Many have asked me how to liquidate Amex gift cards. I don’t know what the “best” answer is, but below are a number of options.
Use Amex gift cards to:
- Buy stuff you would buy anyway.
- Buy Visa or MasterCard gift cards (at a supermarket, for example) and then use the gift card PIN to cash out.
- Make Kiva loans.
- Buy merchant gift cards through online portals in order to earn extra points or cash back.
- Pay federal taxes. You will incur a 1.89% fee, but that can be partially or wholly offset by cash back earned when buying Amex gift cards.
Don’t try:
The following things cannot be done with Amex gift cards:
- Withdraw money from an ATM.
- Use as a debit card.
- Load Bluebird or REDbird.
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So can a person add money to an American Express gift card from their bank if they live in a different state??????
You can’t generally add money to Amex gift cards regardless of where you live
Haruka,
I also could not use my AMEX gift card to purchase visa gift cards on Giftcardmall.com today. This change must have happened in the past day or two.
Did anyone try to buy visa gift card with AX gift card at GiftCardMall.com recently?
It seems they no longer accept it as payment? or just for me?
thanks,
just tried sending amazon pmnt using amex GC from ofismaks… “payment failed”.
any advice please?
thanks
Amazon payments will put hold for $1 on amex gc. If you are planning to send $500, try sending $499 instead.
An easy approach is to add the Amex gift card to you Amazon payment options, but put in the wrong expiration date. That way, they won’t put the $1 hold on the card. Then, fix the date and send the $1K payment.
.
In your case you’ll have to wait until the existing $1 hold has dropped off (about 5 days, if I remember)
How about loading AGCs to Serve? I believe that’s possible… might want to update your list?
I don’t think that’s possible. If you know a way to do so, though, please let me know!
Admittedly, I haven’t tried it myself as I don’t have any AGCs. But Serve lets you load online $200/day via CC, up to $1k/mo. I’ve read that you can use an AGC as that CC. Also, earlier in this thread, shockz said:
“was able to load Amex Serve card at CVS using Amex Gift card…by choosing Credit Card at POS terminal”
Does seem a good way to pay taxes…..ie better than paying a credit card fee to pay them it seems
[…] they are not as easy to cash out as Visa gift cards, but it still can be done. Frequent Miler has a list of great ideas. If you’re only doing $1,000 a month, I recommend Amazon Payments. If you’re doing more […]
[…] Miler has a great list of ways to cash out these cards (buy things you normally would, Amazon Payments, Amex4Target, etc.), but my personal preference is […]
shokz: That’s awesome. I need to try with a Bluebird card too to see what happens.
i was able to load Amex Serve card at CVS using Amex Gift card(bought using Barclay Rewardsboost 4%) by choosing Credit Card at POS terminal. ANd it is free of charge 🙂
[…] For reference, here’s a post by Frequent Miler with tips on what to do: How to spend down Amex gift cards. […]
For those of you who are having difficulties using the AmEx Gift Card, don’t feel like it’s your fault – – it’s not. The AmEx Gift Card (AMEX GC) has some positive features, but they are not universally accepted by firms that take AmEx, and they are not reloadable – – no matter what you may read on postings or on the AmEx FAQs and websites. You’re better off using up the AMEX GC and paying a little extra for another brand (VISA or MC). AMEX has figured out how to make it sufficiently difficult for customers so their Gift Card product is a one-time experience that drives customers to their competitors. Now that I have the AMEX GC experience, I won’t use other AMEX products either. AMEX doesn’t get it, so they won’t get my business. I suggest you not waste your time with AMEX Cards until they replace the geek who’s responsible for this annoyance.
anyone had any luck using these on GiftCardMall recently? I’ve been trying 2 different amex gift cards from different computers on different days and none of the orders will go through. Cards were registered with Amex first
[…] cards where you would normally pay with a credit card, or find ways to cash them out (see “How to spend down Amex gift cards“). If you don’t have a 2X everywhere card, 4X everywhere isn’t so bad […]
@Teri: just want to warn you though, I had the same situation few months ago, and I ended up getting FR from Amex.
Well, I assumed my FR from this because I never go overboard MS on my 4 Amex cards. and also, in my case, I only used my Amex Business Gold to purchase Amex gift cards, so all orders showing as pending in Amex gold, but next day declined from Amex Prepaid site. So, I can see pending 5k and 6k back to back in my amex gold card.
Maybe my case is different, but just want to warn everyone.
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