Update 12/17/22: Deal is still around, just a small update on the use of prepaid cards – they used to allow Visa prepaid cards, but now some people are finding their prepaid Visa cards being blocked by the system. (If you try paying with a prepaid card it’ll use up one of your two-per-day purchases allowed, even though the purchase will get cancelled.)
Update 11/19/22: Deal is back. This time they are allowing you to buy two $5s at a time (by toggling the ‘select’ option) so you get 1,000 SB for $10 with each purchase. Readers are still having success getting in two orders per day, making it now $20 total per day in free spend. (ht Troy, Fred, RM, Otto)
Contents
The Offer
- Swagbucks is offering 500 Swagbucks for $5.
These can be paid for with any credit card or Paypal and Swagbucks can be cashed out via Paypal or other methods at a minimum of 1 cent per point.
Our Verdict
It’s basically a fee-free way of racking up spend. Typically you can buy two per day, though sometimes people are able to squeeze in more orders.
I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle to rack up $5 spend increments; you will help reach your daily goal meter with these purchases. Some people might find it worthwhile to cash out Visa gift cards, meet a spend requirement, use the Discover 5% category via Paypal.
Important Note: While these purchases are not taxable, if you cash out your Swagbucks as Paypal credits they will likely count toward your Paypal $600 1099-K threshold since Paypal can’t tell this money came as ‘Buy SB’ credits. Consider avoiding this deal if you concerned with getting a form 1099-K from Paypal and want to remain under $600. If you cash out your Swagbucks with other gift cards (e.g. Mastercard or Amazon gift cards), Swagbucks will not count this toward the $600 Swagbucks 1099-K reporting requirement since they know which credits came from ‘Buy SB’ credits which are not counted on the 1099-K.
If you’re new to Swagbucks then please read our review. You can also get a bonus of up to $13 by using a referral link.
P2 has been buying points to get the 10% referral bonus on P1’s account. This seems to work until Aug. 10th. Is anyone seeing the same thing? Maybe SB stopped issuing referral points for purchasing SBs?
A few of us noted the same thing here. Seems dead to me.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/get-bonus-rewards-with-swagbucks-daily-goals/#comment-1669706
Yeah, thanks for sharing. This is actually the best way for me to spend on my AMEX cards for the SUB or AU bonus. RIP
I still buy SB even though the promotion ended. Most gift cards stopped working last year but I had still been able to use an Amex gift card. Today it didn’t go through and I’m wondering if they finally banned those too. Has anyone else experienced this?
Is anyone buying @ 2000 for $21.99? Referral bonus covers the fee if it stays within the household. So it’s up to $80 per day in CC spend and monthly bonus.
I was just doing this calculation. I don’t have my referal within the household (still a friend at least, but not part of my calculation). I’m figuring I get 57 cents on my BofA card + today I get a 146 SB daily goal and continue toward my streak. So I’ll buy once today but not the limit of 2.
I don’t do this due to the $600 per year PayPal IRS reporting rule. Otherwise, I likely would. I did some of this to buy Airbnb gift cards recently that Swagbucks has at 10% off.
Damn, over after I redeem all of my points for AmexRewards too. Should have waited.
I think I missed something. How do you redeem Swagbucks for AmexRewards (I assume you mean Membership Rewards points) ?
Party is over. Was able to get about 70-80k Swagbucks from this party which last about 2 months, with the monthly bonus, about $20-$30 net profit. Whoever referred me got $70-$80 profit.
How do you cash out without triggering the 1099-k? Or do you not care (I realize it was ultimately delayed last year, but no way to know that ahead of time).
If you take advantage of the monthly discount on Amazon gift cards, there’s no 1099 triggered.
Fair enough, but that is only $25 per month. 70-80k of Swagbucks is $700 or $800. $25*12=$300. What about the other $400 or $500? Plus I would hesitate to keep such a large SB balance in my account despite having Swagbucks accounts for many years now as I think if they close your account for some reason you lose the SB and have little official recourse
Buy SB doesn’t count toward the Swagbucks 1099 reporting.
I guess I wasn’t clear. If you cash out via PayPal then PayPal will likely do 1099-K. Yes you can do MGC or AGC and pay bills, but I feel like I’m always trying to meet a minimum spend requirement these days so tough to do. I suppose could pay Citi credit cards with MGC if that still works…
Citi payment still works as of yesterday when I last did it.
Thanks for DP!
Only method of cash out that would fall under the 1099K rules is paypal. All other gift cards wouldn’t trigger it.
Fair enough
Looks like it is gone. Only seeing the 500 SB for $5.99 now
I got my buys at discounted rate this morning but gone for me too now, dang. It was a good run though.
Anyone has issue with SB bought not posted? I bought SB on 1/11 and it has been more than 72 hours.
Yeah I have one purchase I never received from 1/10. The issue seems to be fixed now but they seem to have missed some orders from when it wasn’t working right. I doubt at this point they are going to credit those people unless you contact support, which is usually a pain to deal with.
Missing credits from 7-Jan and 10-Jan purchases. Opened tickets for them on 13-Jan, Swagbucks closed the tickets today asking me to “wait a few business days.” I’ll file new tickets after another week if still unresolved.
They told me they’re still working on the delayed payments that should be caught up by end of week but I haven’t seen them yet
Thanks for that DP. How did they tell you? by email.
Yeah they told me by email earlier this week I think it was.. they said if you don’t get the credit by a certain date to let them know
Thanks!
Did anybody get “Sorry for the delay” Swagbucks added to their account at 4:19PM Swagbucks time?
I have two 500 SB entries in my ledger at 4:19 yesterday, one for a successful, instant-credit purchase, and a “Sorry for the delay” entry. I’m thinking it is a double-credit but I’m not positive.
Sweet, idk when this started but I see there’s now a “quantity” dropdown which makes things easier on me 🙂
Is swagbucks not vpn friendly I”m traveling outside of country so have to use vpn to purchase but got a suspension. explained the situation and they reinstated it but I’ve no idea why the suspension in the first place
There is no clear answer on whether or not VPNs are allowed on Swagbucks. Some users have reported being able to use a VPN without any issues, while others have had their accounts suspended for doing so. It seems that the best course of action is to avoid using a VPN on Swagbucks, as it could lead to your account being suspended.
Usage of VPN is prohibited, according to their terms of use: https://www.swagbucks.com/terms-of-use
In the future, use your home router’s VPN capability (if you have it), that way it looks like you’re at home.