Simon Gift Cards In-Mall, Online and In-Bulk ($1000 Visa Gift Cards for $1003.95?)

Simon Mall sells Visa gift cards in the Mall and online. There have been some changes over time in their online gift card sales.

They also offer bulk gift card sales for businesses who want to reward their employees. It’s technically possible to buy a bunch of $1000 Visa gift cards online  for around $1001 each. Or, more practically, for $1003.95 each.

This bulk gift card option could be especially useful for someone who has a very high spend threshold on a credit card, or possibly to liquidate high-dollar Amex gift cards.

Simon Gift Cards In-Store

We’ve discussed previously that physical Simon Mall locations sell $500 Visa gift cards for a small fee of $2 or $2.95. [UPDATE 12/30/2014: They now charge $3.95.] This option is still a good option for those who have well-stocked Simon Malls nearby. And you may have a Simon Mall nearby even if you don’t realize it! I found out that there are three Mall locations nearby which I hadn’t realized were part of Simon.

Simon Mall Locator

The Simon fee is less than the typical $5-$7 we pay in grocery stores and drugstores for gift cards. But try calling first to see if they have Visa gift cards in stock.

Of course the best is to buy gift cards at places where you have a category bonus, but sometimes we want to rack up regular spend in order to meet a minimum spend requirement or to rack up certain valuable points.

Some mention that it’s possible to get business gift cards in denominations of $1000 at Simon Mall; presumably these have the same activation fee of $2-$2.95. It’s unclear how many locations carry these business gift cards and whether they’ll let anyone claim to be a business and purchase the gift cards.

Simon gift cards are issued either by Metabank or US Bank, and they’re known to work as debit cards with a PIN and can be unloaded at Walmart via Bluebird/Serve/money-order.

Simon Gift Cards Online

Another possibility is to order Simon Mall gift cards online. When placing a regular (non-bulk) order online they limit you to one $500 gift card per order, which ends up costing $506.94 after including all fees.

It’s actually not processed by Simon themselves; the Simon website redirects you and it gets processed through Giftcardmall.com. (The Amex gift cards are processed by Simon themselves, but the Visa gift cards that we’re interested in are farmed out to GiftCardMall.)

Interestingly, the cost of  $506.94 is one dollar less than the cost of a single gift card purchased directly from giftcardmall.com; they charge $507.94 after all fees. That being said, most people would prefer ordering on giftcardmall.com directly since they don’t limit you to $500 per order.

Additionally, when ordering more than one gift card from giftcardmall.com directly, the cost per gift card decreases slightly. For example, if you order four $500 gift cards, the cost will be $28.86, or $7.22 per gift card.

One other thing to consider is the portal points. GiftCardMall offers portal points for most gift cards. Going through the Simon website will likely make it impossible to earn these points. Note: This may no longer make a difference since GiftCardMall stopped paying out on Visa gift cards and a few other gift cards. But if you find a portal which still pays out for Visa gift cards, then this could be a factor.

Simon Gift Cards In-Bulk

Another option available is to order Simon Gift Cards online in-bulk. You need to register in order to be able to buy in bulk, and technically you’re supposed to be a business in order to register to buy in bulk.

They make the registration really official and even ask you for your TIN. I tried entering my SSN as my TIN (I don’t have a EIN) and it didn’t work for some reason. Others mention getting denied even when using a real EIN, but you may have better luck calling up and registering with a human. I haven’t tried too hard since I’m not planning on making a bulk order right now.

Anyway, once you get through the registration, you can then purchase gift cards in denominations of up to $1000. This is in contrast to gift cards bought in the physical mall which typically are a max of $500 (see above). Is this the rebirth of the $1,000 gift card?

And you can pay with a credit card – Visa, MC, or Amex – as mentioned in the FAQ.

 

Bulk Fees

The purchase fee for bulk orders online is $1-$2.95 per gift card. Here’s the fee chart (comes up during registration):

 

As you can see, if you order 1000 gift cards it would be just $1 each. Of course if you order 1000 gift cards of $1000 each that means you’re ordering a million dollars worth of gift cards. Still, it’s interesting to think about the possibilities – and maybe we have some readers who are high-rollers!

There’s also a processing fee of $10-$30 for the order. Here’s a snippet from the FAQ:

If we’ll go back to our million dollar customer, we see that he can order 1000 gift cards of $1000 each for a cost of $1001.03 each. And he can put that million dollar charge on his credit card! (Amex has a car purchase program in which you can buy a car with your Amex card, but a million dollars still seems like a lot!   What’s the  highest charge you’ve ever put on your credit card?)

There is a mention in the FAQ about an additional shipping charge, but as far as I can see that’s only for expedited shipping; meaning that standard shipping is free. Since I was unable to complete registration, I haven’t been able to verify this positively.

Practical Applications

Most of us won’t be making $1,000,000 orders, but let’s try calculating some more likely scenarios. It’s clear in the FAQ and in the above charts that there’s no minimum order size – you can purchase even one single gift card.

— Say someone needed to meet a $10,000 spend threshold, and he ordered ten $1,000 gift cards. His total cost would be $3.95 per gift card ($2.95 purchase fee, plus $10 processing fee divided between the ten cards).

He has the advantage of:

  • paying less than the standard cost of buying gift cards
  • convenience of being able to order online (have fun trying to convince a cashier to sell you $10,000 in one shot!)
  • gift card denominations of $1000 – less work to unload
  • having his name embossed on the card for no additional fee (?)

— Now let’s take a smaller figure and say someone wants to rack up $5,000 in spend. If he orders five $1,000 gift cards, his cost would be $4.95 per gift card ($2.95 purchase fee, plus $10 processing fee divided between five cards). He still comes out ahead in terms of cost and convenience.

Liquidate Amex Gift Cards

But let’s go even smaller. Say someone has a monthly need of liquidating a $3,000 Amex gift card. If he orders three $1,000 Simon Visa gift cards, his cost would be $18.85, or $6.28 per gift card. He’s still ahead of the game.

And to liquidate a $2,000 Amex gift card, the cost would be $15.90, or $7.95 per gift card. This is still less than the benchmark $5 per $500 gift card, and it’s almost half the $28.86 that GCM would charge you for $2,000 in gift cards. And it’s ordered online without having to deal with pesky cashiers (they sometimes won’t allow an Amex gift card to pay for a Visa gift card).

This is especially worth thinking about in light of the fact that GiftCardMall stopped accepting Amex gift cards as payment; many people used to use that as a way of liquidating Amex gift cards. This could be a possible alternative to consider. Presumably, if the Amex gift card is registered properly, it would work at Simon online. (You’d have to make the order for slightly less than $3000/$2000, so that the Amex gift card would cover the cost of the $15.90/$18.85 fees.)

Our Verdict

Bottom line: is this really worthwhile?

First off, I haven’t tried this yet, so there’s bound to be some roadblocks/points that I haven’t mentioned. But from what I can see the main difficulty here is registering for a Simon bulk buyer account. As mentioned, this is really meant for businesses, and they may not fall so easily for fake businesses. If someone has a real business that he can register, then he may be able to register fairly easily.

I don’t see this as useful for someone who wants to make a single few thousand dollar order. Though it may be cheaper than ordering through GCM, there’s bound to be some hassle with the registration process.

I see this more for someone who has high-dollar gift card purchases to make, and particularly for someone who has high-dollar Amex gift cards to liquidate on a constant basis. For him, it could be worth the effort to register with Simon and have a better alternative to GCM.
    Chuck
  • On October 24, 2014, 06:00

View Comments (37)

  • Just got a new order of cards from Simon since GCM stopped portal payouts and I had a corp discount code (now expired). The silver cards now have dark black printing, so "giftcard" in the upper right corner is a lot more noticeable than they were in the past. At least I can get my name printed on it.

    Also nice is that you can check a box saying you don't want the fluff paperwork, so I got 19 cards bundled together with a rubber band - no envelopes, card sleeves, no rubber goo to scrape off.

    I like the fact that these have to be activated whereas the GCM cards came activated. I don't mind spending a couple of minutes for the extra security.

    With the discount code (which they email out frequently) I paid $82 for card fees, handling and ground shipping for 19 cards. That's only .86% in fees. Pretty cheap now that portals are gone.

    • Noob questions:
      Please correct me if I am wrong but I am assuming that you are talking about Visa GCs as MCs are still available at GCM?
      Also, do you have to have a corp account in order to get your name printed on it?
      Thanks

      • Yes, I got Visas. I don't think GCM has Mastercards. I believe only giftcards.com has those.

        I've never ordered from Simon under a personal account, so I don't know if you can get your name printed on personal orders, but I know GCM was, and still is, able to do that.

        Ordering this way with the corp discount code I had saved me about $42 over GCM.

  • Are you still able to order $1,000 cards? I was told today that due to VISA restrictions, they now only allow $500 max per card.

    • Just logged into my account and I'm still able to order $1000 cards. They won't sell me those at the mall, so I'm guessing my corporate account is what's letting me get the higher limits.

    • I would assume so, but I haven't placed an order since my initial one. I'm set up as a corporate account so that might make a difference.

  • My initial order of $1000 5-back cards arrived today. I'm glad I chose the cheapest ground option. The cards need to be activated before using, which I think is a good security measure.

    To activate, I logged into my Simon account, clicked on "activate order", entered in a few numbers and was done. I got a message that said it could take until the end of the next business day to activate. All in all, a pretty easy process.

  • Update: I was able to get my account upgraded to purchase $1000 cards via email request. I was told they monitor these cards and if they were quickly drained for MS purposes they'd restrict my account to $500 cards.

    It's a bit of a pain to add a new credit card to purchase with, though. Any change in payment methods disables the account until they can authorize the new card, so I guess it would have been better to just add 5 at once.

    Fees have increased.

    http://i68.tinypic.com/2qnvatx.png

    Processing fees (charge per order, regardless of $ amount):
    1-24 cards: $10
    25-99 cards: $15
    100-249 cards: $20
    250-999 cards: $25
    1000+ cards: $30

    http://i68.tinypic.com/aolv1y.png

    Purchase fees:
    1-24 cards: $3.95
    25-99 cards: $3.50
    100-249 cards: $3.00
    250-999 cards: $2.50
    1000+ cards: $1.99

    Shipping is not free. The options are UPS ground, UPS 2nd day, UPS overnight. The charges ran from $10-40 for me depending on delivery method. I assume that cost will vary depending on how far away you are from the distribution center.

    I placed a small order today. Will update with shipping times when it arrives.

    • so,after adding all up (purchase, processing &shipping fees), the cost is the same for 10 of $500 card at the mall? If the mall is within proximity, isn't it better to have immediate access rather than waiting?

      • It works out to be about $3.08 per $500 in value if you order 9 of the $1000 cards, so it's a little cheaper.

        I found out that I have a Simon mall 15 minutes from my house so I haven't placed another online order. The $1000 cards are easier to use and I could have my name printed on them if I wanted, so it would reduce the # of swipes, plus if the rep wanted to see the card it would match my ID.

  • Bringing this post back from the dead. :)

    I signed up and was approved for the corporate bulk purchase program with a maximum of 100 cards or $10,000 total per order (including fees).

    There is a handling charge per order, based on number of cards and shipping is no longer free, but there is a choice between UPS ground, 2nd day air and overnight.

    For now, I don't see that $1000 cards are available but I've sent an email to Simon to inquire. Without the ability to buy $1000 cards, the price comes out about the same as buying cards at Sams Club, so the only real upside is getting Metabank cards instead of Vanilla cards.

    Well, that, and I could buy 19 cards per order vs. 2 a day at HyVee.

    • thanks for the heads up. just signed up for the corp program myself. what exactly did you say in your email for em to upgrade you to the $1k denom. whats their email btw?

      I presume you're using em for MS - you say below they monitor txns & if they notice MS they'll drop you back to $500. so what happened in your case? did you only have to make one big order & call it a day?

      • I used the "contact us" form on the website, I think. I just said I thought $1000 cards were available but my account was limited to $500.

        They had to manually change my account to allow for $1k cards but gave me the warning that if they get drained quickly ("for getting rewards points on credit cards") they'd knock me back down to $500 max.

        I didn't place another order after that. With the shipping and processing fees, there really isn't a whole lot of savings over buying them at the mall.

        • thanks curm, I emailed back & forth w my assigned rep (the one they give you right after your app is approved or w/e)... and he didnt budge. he said they'd like to see some history before they raise my limits or make any changes. I was like WTF, then why make me go thru all the hoops or even entertain my Q. you had all the info upfront, its not like I told you something new.

          perhaps I'll try the contact us page & someone from corp will hook me up.... had a few Qs for you tho, do you have a business or s-prop "business"? ... I used my name as company name & my rep was like you dont even have a company name lol idiot. and he's like your address is not a biz address :/ ... also do you have history of buying from Simon malls esp in high enough qty that you'd have to fill out forms? I guess that's one place they could track your "history" ... I never bought more than $3k at a time, so they never filled out any forms for me. I dunno if I look brand new to em or they're going off based on my history for those few purchases at the mall.

          • I have a legit business (corporation), older than 10 years, with employees and sales in the hundreds of thousands. That could account for the different treatment we've received.

            Best of luck to you.

  • Hello,
    I am wondering if these vgcs been using online? such as amazon or other stores. Or they have to be use on pos.?

    • Sure, most online retailers will allow the use of a gift card as payment. Sometimes you need to register the address to the gift card by calling in before using it online.

  • I got this email from them after spending $10000.00 - $8000.00 a month for four months:

    We have reviewed the card usage on Giftcards you have purchased from us. While we will allow you to remain as a business ordering through our Volume website, your limits have been adjusted, effective immediately, to the following:

    The maximum denomination you may purchase is $500 (you will no longer be able to purchase $1,000 cards).
    You may Purchase no more than $10,000 per day (limit includes include shipping, processing and purchase fees).
    You will only be able to purchase Visa Giftcards (Visa Rewardcards have regulations that your activity does not comply with).
    Thank you.

    • Thanks for sharing. Maybe the $500 cards are still worth it. They're still letting you get $10k per day.

  • I bought Simon Gift card visa for the past 5 months and no problem use to pay my bill thru Evolvemoney.com. Some thing change in Simon Gift card, I this message when I add the debit card .... it gives me "Card entered is not supported for Evolve Money payment. (e718)". Does anybody have this problem ?

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