Monday Morning Miles Talk is a regular series that has some smaller, more quirky ideas to kick off the work week. Â These are essentially random ideas that I wanted to share with you. Â Here are the 4 most recent topics.
- The Stressful Side of Travel Hacking
- Taking Advantage of eBay Site Wide Sales for Profit
- Are You Prepared in Case Tragedy Strikes?
- How to Remove Fighting over Money from your Marriage
If you would like to read even more articles in the series you can click HERE.
You Can Still Buy Amazon Gift Cards Online & Earn 5X
Amazon recently pulled all of their gift cards from online sellers. This was a big hit to Ink Cash and Plus cardholders who did a lot of shopping, or sourcing for reselling, on Amazon. You could always get a gift card from Gyft or PayPal Digital Gifts quickly and easily all while racking up 5X Ultimate Rewards points. Those avenues have died and you now need to stock up when you are at office stores. That isn’t all bad news, especially when you pair it with in store Ebates, but it isn’t as convenient.
Well I am here to tell you there is still a way to get this done without going to the store. It takes two people (or at least two phones) but you can get it done. It does come with some limitations but it is good in a pinch.
Swych to the Rescue
Swych is a phone app that sells gift cards. They are delivered instantly and they also earn 5X with the Chase Ink Plus & Cash cards. This is a nice way to rack up extra points even when you are already at the store.
Swych, like everyone else, pulled Amazon gift cards from their “shelves”. When they sent out their email announcing the change they hinted at a work around for this though. I hadn’t gotten around to testing it out until now but I finally did and it works!
The trick is that you have to send someone a gift card purchased through the app and then the recipient can change it to any gift card they want, including Amazon! I sent a Home Depot gift card to my wife and then selected Amazon instead and received the card instantly.
Constraints with this System
There are few hiccups with this system. The first one is you obviously need 2 phone numbers to make it work. The second is that you are limited to $50 per purchase. The purchase limits seem to be higher with sales (more on that later) but that is the cap for regular purchases. I was able to do back to back to back purchases without a problem. I am not sure if you get capped out at a certain overall dollar amount as well though.
The $50 maximum per purchase limits what can be done with this trick. It is still a great quick fix if you are in a pinch and unable to get to the store when one of Amazon’s quick deals go up etc.
Possible Stacking
From time to time Swych runs sales on certain gift cards. They are usually codes for $10 off a $100 gift card etc. I am not sure if purchasing these as a gift and having the person select Amazon gift card instead would give them a $100 or $90 gift card but I plan to test it out next time around.
Conclusion
This system isn’t as good or easy as it used to be but it is another option left out there. The limitations on the amounts make it more useful for quick sales or when you are in a pinch versus a full time solution. If you pair this with in store purchases though you should have all of your basis covered!
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Oh too much trouble. Just go officemax. 🙂
It has a PIA factor for sure but if something pops up and you are unable to get to the store this is an option to rack up some extra points. Friends don’t let friends get less than 5X on Amazon purchases lol
Unless it’s the end of the billing cycle and you’re desperately trying to find a way to meet 30 transactions on the EDP… which is me every month
Yeah but that’s only like $15 🙂