How to Use Amazon 50¢ Reloads to Meet Transaction Thresholds

A couple times per month, readers will comment about their Amazon purchases not working to meet a transaction threshold.

Amazon 50¢ Gift Cards

Amazon allows us to purchase gift cards for as little as $1, or to reload our gift card balance for the same amount.  This option is incredibly useful for meeting transaction thresholds. Some checking accounts require using the attached debit card any number of times over the course of the month to help waive the monthly fee or for some other rewards or benefit associated with the account.

For those who shop a lot on Amazon, an easy way of meeting these transaction requirements is to buy a bunch of $.50 reloads online and be done with it quickly.

The Problem

People will sometimes complain that these $.50 purchases don’t work for them. Most often, the problem lies in the settings of your Amazon account. By default, Amazon runs debit card transactions as if it were a PIN-based transaction being processed online, without having to input the PIN. It’s called PIN-less debit. Amazon saves money on PIN-less debit transactions, and the bank loses out on those additional profits.

Some banks require a signature transaction to meet the required thresholds, and PIN-based transactions don’t work. Since Amazon is running it as PIN-based, the transaction won’t work to meet the required threshold.

The Solution

Luckily, it’s very easy to resolve this problem since Amazon allows us to opt out of the PIN-less debit. While they use PIN-less debit by default, you can adjust the setting so that all your debit purchases will run as signature purchases, as if it were a credit card purchase. The purchase should then qualify for any transaction threshold.

Instruction for opting out of PIN-less debit can be found here.

One final note, it may be worth limiting the number of 50¢ purchases made in quick succession to avoid a possible temporary account freeze as has happened to me and others as well. After five or ten transactions, give yourself a breather and do some later on or the next day.

Read some other ways of manufacturing debit card transactions in the post How To Meet Minimum Debit & Credit Transaction Requirements.

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Brian Redman
Brian Redman (@guest_791336)
July 30, 2019 16:07

My automatic daily Amazon gift card reloads had been working as signature purchases on my Orion FCU premium checking account, but when I changed the amount, the next daily debit charge for the reload showed up as a POS purchase. I just went through the steps on Amazon to opt out of PIN-less debit again for my Orion debit card, and I hope this resolves the issue. I am posting this information to let others know that if they make changes to an automatic reload setting on Amazon, it may cause the reloads to be reset back to PIN-less debit resulting in POS instead of Signature purchases on the debit card.

howardc64
howardc64 (@guest_792830)
August 2, 2019 11:37

Ditto same for me. I do manual reloads and just found out Amazon automatically opt in my Orion card back to as Pin-less debit and show up as POS. I had to op out again. So just check your Pin-less debit setting prior to doing reloads if doing it manually and check up on it periodically if automatic.

John
John (@guest_785315)
July 19, 2019 10:00

Inside the comments here, there appeared to be conflicting reports on whether using one’s Wells Fargo debit card at Amazon — without changing any settings — is considered by WF to be legitimate debit transactions (and hence can be used to waive monthly fees).

Do we have any recent data points on this? I just got my $400 Wells Fargo checking bonus and need a way to avoid the monthly fee.

Devin Lieberman
Devin Lieberman (@guest_666216)
November 1, 2018 10:21

Yeah the option is gone so now I can’t do this anymore for the hancock whitney bonus.

Max
Max (@guest_531046)
December 5, 2017 20:42

When I go to edit my payment method and select the debit card, I do not have any check boxes that can be checked or unchecked. Tried messaging amazon support, but they were no help. They said that the check box should be there and that is the only way to do that. And the fact that I don’t have it – Too bad, they can’t do anything. Has anyone run into this? Successfully dealt with this?

Max
Max (@guest_531326)
December 6, 2017 10:39

Is there a way to tell if a purchase is processed as debit on the bank side?

ChicagoMan
ChicagoMan (@guest_540739)
December 23, 2017 18:21

Any news from this? The checkbox appears for some of my debit cards but not my PNC card.

m
m (@guest_490642)
October 9, 2017 14:08

just this past month something has changed. i do have the checkbox under payment options>edit> uncheck “Processed as a debit card” for each of my debit cards. but even though the box is unchecked, they suddenly seem to be running as pinless debit anyway! i checked and unchecked again and this made no difference. all of my rewards checking accts showed “pos puchase” last month, but this month show “atm amazon” or “pinned purchase” or semething like that. there has been a change somewhere and it looks like these won’t count, though i won’t know for sure until stmnt closes. anybody else?

arch
arch (@guest_469851)
September 1, 2017 12:23

No “Processed as a debit card” option shown for just added PNC debit card. Anybody know a workaround?

arch
arch (@guest_476948)
September 14, 2017 14:09

Just spent too much time on phone with csr regarding the opt out option no longer showing after going through these steps. Promised to bring it up at next meeting to try to get this fixed–so we got that going for us, which is nice.

ChicagoMan
ChicagoMan (@guest_540734)
December 23, 2017 18:13

Any update on this? The checkbox is also not showing for my just added PNC debit card. Thanks!

bill
bill (@guest_382286)
April 3, 2017 10:59

I went on Amazon and did everything as stated, however, I did not see anything regarding “Uncheck the box that is next to Processed as a debit card.” Does this mean it will be processed as credit? Note: The card is a WF debit card.

yoyo
yoyo (@guest_404428)
May 10, 2017 11:54

Yea I’m on the same boat. BoA Debit card. Don’t have the “Processed as a debit card” checkbox at all

linda
linda (@guest_485437)
October 2, 2017 02:16

Are you still able to use WF for Amazon gift card reloads? I tried it before and at first it was working but two months or so later, it won’t qualify the transaction thus I got monthly fee charged.

I know I can do the 10 debits card transactions but is there a way to do it online without going to the store (or someway to be faster)? Thanks!

anthonyjh21
anthonyjh21 (@guest_354098)
February 15, 2017 20:54

Has anyone had this happen with a visa debit card? My LMCU card isn’t showing the option to run as credit when managing the payment option within Amazon.

anthonyjh21
anthonyjh21 (@guest_354198)
February 15, 2017 23:36

Appreciate the reply. I was thinking the same thing. I’ll go ahead and do a test purchase on the 1st when I’m due for 10 purchases.

Matt
Matt (@guest_360484)
February 26, 2017 06:26

I noticed the same thing when LMCU switched from MasterCard to Visa. The MasterCard was processed as PIN-less debit by default, but you could opt out and have it run as credit. On the Payment Methods page on Amazon, the LMCU MasterCard said Debit next to it before opting out of PIN-less debit, but then said MasterCard after opting out. The LMCU Visa says Visa next to it as soon as you add it to your account, meaning it’s processed as credit by default – no need to opt out of PIN-less debit. I can confirm that Amazon reloads from my LMCU Visa debit card counted towards the LMCU purchase requirement without needing to edit any payment options on Amazon.

anthonyjh21
anthonyjh21 (@guest_360576)
February 26, 2017 13:20

Thanks for this.

Ron
Ron (@guest_370624)
March 15, 2017 17:39

This is incorrect. I just tried mine out and waited 6 hours. It took the money out of my account but did not count toward my debit transactions.

If anything changes I will reply back again

anthonyjh21
anthonyjh21 (@guest_370667)
March 15, 2017 18:53

It worked for me when I used it for the first time this month. Not sure whats up with your situation.

Ron
Ron (@guest_371192)
March 16, 2017 10:38

Checked back 24 hours later and it worked.
Guess there was a delay in the system.
So just add the card on amazon and you are set…..no unchecking that silly box needed

paul5795
paul5795 (@guest_229126)
February 27, 2016 22:14

You mention only debit cards. Can I do this multiple transaction deal with credit cards, such as the AMEX Everyday, in order to meet the minimum transaction requirement to get the MR bonus?

William Charles
Admin
February 28, 2016 05:04

Yes

thershope
thershope (@guest_228026)
February 23, 2016 14:05

The account Freeze link is also not working. It seems that the links are 2x times. Need to remove one.