Yea that's my fear but worth a try. I figure though that is one person says no, I can try a different shift. I just started working at a different site of my company today and it just HAPPENS to be right behind the mall. So I can run over there during a different time of the day to try.

My local SM would also not take a personalized amex, even called her manager to confirm. She said they have an arrangement with Amex not to accept gift cards. Not sure I believe that, but it's what she kept repeating while apologizing.

Employees like to make up BS sometimes lol. Not saying that she is but just throwing it out there. However the first employee that I tried with said that they can't accept Amex GCs that aren't the ones they sell. (This was with a non-personalized one though.)

The front line person has to repeat what she is told. If it's being made up, it's not necessarily the person who has to relay the message.

IF a challenge is in order, try to find the office with the right head honcho...:eek:

Not saying this is always the case but sometimes the things you read on this thread shows that someone is making something up. True that it may or may not be that particular CSR but somewhere someone decided upon themselves that this HAS to be the reason why you can't do this. Especially when it's not a corporate policy or even policies that are the same from employee to employee.

These folks are worried about losing their jobs. People work at mall kiosks because they need some dough.

They'll make up stories if needed to avoid the risk of job loss.

Filled out "paperwork" for a 10k VGC purchase yesterday. All it was was a "AMEX GC Order Form" that needed a signature saying I received the gift cards. Mrs. Simon was very friendly.

and i used to be thrilled with the tootsie rolls i get! :mad:

I bought $500 x4 this morning. When I got home and called to set the PIN, all 4 cards had 0 balance. I called the mall and was told the system reverted all the purchases for everyone today. :( They will not be selling any more today. Maybe sudden increase of sales triggered their alarm system??? I hope this is not a sign of any change!

Thanks MMS!

I am sure that Paul will post soon that the bloggers advertising the mall opportunity had Nothing to do with it.
..or that we can't "prove it".:rolleyes::rolleyes:

It is just a coincidence that these things start to get sketchy right after MMS and the other bloggers put out big posts on the method according to some people here....GEEEEZ

I think it's beyond obvious that the blogs play some role in the demise of deals. The problem is that MMS, by his own admission, caters to newbies. So when he "announces" a new deal you get a flood of people who really have no idea what they're doing, and I don't think MMS does enough to warn people of the dangerous/complications involved (as he has no financial incentive to do so).

That's part of it; but also I think some of them don't realize how delicate the ever-dwindling opportunities are. If I'm a business owner and I have a marketing tool that I lose a few bucks on, but that drives additional customers into the business I come out a winner. But once that tool becomes a loss leader being exploited by 10 times as many people, guess what happens. The beauty of Flyertalk is that it contains a ton of information but that information takes some time to navigate, as well as requires you to get out and test the methods in your own neck of the woods. Many folks aren't willing to spend the time reading and testing, so the number of people using any given method remains sustainable.

Just my 2c and I'm sure a few will flame us for getting upset when we have to "share our ball in the playground" but it does sorta suck when you spend hours and hours figuring things out, then they're busted within weeks of becoming front page material.

Deals and tricks are more delicate today due to blogs, not due to the deals themselves being more fragile. I knew easy tricks and deals from the 90s that lasted for more than 10 years. In particular, Southwest airlines lost thousands of dollars due to me during the 90s. That would not happen today due to blogs. It's not just MMS that steals FT content for their spammy blogs. Assume every reader/poster (hi Paul) is a blogger. Then figure out if you really want to share your newest deal on FT, because that's the same as sharing it to MMS.

This board does more damage then any blog. Almost all blogs point back to here. this is among the top of all searches for MS and has by far the most up to date information.

The fact you learnt it here vs a blog really doesn't make you any better. There is little worse then snobs. Especially for ridiculous reason like this.