Update 12/28/20: FLASH2020 working. Hat tip to Christopher
Update 12/21/20: Offer is back through December 25 with promo code EGIFT2020. This time it’s only for e-gift cards, not physical. (ht ITS_A_FIREsale)
Update 12/17/20: Same offer is back again for today only. Same promo code. (ht ITSAFIREsale) The Giftcardmall/OD deal is better since it has free shipping.
Contents
The Offer
- Vanillagift.com is selling Visa gift cards with no purchase fee, today only (12/10/20) with promo code FLASH2020.
Our Verdict
You can buy physical or electronic Visa gift cards with balances up to $500 on them. Electronic gift cards will be entirely fee-free with this promo; physical gift cards will still have an $8.95 shipping fee attached.
Might be useful for those who want to meet a spend requirement or even for regular holiday gifts.
Hat tip to dotsthewarlock
A warning to anyone reading:
Cards I obtained from this promotion when it ran in December have started to get unauthorized transactions in the last few days (instances on 10/20 and 10/22), so I have lodged claims, but this is not looking optimistic, especially given the terms of service. In total, $600+ was drained between two different cards. I only noticed this happened because, by chance, I decided to review my balances on these cards today, which ended up being an exceedingly responsible thing to do given my findings. Otherwise, this could have gone another six months unnoticed. The one card had never been used, so definitely “dormant”, but the other has had transactions on it on a monthly basis for months now.
Does anyone have any experience with the claim process? If so, did you successfully recover your lost funds, or did they just provide your remaining balance?
Lessons learned here (as others surely already know):
1. Make sure to completely document your card information (use the “Print Card” function) and also transaction details on occasion (Manage Your Virtual Gift Card > “Print”)—seriously, follow their directions word for word (About Virtual Accounts > “Tips”). This really is a barebones system and largely on you, so there is additional personal liability and potentially way fewer consumer protections. When I reported the unauthorized transactions on the first card, they disabled online access to the card (at least for now). Consequently, I can’t even reach my full card details like the CVV and especially transaction history, so I’m literally unable to even look at my own evidence of the unauthorized transactions right now. I was just trying to act as quickly as possible.
2. Use these funds as soon as possible given the lack of protections. Assume that bad actors will be trying to discover cards to drain.
No longer working on 3/30/21.
Womp womp. Was a good run.
3/4 purchase via PPK no longer qualifies for online shopping bonus on BofA CR Visa
Merchant description: POI FUNDING TRANSACTIONS
Transaction Category: Cash, Checks & Misc: Other Expenses
still working as of 3/4.
Still working as of 14-Feb-2021.
How to use the vanilla visa card online, do I need to register the card first? I don’t see the registration link on the website
Flash2020 still worked for me on jan 23rd
If you try to buy the same amount on a gift card twice it is failing at vanila site. It will say order complete but after a while they will send a email saying it failed due to some reason. I did the following in order Tried $100 twice it worked, tried $400 three times over multiple days, only the first one worked. Tried $300 it worked.
BofA CR via PPK earned bonus for online shopping.
PPK+CF $500 purchase worked just fine.