Using gift card (specifically HD) to shift spending forward
 

I need to hit a certain spend on a card in the very near future and am wondering, in addition to the Mint thing, if I can buy high dollar gift cards (Home Depot, for example) that I'm going to need anyway (in the future) to shift my spending forward?

Any idea if something like this will work?

This is an Amex card, I'm trying to use it to buy 500 dollar Home Depot gift cards to hit a certain spend level in the next few weeks.

Thx!

No problem at all for the CC companies.

It's no problem to buy them, the only problem is if you can have the money sitting idle and pay the CC off.

Why is it that you need to make a certain spend?

--wes

Actually many giftcards (including HD) sell for about face value- sometimes over- on fleabay because a lot of buyers get % back on purchases. They also have no expiration.

I may use this since this has been my hesitation at applying for the SWA business & personal cards (16credit plus $500 giftcards) with $5K spend in 90 days requirement each. (I'm scared of coining Chase and I hate to pay the $150 each BT fee).

No issue with that. But why not buy Amex, Visa or Master Card gift cards through Cashback Site or something similar? That way you will have a regular credit card that you can use for anything and earn a little extra money through the purchase? Or you can buy a generic card at a local grocery store (like Safeway) that you can later turn in to almost anything. I just turned in some Walgreen's cards for Shell gas cards. These cards are becoming quite fungible.

However, all the cards like this that I've looked at come with purchase fees as well as (frequent) monthly fees that can kick in quite soon. I was looking at it to also meet an Amex minimum spend and then use the debit cards to pay bills where Amex is not accepted.

Do you know of good/low fee Visa/MC gift cards?

If you are using a Hilton Amex for the gift card purchase, be sure to buy them at a grocery or drug store so you get the 6 points per dollar. I buy Ebay gift cards at the grocery and then go to Giftcards.com thru Big Crumbs and simply buy more ebay gift cards at face and get the 36% of the seller fee back in rebates, almost $2 per $50 card, or 4% on your money. Rinse, lather and repeat.

It's one of those "spend 25K in 3 months; get more SPG points" promos on the Amex card. I might hit it with my normal expenses, but I don't want to worry about it; so I need a fallback position if I can't get the spend "normally" and through orders from the Mint.

Is there any "normal" Visa/MC/Amex gift card that I can buy with no (or almost no) transaction fees that will work like this? I only pick HD because I know I can spend it in the future, but, even better would be Visa/MC/Amex card (and, best of all would be one that I can take in for cash!).

Please, feel free to point me in another direction!

You can order AMEX GC online at americanexpress.com/gift. You can use the code: EMSVC2 to avoid the purchase fees. There is also a 90 day free shipping trial. If you click through bigcrumbs, as others have mentioned, you can get 1.6% cashback.

NOTE: AMEX GC no longer work for Mint purchases but will work fine almost anywhere AMEX is accepted.

Will buying the Amex giftcard with an Amex CC get me points (or will they realize what I'm doing and prevent me from doing it)?

Is there a way to "cash advance" against the gift card (obviously, besides the mint)?

Yes you will earn points with AMEX CC (also other CC's).

Since the Mint no longer works, I'm unaware of an easy "cash advance" with these GC's. They should work to pull spending forward just fine though.

EBAY gift cards via giftcards.com
 

I've looked through the giftcards.com website, but I didn't find anything about EBAY gift cards. Can you please post the link?
Sorry if I missed something obvious.

Quote:
If you are using a Hilton Amex for the gift card purchase, be sure to buy them at a grocery or drug store so you get the 6 points per dollar. I buy Ebay gift cards at the grocery and then go to Giftcards.com thru Big Crumbs and simply buy more ebay gift cards at face and get the 36% of the seller fee back in rebates, almost $2 per $50 card, or 4% on your money. Rinse, lather and repeat.

Yeah it was something obvious. She buys them at the grocery store.

Hmmm, didnt see this promo on my AMEX SPG. Was there a link/code/number to contact to sign up for it by chance? Maybe we all get it and I just missed something?

Sorry, I should have been more clear. It was a new customer (only, AFAIK) bonus. I'm moving my business from the US Air card to SPG, and just recently signed up with them. IIRC, the promo was 10K miles for the first purchase, and then 15K if you spend 15K in the next 6 months.