Churnman

To the young college aged male who was buying yesterday at a certain mall and opening all 18 cards right there at the office while we and others were watching in awe, do you not realize how you look to the office staff? There were people waiting in a small space. I guess he wanted to make sure the cards were really in the packages? BTW, he does this each time he buys.

3ZeroT

That's bizarre. The only I time I had a motivation to open the packaged cards right away (or at least pull the tabs off to expose the barcode) was when the cashier had trouble getting some package mag strips to scan and would skip, creating multiple card piles where I could only hope I wasn't accidentally getting an unactivated card. Then I'd pull the tabs off every one to make sure the last 4 of the barcodes all matched up with the receipt. But I'd leave the desk first and do it in the parking lot lol.

Carl

Yeah, I presumed they'd roll it out to all (or at least more) locations after its launch, but it doesn't look like it. The reserved parking made it easy to go to the busiest mall in the region and park right at the door on Black Friday (to buy GCs, of course!).

DjRocket

My mall didn't allow it. Maybe the CSR didn't know what she was doing, but combining the cards was a very painful and slow process, where she had to enter specific amounts for each card, me sign it every time, then sing again the whole thing, etc.... and then charge me on top of that. That's why I decided not to do that again and look for other options to get rid of the change.

Thanks to Carl and others for the suggestions about the grocery stores, I'll try that. "Auto-drain" is the word I was looking for : )

Carl

It's also my understanding that CVS allows seven swipes per transaction, so that could be a good way to get some of the $25 balances lowered to $1.25. You may have already done that.

dr_sharp

My CVSs don't allow split tender at all. YMMV

krazykanuck

Oh well, I was able to get in and out this morning. Glad the mall opened at 10. Didn't look like many of the stores were even open yet my one of my regular guys was working the GC kiosk along with a new guy.

phrostbyte

Hello everyone. I was wondering if you could give me some advice. I'm not exactly new to MS but I've taken somewhat of a hiatus. I used to be really big into the T-mobile/reloadit game... and to a lesser degree the Vanillla Visa/Redbird game. Both of those have been shut down for a while now. I'm looking for the next best option. I recently signed up for 3 new AMEX cards and only want to meet the minimum spend to get the sign of bonuses. 1] 5,000
2] 2,000
3] 1,000

i also have a $25 credit after spending $500 on my Marvel Mastercard

I'm looking for an easy and effective method of spending less than $10,000 total and not having to spend too much in fees. Anyone have any ideas?
does anyone have a link to the simon gift card FAQ? i think i'm going to take a trip and spend it all on simon gift cards (and i guess try to get money orders from walmart later)

financialhippie

I'd be really careful MSing on AmEx right now, just in case..

phrostbyte

can you elaborate that? will they close my cards? ban me permanently? i only plan on meeting minimum spends, not going crazy with it

ChrisFlyer66

There are many recent reports of them clawing back the signup bonus on some cards if the minimum spend was met by MSing. I haven't seen reports of people being banned, but maybe that is the next step.

ElPresidente

Nobody knows how they pluck particular people out.

I'd stay away from Staples or other merchants that report Level 3 data about each item purchased. I'd feel safe purchasing GC in non-obvious amounts from anyone else. At least buy a pack of gum so it's not dead on the amount of VGC+fee.

All anecdotes I've seen were bonus clawbacks, not cancellation/ban.

Good luck.

FYI just went by my Simon Mall outlet location. Despite the parking lot being full of cars, there was nobody in the office. Plenty of 5B cards still in stock, picked up some and left. Oh how I wish this no-fee sale would come back in a few months...,.

Chelski

Few months?? How about a flew days. The bigger problem is that CV,S will drop off of the FB soon. At least the remaining FBs I have will take a couple weeks to liquidate via VCS and 2 licenses.

Amex For Children Of Africa

Yup, there's no way CVS stays on that list much longer. Such an easy fix for them, no doubt that is coming soon. Still, fee free cards are amazing enough so let's hope they do it every once in a while.

krazykanuck

I wonder how Blackhawk/Metabank/the FB merchant split eating the cost of the 5% back?