You CAN Still Earn Cash Back on $2,000 American Express Gift Cards by Point Chaser. It worries me that only one (or a small few) portals are still listing that $2,000 gift cards are OK. Not going to personally take the risk (especially at only 1% cash back) until I see some more positive reports of it tracking and becoming payable, but maybe you’re not as risk adverse as me.
MasterCard raises Heathrow Express discount to 20% by Head For Points. I usually just take the tube when I’m in London (unless work is paying), but this discount and the advanced fare discounts make the HEX an attractive option.
Best Use of Fairmont Free Night Certificates by Travel is Free. It’s hard to go wrong with almost all of the Fairmont properties, but this is still a must read if you have/are thinking of getting some free night certs.
Don’t you have to buy Visa/MC with these Amex cards anyway, pay the fees on those and then liquidate those? I know Ariana from “Points Chaser” does massive amounts with Amex and has been for awhile now but even she admitted that her “time is not valuable” (her words) and that she does it for enjoyment not necessarily to make money but to earn points. I know that you can make a few $$$ from portals if they are paying out on Amex cards but isn’t it a time killer to have to convert those to other gift cards and then liquidate those. Just trying to see the time/effort/profit logic here.
A couple times I did buy $5,000 in Amex cards. There was a portal bonus but the main reason I did it was because I used Google Pay and Amazon Register to liquidate those directly. That didn’t last long and I knew it was risky but it avoided the Visa/MC route.
Am inclined to agree that it may not be worth it to do portal–>amex gift cards–>VGC–>MO route, but some people actually have lots of legit unbonused spend per month. (For me it’s my rent.) For all of that, better to do it with portal–>amex gift cards than any other way I’m aware of.
Yes, I understand “time is valuable”. However, I need to kill a lot time time each time. My kid have a lot of activity. Ex, my daughter join swim team and practice 4 times a week. I need to kill 75 minutes each time. Kroger, RiteAid, CVS, Walmart, Staples, Target are all in 1 miles radius of swim team. I manage to walk to those stored and walk back to pick up my daughter. I exercise and make a few points/money.
I also liquidate the Amex gift card directly. I pay tax to IRS this year, pay car insurances, pay $1900 to Orthodontic DDS a few week ago. I also use Amex gift card at Costco. I estimated I liquidated $15K/yearly alone directly.
Amex was really not the big time suck in the whole scheme of things – assuming it worked for you. For many people, the VGC buy-and-liquidate was the real time issue, but it also was/is the best (or only) bet for MS. People were going to do that anyhow, regardless of whether they added the Amex GCs to the mix, and the Amex GC addition through the portal was only to help them to offset the cost of the MS fees that followed. Again, assuming it worked. I would have been doing it a lot more, myself, but I had my Amex GC purchases mysteriously denied so many times by Amex that I finally just threw up my hands and sucked up the MS fees.
Jonathan Chien (@guest_172672)
September 15, 2015 11:15
#172672
For Amex gift card, I understand that I might not get paid from portal. However, I get several cards due for minimum spending (20K+) in 2 months. I have yearly shipping, along with free order fee coupon so it means I will pay zero cost. I have no loss of all. I will give it a try.
Don’t you have to buy Visa/MC with these Amex cards anyway, pay the fees on those and then liquidate those? I know Ariana from “Points Chaser” does massive amounts with Amex and has been for awhile now but even she admitted that her “time is not valuable” (her words) and that she does it for enjoyment not necessarily to make money but to earn points. I know that you can make a few $$$ from portals if they are paying out on Amex cards but isn’t it a time killer to have to convert those to other gift cards and then liquidate those. Just trying to see the time/effort/profit logic here.
A couple times I did buy $5,000 in Amex cards. There was a portal bonus but the main reason I did it was because I used Google Pay and Amazon Register to liquidate those directly. That didn’t last long and I knew it was risky but it avoided the Visa/MC route.
Am inclined to agree that it may not be worth it to do portal–>amex gift cards–>VGC–>MO route, but some people actually have lots of legit unbonused spend per month. (For me it’s my rent.) For all of that, better to do it with portal–>amex gift cards than any other way I’m aware of.
Yes, I understand “time is valuable”. However, I need to kill a lot time time each time. My kid have a lot of activity. Ex, my daughter join swim team and practice 4 times a week. I need to kill 75 minutes each time. Kroger, RiteAid, CVS, Walmart, Staples, Target are all in 1 miles radius of swim team. I manage to walk to those stored and walk back to pick up my daughter. I exercise and make a few points/money.
I also liquidate the Amex gift card directly. I pay tax to IRS this year, pay car insurances, pay $1900 to Orthodontic DDS a few week ago. I also use Amex gift card at Costco. I estimated I liquidated $15K/yearly alone directly.
Thanks for your perspective. That makes a lot of sense. Certainly worthwhile if you don’t do the MS route and pay bills with the gift cards directly.
sounds like a churn dream
Amex was really not the big time suck in the whole scheme of things – assuming it worked for you. For many people, the VGC buy-and-liquidate was the real time issue, but it also was/is the best (or only) bet for MS. People were going to do that anyhow, regardless of whether they added the Amex GCs to the mix, and the Amex GC addition through the portal was only to help them to offset the cost of the MS fees that followed. Again, assuming it worked. I would have been doing it a lot more, myself, but I had my Amex GC purchases mysteriously denied so many times by Amex that I finally just threw up my hands and sucked up the MS fees.
For Amex gift card, I understand that I might not get paid from portal. However, I get several cards due for minimum spending (20K+) in 2 months. I have yearly shipping, along with free order fee coupon so it means I will pay zero cost. I have no loss of all. I will give it a try.
If you use the promo code to eliminate the fee, it usually negates the cash-back portal.
The promo code “PFWED = 100% off order fee” is provided by the same portal: Extrabux for September.