eGifter is sending out an e-mail to their customers passing on a change Amazon has announced. The policy is as follows:
Amazon is adopting a general policy to remove Amazon.com and Amazon.ca Gift Cards from online gift card malls. This policy applies to all websites that sell gift cards to the public in the US and Canada. Thereafter, any purchase of Amazon Gift Cards would need to be as part of an employee or customer incentive, loyalty, rewards, recognition, disbursement, or other gifting program (including points redemption).
This change in policy is due to come into effect on April 1st, 2018. Most people would be better off purchasing the Amazon.com gift cards from Amazon directly anyway, as many cards earn 5x/5% on Amazon purchases. This is only affecting the online sale of gift cards, so purchasing Amazon gift cards at Staples would still be fine (for those with a card that earns at a high rate on office supply stores). It also looks like gift card exchanges that are selling ‘second hand’ Amazon gift cards (e.g Raise, Cardpool etc) are not affected by this change.
Hat tip to reader James
Amazon is still listed at 0.5x on MPX as of today (4/4/2018).
Well, Gyft, it’s been a nice run. I’ll still have you for Uber, Chiptole, and a few others.
Staples brick and mortar: Will you forgive me for cheating on you all this time?
Thanks Doc for the post — yet I’m still bit confused, which may relate more to the egifter source of the news. How exactly would Amazon force the removal of AMZN gc’s from independent gc outlets like Raise? As you suggest, says nothing about availability of new AGC’s via physical stores like Staples, Lowes — and the host of grocery outlets who carry them too. (I do rather well often buying them via Kroger, 6% off or more via Amex, then 4x fuel & cell points/minutes, then either use ’em (often to buy gc’s) or sell often at 95.5%….. as many here will recognize. Or will Amazon be also removing them from physical locations?
Looks like they are only removing them from online vendors. I don’t think they’d want to remove them in-store, to the contrary, we see them expanding the Amazon Cash reload, it furthers their reach.
Thanks Chuck and William – multiple helpful insights that make sense.
They won’t do it from Raise as Raise sells second hand GC, this is only for ‘new’ gift cards and Amazon is able to do it by refusing to sell them any GC. I guess they could purchase them directly from Amazon and then sell them, but they wouldn’t be ‘new’ and Amazon wouldn’t be giving them any special pricing.
Who even sells them online at a good discount or multiplier? In store purchases have been best for me.
what about in the B&M stores? they would stop that too?
No, this is explained in the post.
They’re now sold at Whole Foods.
Would this affect Swagbucks?
I suspect Swagbucks will continue since it’s an incentives program.
Not a big deal if SB replaced it. So hard to earn on SB right now. All auto plays are dead. Takes an act of God to hit multiple surveys. I am a $150/mo earner from SB.
Would swagbucks be alright?
Redeeming points for Swagbucks would be fine, not sure if their GC portal sells them as well but if so then I doubt they will anymore.
I guess this kills MPX as well 🙁
I’m not so sure. The announcement still allows online sales in certain programs and I’d say MPX would fit under one of these: ” customer incentive, loyalty, rewards”
Pretty sure it’s dead. That wording means redeeming points for Amazon GCs from places like Swagbucks.
+1
Somewhat useless DP: Worked as of 5 minutes ago
Hasn’t MPX been dead anyway since plat stopped earning 5X?
Dead for 5x on Plat != Dead in general
cant understand reason behind this
Probably due to fraud. People report balance being stolen and Amazon had to replace the card.
People hit 3rd party sellers hard with this and Amazon just ate all the chargeoffs. 23andme got hit too.
Can you explain your comment a little more? People buy/sell fraudulent gift cards and amazon has to pay for it?
They don’t want to pay the fees.
gyft?
Yes, don’t see why gyft wouldn’t be affected.
I’m guessing MPX too.
Boy MPX is really in crash and burn mode now… wonder how hard their sales have been hit since the amex platinum stopped coding as 5x.
MPX has been spotty for me over the past couple years, sometimes worked sometimes didn’t, it’s been pretty much 100% the past few months. It’s been a convenience play more than anything, not having to go to OD/Staples as often, get a little extra value from time sensitive transactions. The instant delivery is excellent.
And ’twas a good run with the Amazon GC on-the-go. If they get rid of ebay (now down to 1x unfortunately, from a high of 4X in December), then MPX might become a total delete-this-app-off-my-device like Plenti became around New Years.