Here’s an interesting development. Two leading tax preparation firms, H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt, are each offering prepaid reloadable cards as an option for receiving tax refunds. What’s really interesting about this is that both cards can be reloaded with Vanilla Reload cards. And, unlike most other Vanilla Reloadable prepaid cards, these have no transaction fees and no monthly fees (with the Jackson Hewitt card, you do need to load at least $1K per month to avoid fees, though).
One advantage of the H&R Block card is that it appears to have a true bill pay function (but with a 95 cent per payment fee). On the other hand, you apparently have to go beg for this card in-person. Meanwhile, the Jackson Hewitt card is available for free online, but its bill pay function is severely limited.
To accommodate these cards, I’ve updated my Vanilla Reloadables page (which can be found under my “Gift Cards” menu). That page now has details about all of the cards I’m familiar with that can be reloaded with Vanilla Reload cards. I’ve removed the Mio card from that page since it is no longer available. If you have bookmarked the page in the past, please update your bookmark as the web address has changed.
Hat tip to the Free-quent Flyer Blog and to Personal Finance Digest.