RNE

I have three Chase Freedom cards. I spend $4500/quarter to max them all out. So far, this year's categories occasioned me to buy a lot of Amazon GCs which I post on my Amazon account. My balance is almost $10,000. Will Amazon look askance at this? I'm doing nothing illegal, but still, does it raise eyebrows? If so, I could always switch to other stores' GCs, though none are as useful to me as Amazon's, and I'm not interested in selling GCs.

radonc1

What so you do with your Amazon account? (I guess I am not sophisticated enough to know how to manipulate an Amazon balance into a "real" dollar account)

However, if you are spending that amount of money on Amazon products (whatever they may be), then I feel comfortable that they would not care how you funded that spend.

I guess what I am asking is what are you planning on doing with that balance?

JMorgana

One of my favorite places to lurk is https://www.elliott.org/ and there has been a rash of Amazon gift card issues over there recently. General consensus is be prepared to justify how you got the cards and that you are their rightful owner.

RNE

I am simply buying things from Amazon as a need arises. It's really not MS per se. I'm worried it might look like money laundering or something when all I'm trying to do is get Ultimate Rewards. I don't need Amazon closing my account.

I no longer have paper receipts, but I have credit card statements that show the GC purchases on my Chase Freedom cards, so that's proof, right?

josephstern

I've had pretty big balances over there for years. Never been a problem.

Similar reason: I buy GCs at Office Depot.

dealhunter32

I get the feeling having a big GC balance makes you a target for them to blacklist. It seems they do this often without much consequence unless you make a big fuss or sue, and that is limited to small claims court thanks to their binding arbitration agreement. Depending on the state you live in, you might only be able to sue for up to 5K in small claims court... I would definitely not have anywhere near a 10K balance with them.

nwflyboy

Maybe, maybe not. Your credit card statements just show that you bought something there, there's no definitive connection to those specific gift cards. It's probably unlikely anything will go sideways (indeed, you might be named Customer Of The Month or something), but if you trigger some adverse action, without receipts, you're in a pretty weak position to negotiate. Now, this is Amazon we're talking about here, a company that purports to treat customers like gold (as opposed to somebody like GreenDot or PayPal, who tend to treat customers like Donald Trump treats his employees).

Still...with $10K on the line, you must like to live dangerously. Way, way too risky for my tastes. If it were me, I'd be freaking out (and I'd have a shoe-box full of receipts).

soy

Keep your receipts and you should be good. Personally I would not want to be holding more in Store Credit (or Amazon Balance) than I would spend in 6 months.

krazykanuck

Do you have an interest bearing Amazon account that I haven't heard of?

Ultraboost

Maybe it's best to just hold onto the physical GCs and not load them in until you need it? Why the rush to load them in? In the rare case your Amazon account gets shut down or frozen, it'll likely tie up that balance for some time.

chaser123

Why?
Amazon benefits by people having large gift card balances. I have never read of a shutdown for a large GC balance.
I think if your cards are legitmatly bought as new you will be fine. If you buy even a $10 gift card from a reseller you are more likely to be blacklisted than depositing 10k of cards you bought. Amazon does not tolerate fraud and you risk buying stolen cards when buying from a reseller.
I dont over have over 2k but I go thropugh about 20k a year.

JMorgana

Why isn't relevant...the point is that they do. And they have been cracking down on potentially fraudulent gift card usage recently.

RNE

I'll do that going forward.

I don't want to either, but I'm struggling to find any other GC that I know I will eventually buy something with, particularly when we're talking thousands of dollars. I spend a lot on travel and dining, but I don't want to buy travel or restaurant GCs with my CF cards because I can get 3% back with my CSR. So, it's smarter to put my CF spend toward things I'd otherwise get no bonus for.

That's a thought, but then my sock drawer would have $10,000+ in GCs.

RNE

Chase's Freedom categories have been tough on me this year.

Q1: Gas Stations. I'm retired now and don't drive much. I gas up about once a month. My wife drives a fleet car so she pays nothing out of pocket for gas. Therefore, I made little organic spend in that category. Thus, I bought Amazon GCs at gas stations (which wasn't always easy).

Q2: Grocery Stores. It's just the two of us now, so we don't spend a lot on groceries. Plus, we eat out more than we should, I admit. Thus, I bought Amazon GCs at grocery stores.

Q3: Gas Stations (again) and Walgreens. I moved our Rx's to Walgreens, but that's not a whole heck of a lot of spending. Thus, I bought Amazon GCs there.

Q4: Holiday: This is not promising because it might be Amazon (again) in which case I'd have to spend $4500 out of pocket in the face of an existing $10,000+ balance! Now, if department stores are there, that would be a little better.

Acid

Is it even worth it to do this? 5x on Amazon is always available at Staples on Chase Ink! It's like giving an interest free loan to Amazon.