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MAXIMIZING gift card BUYING VALUE ON EBAY

1/23/2013

We all want to maximize the % of cash back on our day to day shopping, specially at stores for which the gift cards are easily available. Assuming you can get one of the Cash Back Card which gives quarterly rotating category bonus of 5% such as Discover IT credit card or Chase Freedom credit card or American Express Blue Cash Preferred credit card which gives 6% cash-back on stand-alone super markets or grocery stores (limited to max $6k/year) you can easily get atleast 5% or 6% off of your gift card purchase from the stores included in above categories. The interesting twist here is if you can find a store which falls in 5% or 6% cash-back category and sells the Ebay/MasterCard/Visa gift card you can further stretch your dollars to easily get a total discount of anywhere from 7% to 20% on the final merchant gift card which you can eventually use for your actual purchase. Below are couple of ways on how to get this to work!

Buying merchant gift cards using Ebay gift cards:
Note: You will need to have a PayPal account or create one for this to work.

If you are US resident, register for Ebay bucks program which gives 2% Ebay bucks for almost all the purchases on Ebay. This Ebay bucks are 1:1 dollar value and can be used for any of your future purchases on Ebay.
Buy Ebay gift card at one of the grocery stores which provides either 5% or 6% cash-back on your purchase.
Go through Ebay and purchase the merchant gift card for the store you plan to shop in the future. You can only purchase "Buy It Now" listed gift cards immediately without bidding. Even if you purchase the merchant gift card listed at face value (e.g. $50 card listed for sale at $50), the 2% Ebay bucks rebate will make your cash-back amount atleast 7% (5%+2%) or 8% (6%+2%).
If you are willing to spend some time and try your hand at bidding you can more often than not get the gift card at 5% off from the face value, thus taking your total discount to 12% (5%+2%+5%). Some gift card sell at high discounts and you could be able to even score about 20% as total discount.
Once you "buy" the item you will see "Pay Now" button. After clicking on it you will see a field called "Redeem a Gift Card, Certificate or Coupon". You can enter your Ebay gift card number in this field to pay for your purchase.
You will be taken to PayPal to complete your transaction and once you receive your merchant gift card in the mail/e-mail you can use that to make your "actual" purchase online or in-store.

Purchase using MasterCard/Visa Prepaid card:
If Ebay seems to be too limited in scope or lot of hassle you have another option below.

Go through the store (supermarket, grocery store or drugstore) which earns you bonus of 5% or 6% on your purchases and buy a prepaid MasterCard or Visa. Since this card have associated fees you are better off buying a high value card. A $500 MasterCard/Visa generally comes with purchase fee of $5.95, thus reducing your cash-back to 3.81% 4.81%.
Use this prepaid gift card to purchase discounted merchant store gift cards from CardPool or PlasticJungle. These stores sell merchant store gift card (e-gift card and physical gift card) at a discount of 2% to 30%. You can compare the "buy" value at GiftCardGranny.com.
As a bonus, buying gift card at CardPool or PlasticJungle through Cash back portal like TopCashBack.com gives you 2% to 4% discount on the buying cost of the gift card.
If you add it all up, you would easily save anywhere from ~7% to ~35% on the merchant store gift card purchase.

Put above techniques to use to get great discount even before you hit your store, but before you go make sure you already have 5% or 6% cash-back credit card at your disposal.

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BEST AIRLINES CREDIT CARD OFFERS

1/6/2013

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Most of the credit cards offer some sort of incentive to entice you in applying for them. Sometimes they come up with great offers as well. Below are the few credit credit cards which are offering lucrative bonus miles. These credit cards offer have value of close to $400 to $500 worth of air-travel or cash equivalent. Here is the list:

1. United Explorer Card 50k Miles: United Airlines is having a 50k miles bonus promotion for signing up on their Explorer Card. The details are below:

You get 50k miles after spending $1k in 3 months using this card.
You get additional 5k miles by adding authorized user to your card.
You earn 1 mile/$ spent.
$95 Annual fee (Waived for the first year).

This can be conservatively valued at atleast $500 of free travel. The publicly available offer for this is 30k miles, but lot of folks have reported to see the 50k offer by using the link here. The trick here is to be logged into your account and have few miles. You can get upto 1000 miles instantly following the details here. United Airlines miles can be used for one-way rewards as well as can be redeemed for any of their partner as well as Star Alliance member airlines. You can also book most of the reward flights online and it has one of the better online reward search engines. Credit Card Issuer is Chase Bank and thus you can apply for only 1 personal credit card every 90 days (lot of folks have reported to get the 2nd card in less than 90 days though).

2. British Airways 100k Miles: British Airways is offering 100k miles in total for signing up for British Airways Visa Card. The details are below:

You get 50k miles after spending $1k in 3 months using this card.
You get another 25k miles after a total spend of $10k in a year thus taking your total bonus miles tally to 75k miles (50k + 25k).
You get yet another 25k miles after a total spend of $20k in a year thus taking your total bonus miles tally to grand total of 100k miles (75k + 25k).
You earn 1.25 mile/$ spent.
$95 Annual fee (Not waived).

British Airways Miles (Avios) are best use for short haul flights on their partner airlines (American Airlines and Alaska Airlines) in the USA as their award chart is distance based. The one way award starts at only 4500 Avios. You can apply for this card here. Note that Credit Card Issuer is Chase Bank and thus you can apply for only 1 personal credit card every 90 days (lot of folks have reported to get the 2nd card in less than 90 days though)

3. American Airlines 50k Miles (x 2): There are various offers available for American Airlines Credit Card. Since Citi Bank is the card issuer it allows to apply for 2 personal credit cards at same time and thus you can maximize to earn 100k miles by applying for 2 variants of the same card (VISA & AMEX) or (VISA & MasterCard) using 2 browser trick. Also as an added advantage you only get one credit card pull on your credit report since two credit pulls get merged since they are from the same issuer and for the same card type. More info about the 2 browser trick can be found here. There are various offers floating at the moment with annual fees of ~$95 (waived for 1st year) and I am listing all the offers below. (HT to flytertalk page here)

a. 50k miles after $2500 spend in 4 months (Note: No Admirals Club passes or statement credit; Thanks to FT member jeanie). -- Expired, No landing page, but still working
Personal VISA

b. Up to $150 statement credits for the eligible AA purchases made within 12 months of card membership, 45k miles after $5,000 in purchases within the first 4 months, 2 Admirals Club passes. (Thanks to FT member jeanie)
VISA
AMEX

c. Up to $100 credit, two admirals club passes, 50k miles (40k miles for $2k within 4 months of opening + 10k miles after $5k within 12 months of opening), 2 miles/$ on AA: Direct Links:
VISA
AMEX

American Airlines rewards can be redeemed for One World Alliance member flights as well as any of their partner airlines as well. Also off-peak round trip Europe travel from USA only costs 40k miles.

4. US Airways 40k Miles: You can earn 40k miles after the first purchase. Although the application page says it's only for Chairman's Preferred Members, anyone applying using the link and approved for the card have received all the benefits, but obviously YMMV. The application link is here. Some of the details for the card are as below:

Up to two $99 companion tickets annually.
One complimentary US Airways Club day pass annually.
Discount on annual US Airways Club membership.
$89 Annual fee. (Waived for the 1st year)
5k miles discount for award tickets on US Airways and booked using US Airways Credit Card.

US Ariways Miles can be redeemed on United Airlines or any Star Alliance flights (although with some restrictions) as well as partner airlines. Also US Airways reward flight can only be booked on phone and there is reward redemption fee for both domestic and international awards. US Airways Credit Card is offered by Barclays Bank.

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MAXIMIZING gift card BUYING VALUE ON EBAY

BEST AIRLINES CREDIT CARD OFFERS

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