What's to stop people from doing this?

[Anonymous]

Can you make enough money off of it to justify the effort? Nobody really makes any money off of cash back, gaming it or otherwise... it's just a happy little bonus here and there. There are far wiser things to spend your time on. Don't get me wrong, I think everybody should think of ways to make their money work for them, but there's a point where you're busting your butt for pennies.

[afbar1114]

you can also extend the 5% cash back on gas under the same rule. buying gas cards at the grocery store with no fees

[navigatethis12]

---

@SamsungHDTV wrote:

---

---

It's the purchase fee when you buy a prepaid visa card. The last time I remember the for these things are: 

$25 Visa gift card cost $3.95

$50 Visa Gift card costs $4.95

---

The ones I get have a fee of 4.95 and you can load them up to 500 dollars. Depending on the card, one can earn a positive return. It is meet spending requirements.

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Can you make enough money off of it to justify the effort? Nobody really makes any money off of cash back, gaming it or otherwise... it's just a happy little bonus here and there. There are far wiser things to spend your time on. Don't get me wrong, I think everybody should think of ways to make their money work for them, but there's a point where you're busting your butt for pennies.

---

Once you learn all the tricks you can make a decent amount. You will not become a millionaire but a few extra thousand just for using a card is very easy to achieve.

[Revelate]

---

@Creditaddict wrote:

---

@Revelate wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Prepaid card will usually cost extra to purchase I think.

---

+1

Pre-paid cards fall under a special category where it will almost certainly be counted as a Cash Advance (in general, to be avoided like the plague for a whole lot of reasons).  Specifically, there are fees associated with that which will wipe out any 6% earning you might actually make.

Not a stupid question at all.

---

Wait a minute... Purchasing a Visa or MasterCard pre-paid card at the grocery store like Ralphs is NOT going to be a Cash Advance transaction with your credit card you are using.

But yes I have looked at this, it was a big topic with 6% on Blue plus Amex and buying a pre-paid Amex and going to Costco and paying that way and getting your 2% for executive and 6% for blue grocery!!

but yes fee would probably wipe out and less you spend more.

---

They *might* not all be coded this way, but I'll bet you the recreational beverage of your choice that lenders consider them the same way... to the point if you found a salient comparison on the gift card to other transactions (personal loan payment wtih credit cards would be where I'd try to find equivalent fees) I suspect you'll find a pretty solid statistical relevancy between them from a lender pricing model perspective.

[Revelate]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Can you make enough money off of it to justify the effort? Nobody really makes any money off of cash back, gaming it or otherwise... it's just a happy little bonus here and there. There are far wiser things to spend your time on. Don't get me wrong, I think everybody should think of ways to make their money work for them, but there's a point where you're busting your butt for pennies.

---

If you ever find a way to do it profitably, you don't tell anyone.

Lenders datamine for "exploits" in their rewards system (among others), that I can guaruntee.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Ended up buying a $50 BP gift card, and using it today. It was nice because I'll (hopefully) get the 5% cashback, plus when I used the giftcard, I got the cash price not the credit price, so I saved like 5 cents/gallon than if I had used a credit card to fill up.

Now I'll wait till the end of the month and see if I get 5% or .25% for this purchase.

[Anonymous]

I just did this with a home depot card - worked fine and got my reward on the next statement.  I do recommend buying other stuff too though - so it's not an exact $50 or $100 or whatever...

I also agree that if you have a grocery card that gives you more, you should buy, for example, a Kroger gift card and use it to get gas at Kroger's station or use it to buy a Walmart card and use that (since walmart isn't a grocery store).

As long as you aren't doing it in obvious ways, it should be ok.....

anyone else have positive or (more important) negative reports from doing this?

[Anonymous]

Here's a good breakdown of using a Chase Ink card (5% cashback at office stores) to get a net 4% cashback (because of the fee) on amex cards.  It's pretty much the same scenario.  As the poster above said don't keep buying just 500$ giftcards w/o adding items to it so your account isn't closed for perk abuse.

http://www.travelbypoints.com/2012/05/01/would-you-like-to-receive-5-cash-back-or-5x-points-on-every...

[john398]

Speaking of gift cards from the grocery store, the grocery stores themselves must make a lot of money off of gift cards for other places because I noticed my local Kroger offers 4 times rewards gas points for gift card purchases.......