Gift of College via More Rewards, AOD, BOA Customized Cash

[GatorCowboyLion]

Curious what all of your experiences are with buying Gift of College gift cards with credit cards. If you buy $500 gc + $5.95 fee = 1.19% surcharge, so any rewards cards that earn 2% would earn 0.81%. 3% cards would earn 1.81%. The local vendor for me is Cumberland Farms gas station. If you have 60k of student loans that you haven't been paying for the 22 month interest/payment holiday, that could add over a thousand dollars to the principal of your student loans. I know that noone should buy only GC with a CC. But would something flag me for buying 4 gc and gas together ~$2050? I know someone on DOC got flagged by Affinity for buying GC, and their terms of service explicitly forbid GC purchase. I do not want to poke the bear when an institution is helping me.

Which cards would be open to this among AOD, BofA and NFCU? Would it be ok to buy four cards at once with gas or would it only be wise to buy one with gas? (this station is 35 min from home but on my way every month or so)

Frequent Miler has several articles on this:
https://frequentmiler.com/best-options-buying-gift-college-gift-cards/
https://frequentmiler.com/gift-of-college-limiting-loads-to-2k-per-day/

DOC comment about Affinity screw up:
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/ia-only-affinity-federal-credit-union-credit-card-200-bonus-5-on-book...

[Hoben02]

I recently had to buy 3 visa gift cards totaling $600 in order to get some points for paying my socal aaa car insurance using my bofa us pride card and other times I've used my bofa premium card to purchase Simon giftcards for 1k. Is a giftcards never had any issues

[longtimelurker]

There really aren't hard and fast rules, you are always taking a slight risk so, with that in mind, perhaps use the card that would be the smallest loss!    If Cumberland Farms is the only option, I would probably only buy 1 card (with gas) at a time, as a $2000+ charge at a gas station will appear unusual for most people.   So a supermarket can be a slightly better choice.

But again, do what you feel comfortable with.   One well known rule is "Never buy gift cards with  USB Altitude Reserve" as early on there were numerous reports of shutdowns as people overused the 3x rewards on mobile payments.   But I've done it a few times without issues.   Which doesn't mean the next time will work.

[Mr_Mojo_Risin]

If it was me, I would definitely break it up into four different transactions.

One transaction of over 2K at a gas station could draw some attention.

[Kforce]

As others have said best to split into 4 transactions, across a time span.

I would use the card that I could live without.

I don't buy many gift cards and only use a worthless old CU card with no rewards when I do,   I don't like gambling, for me not worth the cashback.  I would probably receive AA the 1st time I purchase a $200 gift card.

Issues with gift cards have occurred for many with just a couple hundred dollars worth and others buy hundreds every month and have never had a single problem.  

My mother-in-law uses a Citi Costco and Discover and buys many hundred dollars wort every other month. Very little other spend on her cards and has never had a problem. It however has been a patten for many years, it is how she uses her credit cards. 

No real answer, it is always a gamble and all up to you.

Good Luck

[drlucy]

I can't buy the physical gift card where I live so I end up buying the online $200 gift cards with $200 gift cards that I get at Staples or Office Depot/OfficeMax when they are being sold for face value with no extra fee (this usually happens once a month). I use my Chase Ink Cash to do this since it's 5% cash back. And sometimes you can get an extra 2% cashback if you buy it at Office Depot/OfficeMax and have your card linked to Dosh. Without the Dosh bonus I net 2% (because there is a $5.95 fee with each gift of college gift card) but with it I get 4%.

[GatorCowboyLion]

@drlucy Wow yeah, good idea! My wife plans to get Ink Cash in May. I'll def use that trick, thanks for letting me know about it. Curious, how many filler items do you buy to stay under the radar with Chase?

[drlucy]

I don't know that I am the best at "staying under the radar". Sometimes I will buy a few office supplies on top of the gift cards but I do buy a lot of them every month. I don't use them to pay my student loans but rather to save for my kids college with their 529 plans.