Add an extra $10K spend to your Amex or Ink

28

If you’re looking to meet minimum spend on a new credit card, or increase spend on a card with bonuses for high spenders, here’s a neat little trick.  For this to work, you need either a Chase Ink card which gives 5X points for office supplies, or an Amex business card with OPEN savings which gives 5% back on purchases at OfficeMax of $100 or more.  See Preparing for Miles for more info about these cards.

Here it is in a nutshell:

  • Go to OfficeMax and buy EBay gift cards.  Spend at least $100 each time to ensure you get 5% back with Amex cards.  If you’re using an Ink card, you can optionally go to Staples or Office Depot to see if they carry EBay cards.
  • Watch EBay for $500 Walmart gift cards.  These usually sell for $485, which is a 3% discount.  When available, use your EBay gift cards to buy the Walmart cards.  You will get an additional 2% back in EBay bucks.
  • When your Walmart cards arrive, go through Walmart.com to buy smaller denomination physical cards using your $500 card.  See Washing Walmart for more info.
  • Go through MyDealsAndCoupons to PlasticJungle. Sell your Walmart gift cards to PlasticJungle for 92 cents on the dollar.  In other words, in exchange for your $500 worth of gift cards, Plastic Jungle will give you a check for $460.  Through MyDealsAndCoupons you will earn 3% of the sale price (3% of $460 = $13.80).  This comes to 2.76% of $500.

When you add up your costs and savings, you see that you lose 8% value when selling to PlasticJungle, but you gain 5% from Amex OPEN (or 5X from Ink) and 2.76% from MyDealsAndCoupons.  In other words, cash-wise, you end up very close to even.  Once you add in the 2% back in EBay bucks, though, you actually come out ahead!

Why only $10K?

EBay has a posted limit to how many gift cards can be used per 180 day period.  Supposedly you are limited to $500 in gift cards per purchase, and no more than $5000 in purchases in any 180 day period.  I say “supposedly” because a person on MilePoint reported buying a mutli-thousand dollar ring with gift cards.  It appears likely that EBay doesn’t enforce these limits, but I don’t yet have personal experience to prove it one way or another.

EBay gift card terms & conditions:

No more than a total of $500 in Gift Cards may be used per eBay purchase. Further, unverified PayPal accounts are limited to a total of $500 in Gift Card purchases in any 30-day period and verified PayPal accounts are limited to $5,000 in Gift Card purchases in any 180-day period.

Notes

  • When purchasing more than $100 worth of gift cards at a time at OfficeMax, the cashier will need a manager’s override.
  • EBay gift cards at OfficeMax usually are available in $25 and $50 denominations.  Yes, it is a bit painful to type in 10 gift card numbers when buying a Walmart card through EBay.  Often the cards start with the same sequence, so copy that sequence to the clipboard and paste in each time to save a little trouble.

a close up of a logo
Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook

If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

28 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments