Reader Jason sent in a tip that BJ’s clubs Vanilla gift cards are ringing up currently with no fees. From what Jason told us, it sounds like the key is to buy the Vanilla card type. Stacks nicely with the Freedom and Discover Q4 category of Wholesale Clubs – this is a good way of maximizing those.
Another tip Jason mentioned is that BJ’s coupons can sometimes work on gift cards, so keep an eye out if you ever get those, they likely send them out to members.
Again these offers may or may not work for you, but if you’re near a BJ’s today and want to give it a shot, it’s good to know.
Looks like gravy train ride is over as of 23 Feb-dammit what a nice trip. No fee, self checkout, apparently high daily limit if any, did 3K no prob, use any 4 digit as pin–good times. Now 5.95 fee, they don’t even discount the fee as in times past.
Yep. Think this is dead. Fees all over!
I joined during the 3 months free promotion just for the Discover bonus. I purchased the One Vanilla variables and was charged the fee. I presented coupons that list exceptions but gift cards are not among them. Cashier had to get a manager override for them to work.
Just went to my 3 normal spots in the triangle. Either all were wiped out of the ones that were fee free or they were ringing up inclusive of the fee.
Good run boys.
This is YMMV. Just tried $500 one Vanilla at self checkout at a BJ, and $5.95 fee showed up.
Can you do Visa gift cards at self checkout? My club has signs at all self checkout lanes stating no gift cards.
was charged fee of 5.95 in Ct.
Was charged 4.95 in FL😥
Like others “in the know” has said, this method has been known for the past couple months and hit hard but MSers. Jason is pretty dumb to be sharing this info with you, since this is guaranteed to kill it faster. Good job Jason!
Tbh I’ve known about it for months as well. Not sure why everybody is acting like this is the biggest secret going around
No one is acting like it’s the biggest secret. HOWEVER we all know the more public this info is the more likely it is to be killed.
Like someone previously mentioned. The toys r us fee free, the roomipay subscription email, Plastiq at 3x. Those weren’t secrets but also weren’t blasted across a blog and tweeted/facebooked for the masses either.
But you’ve known about this for months, but didn’t inform chuck about it so he’d know it wasn’t an advertised special or anything?
I’m not sure what your point is, lots of stuff that wasn’t blasted also dies? I agree. I don’t tell Chuck what to post or what not to post, I assume he had seen the same comments on this blog saying that the fees were being waived during the no membership required but we don’t discuss every single deal/comment that we know about. People always have the same mindset, if they know about a deal they don’t want it shared. If they don’t know about a deal they want to know what it is.
I think we do a pretty good job of deciding what to post/not post. I understand some people are angry about us posting that deal and that’s ok. Chuck even made the post more discreet when he realized it wasn’t an advertised promotion. We don’t delete posts (and imo that just creates even more attention as we’ve seen on reddit recently).
What posts did you delete recently? Or do you mean posts were deleted on Reddit?
I do remember the guy that used to write here (I think his screen name was sirtheta or something like that) did delete a post because the readers bullied him into doing so. This was probably 1 or 2 years ago.
No the mods were deleting posts on reddit, in the end it made the method even more obvious as they tried to censor it.
I really don’t understand the appeal of these warehouse clubs — and would never shop there on a normal basis — but I gamed a free membership earlier this year to take advantage of a Discover category bonus to buy gift cards. I’ve since bought a handful of grocery items when they’ve sent me coupon books for things like “$5 off bakery”, but I still find the store nearly worthless EXCEPT for gift cards. Thanks to an AMEX Offer, my AMEX Blue Biz card pays 3x as BJs, and I go in and I use the self-service checkout (best thing about the whole store!) whenever BJs sends me a coupon for $5 (or more) off my next purchase. No problem using these for gift cards. In fact, they emailed me a new coupon today. The coupon has my member number on it and says “Limit One Coupon Per Member.” I assume if I printed a second coupon to use on a second purchase, it wouldn’t scan?
Can I cash this out into a money order at Walmart? I haven’t done any gift card MS since Serve closed my account.
And I just got a $5 off $50 coupon in my email, which I’m guessing may work given what you say above.
I do not believe you can use these Vanilla GCs at Walmart. If you want a MO, you’ll have to find a supermarket to issue it.
NO, vanillas won’t drain when buying MOs at WM but if you have Serve/BB card, they drain w/o even asking for PIN….maybe YMMV but there’s a lot of DPs online about this going on for months now so you can always try if you have those axp prepaids.
It’s been a great MS route with fee free GC liquidated for free, what else can one ask for?
I think I read somewhere if you leave the money in then the funds get stolen. Is that common?
Or do people cash out pretty soon? In that case where do you cash them?
Walmart is not allowing any more right?
it’s best to liquidate VGCs because the risk of getting funds stolen from these are very high. It has been said by a lot of MSers to liquidate ASAP, if possible no later than 48 hrs. I drain mine to my prepaid cards and/or MOs and as last resort, pay bills.
I’ve never had any problems with Visa, whether Vanilla or MetaBank. I’ve had this problem with MasterCard.
Funny, I bought a $500 Vanilla this afternoon at BJ’s and did not notice that I was not charged the fee until I read this post. I can confirm no fee added on my receipt.