeks to track.

My orders are not tracking. How can I maximize the chances the portal will track my order properly?
Use a browser you do not normally use (Chrome, Firefox, Opera), reset all browser settings to defaults, clear all browser cookies, disable all browser add-ons, and close/re-start your browser before navigating to the portal and placing your order. Do NOT use promotional coupon codes. The vast majority of tracking issues result from use of coupon codes, a bad browser cookie, improperly configured browser settings, or add-ons that interfere with cookie tracking.
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Cashback on Amex GC through TopCashBack, BigCrumbs, etc.

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Old Aug 19, 2014, 9:10 am
  #8146  
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: DFW
Posts: 478
Originally Posted by josephstern
My business order received -> approved emails often come far more than an hour apart.
Agree
spgbus is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 10:00 am
  #8147  
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: ATL
Programs: DL PM, SPG Plat
Posts: 885
Originally Posted by ashap
Auto approval is just you get an "approved" email without any of the "received" email and review stuff.

For a lot of us, "received" emails seem to mean a denied order.
I don't know if you are referring to business cards only, but I have never been auto approved on personal card orders (I get the order received email) and, so far, every one has been approved.
FederalFlyer is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 10:14 am
  #8148  
 
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 394
Originally Posted by spgbus
You are right. The auto approval applies to $1k or less for either Biz or Personal Cards. My Personal Card orders were all in $2+3k and I always got Received message first.
for what it is worth I just did a $1k and $500 card on a personal order. Never got the received email as I placed the order at 10 mins after the hour. 58 mins later got approved and shipped as same time.

Last edited by givingitatry; Aug 19, 2014 at 10:32 am
givingitatry is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 10:53 am
  #8149  
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Programs: Hyatt Globalist No More..., Hyatt Explorist, Hilton Diamond, SPG Platinum, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 4,375
Originally Posted by spgbus
You are right. The auto approval applies to $1k or less for either Biz or Personal Cards. My Personal Card orders were all in $2+3k and I always got Received message first.
That still doesn't acknowledge that you see error in the rest of your statement. Even for my personal orders of $2k-$3k, I often get the approved email an hour after the received order. Both on the :08 mark. Again though this is strictly for non-personalized.
cdancer20 is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 11:09 am
  #8150  
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: PVD/BOS
Posts: 879
Originally Posted by FederalFlyer
I don't know if you are referring to business cards only, but I have never been auto approved on personal card orders (I get the order received email) and, so far, every one has been approved.
Referring to both person and biz for me. received = denied, auto approved on the :08 after the order.

Again, this has been discussed ad nauseam in this thread already though.
ashap is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 11:21 am
  #8151  
 
Join Date: May 2014
Location: East Coast
Posts: 70
1 - 3K Single Personalized Personal card
Today
Received 9:08A
Approved 1:11P

Last edited by Dockdogs; Aug 19, 2014 at 11:27 am
Dockdogs is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 12:10 pm
  #8152  
 
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 747
Holding pretty consistent here, 3k Personal:

Received 10:08 AM
Approved 1:08 PM

FYI for my earlier question, since I didn't get an answer (14 days after received or approved?) I ended up playing it safe, did 14 days (and a few hours) after order approval rather than just received.
nrdk is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 1:12 pm
  #8153  
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 149
Just got a message from TCB stating:

Hi there,

I can confirm that we have now received an update as regards to the status of this claim. Unfortunately it seems that the merchant has taken the decision to decline this claim, and due to this we have not received any cashback to pay over to you or to add to your account.

The reason that we have received to support this decision states:

"Returned or cancelled order".

We are sorry that we have not been able to recover anything for you on this occasion. Please do get in touch if you believe the reason above to be incorrect.

I hope that any transactions you go on to make in the future go a lot more smoothly for you.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Best wishes
TopCashback Support.
This is a card I received and used months ago. Anyone else have this happen?
workaccounttoday is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 1:16 pm
  #8154  
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Programs: Hyatt Globalist No More..., Hyatt Explorist, Hilton Diamond, SPG Platinum, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 4,375
Originally Posted by workaccounttoday
Just got a message from TCB stating:



This is a card I received and used months ago. Anyone else have this happen?
I would suggest sending them a copy of your order history from AMEX and/or a copy of the email that they sent you with it being approved. Otherwise, you are probably SOL.
cdancer20 is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 1:18 pm
  #8155  
Suspended
 
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 2,998
Originally Posted by workaccounttoday
Just got a message from TCB stating:



This is a card I received and used months ago. Anyone else have this happen?
Did you keep the paperwork that came with the card? If so, I'd send that and copies of the confirmation emails back to TCB as proof of receipt

I've had to contact TCB on a variety of issues and they've always come thru for me.
Stoughton is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 1:19 pm
  #8156  
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 149
I have e-mails confirming the card was shipped at least. But now I'm regretting the fact that I may have tossed the actual papers. Of course I still have the card itself...
workaccounttoday is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 1:41 pm
  #8157  
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: DFW
Posts: 478
Originally Posted by workaccounttoday
I have e-mails confirming the card was shipped at least. But now I'm regretting the fact that I may have tossed the actual papers. Of course I still have the card itself...
Did you order it with your AMEX account? If so, check your order history online. It includes all your order detail including UPS tracking #.
spgbus is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 1:57 pm
  #8158  
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Oklahoma
Posts: 149
Originally Posted by spgbus
Did you order it with your AMEX account? If so, check your order history online. It includes all your order detail including UPS tracking #.
Yeah I did, I'll give that a look.
workaccounttoday is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 5:51 pm
  #8159  
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Coconut Creek, FL
Programs: AA Lifetime Platinum-2 MM Starwood Plat,Delta DM
Posts: 975
Has anyone here been able to use a US Bank card to buy the Amex cards?
I tried a few times previously and never got an approval
robertw477 is offline  
Old Aug 19, 2014, 7:23 pm
  #8160  
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: RDU
Programs: Delta silver, HH silver, IHG platinum, SPG gold, AMEX platinum
Posts: 400
Originally Posted by robertw477
Has anyone here been able to use a US Bank card to buy the Amex cards?
I tried a few times previously and never got an approval
Yes as recently as this week...start with small with a 1000 biz when USBank's website doesn't have any pending amex giftcards transactions. More details are documented in wiki and throughout this thread.
stealph is offline  


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