AveApostle

Thanks Rooks and lkar for this update. I cautiously tried it for the first time (on my black) and was pleasantly surprised.

Please alert to any adverse action (I suffered through closure with NetSpend after trying too many loads) but so far, so good.

commdiver

Crap...Thank you for the help nonetheless.

Rooks

It's called 'Click-n-Pay' on my card and it lets you add a payee like BB then mails them a check. I have the black card.

rogue409

That's a nice feature of the black card, I definitely can't do that with my brand new "Green/Blue."

sgideons

First(?) shutdown report: http://freequentflyerbook.com/blog/2...entum-shutdown

Bancorp strikes again.

Rooks

I guess his card didn't have the BP feature. I've had this for six plus months and only used BP, no problems so far.

zeppoloveskafka

New cards have very limited BP feature that isn't useful for scaling.

raccah

So are you saying that one cannot get the black card anymore, and that the black card had better features?

BenH

So I just picked up a Blue card (4999) in AZ this week while I was there on business.

Looks like I might be too late to the game with these.

I went with the "Pay-as-you-go" plan - although I can't see anywhere on the web account what plan I'm enrolled in, let alone an option to change it.

I put $10 on the card at the store ($20 total cost) and loaded a $500 VR that night.
4 days later (today) I just loaded $3500 more in one go.

Unfortunately, it seems the savings account is shut down and the BP options are super weak. Other than a CA, which is triggering shutdowns - I don't see any way to get the money off this card.

I chatted online with a support dude and it went like this:

Zach: they are working on setting up the savings account but at this time it does not work with the new 4999 cards
BenH: but it is a planned feature? When I signed up for the card just this week they said it has savings and the website says this is a feature
Zach: hmm okay let me double check
Zach: they are working on it and its expected to be available shortly but at this time it s not running yet. I do apologize you did not get htis infomartion

So it sounds like they may indeed implement it - and when they do, perhaps they will introduce/revamp some other things.

I'm going to try a few things to get the money off, but if no-go I may just keep it in there for a month or two to see if the savings account get's re-enabled. Then, I may just keep the account for the savings and simply withdraw the interest once a year and hope they improve the card features.

Worst case scenario I close down the card to get my $$ back and still profit a couple hundred bucks in churn.

zeppoloveskafka

Ben,
All of this is quite well documented in the last few pages of the thread. 3 letters "ATM". If you got a 5%er, still good margins.

zeppoloveskafka

I think I may have been shut down. I couldn't get money out of the ATM (over my daily limit) and can't sign on. Unfortunately I still have about 4k in there. It's not going to create cashflow problems, but I'd rather not have that much locked up.

Since the experience seems similar to MVD, I'm going to wait a few days and try signing in again. I found that for some reason waiting sometimes I was able to sign in to MVD and get back to business.

I got the card last month, did about 7K, waited, and unloaded about 3k. This month I had done loads on the 7th and 11th with a few mixed in ATMs.

Rooks

Data point:

Black Card

Loaded $6k since 2/26, $4k in February, $2k in March. Still trying to figure out what the limits on VR are now that the $2.5k restriction is lifted.

AveApostle

While I and everyone else do appreciate your intrepid exploration, do be careful, because as soon as you find the limits, it's game over with these people!

BenH

It's not that clearly documented - everyone seems to be working out the methods based on the cards they have.

Unfortunately, it seems that with this blue card, ATM or CA is the only solutions for getting money out. I don't want to CA because of shut down concerns.

It seems there is $2 fee per withdrawal regardless of plan - and you're right $2 is not horrible as a backup if getting 5%. My plan now is to liquidate the 5K I loaded and just let this card sit until they either get their saving plan back online and/or get better BP options again.

My question is - are these part of any ATM network? Where can I use these cards that I am only going to be charged the $2 and not an additional fee by the bank? I can't find any information in their FAQ or fee schedule that mentions "in network" ATMs.

thanks

zeppoloveskafka

Just reporting back that I was shut down by Bancorp. After a few conversations I found out that I could take my money out, but not put any new money in (haven't tried doing that to test). I tried to ATM money out but couldn't. However I did do a MO at Walmart for half of the amount and that worked.