I wrote a few days ago about buying an Applebees gift card online at target.com with my REDcard. The result was that 5% does not get deducted for the purchase of third party gift cards at Target. See $50 Applebees Gift Card Deal at Target & More Gift Card Churning
There were a couple of interesting points brought up in the comments there:
- Reader weedibix reported getting 5% off on third party gift cards in-store. I surmised at the time that only in-store purchases of gift cards will get 5% off, not online purchases.
- My friend JB commented that there’s a problem with the processing of 5% off when using the Target prepaid REDcard online. While in-store purchases process the 5% off properly, it’s not processing the discount for online purchases.
Another attempt tonight confirmed JB’s suspicion that the reason I had not gotten the 5% off was because I had been using my prepaid REDcard. Tonight, I used a regular REDcard and I was able to get the 5% off the Applebees gift card purchase.
Takeaway: The prepaid REDcard is not processing 5% off correctly for online purchases, so be sure to use a real REDcard for online purchases in order to get the 5% off.
[The Applebees deal ends tonight (Saturday night 4/18) and most of you probably won’t read this before then. Also, even if you do read this before midnight, note that the physical Applebees gift cards are sold out online, and you can only get the e-gift cards online currently.]
One final note in regard to portal payout: I have not received any notification yet from Topcashback for my Applebees gift card purchases and I’m guessing it won’t earn portal cashback (though it’s surprising, given that it’s considered an ordinary purchase in regard to earning 5% off). Tonight I bought another $50 in Applebees gift cards, this time going through Ebates. I’ll update the posts if I end up getting the portal notification.
UPDATE 4/19/15: Scrap that! Just a few hours after posting this, I received an email confirmation from Ebates that I got $.95 cashback (2%) for my $47.50 purchase of Applebees gift cards. (Email came in within 12 hours of purchase.) Not sure why Topcashback didn’t work for me last time, but with Ebates it worked!
