Discounted Gift Cards on eBay
Yesterday I covered some of the gift cards on sale at eBay. Well, today things are even better because many (most) people seem to have received a targeted offer giving 5X eBay Bucks (10%) in cashback. When combined with 2% portal cashback from Splender, it amounts to a significant savings.
A Few Example of Great Deals
To start, you can find the full list of discounted gift cards here. I’ll break down a couple of my favorites to show how they can be profitable.
$100 ExxonMobil Gift Card For Only $90!! – Limit 3 from SVM Gift Cards
You can purchase 3 X $100 ExxonMobil gift cards for $270. These cards can be sold for 87% of their face value to Cardpool. Here is how the math looks:
- Cost: $270
- Portal cashback: -$5.40
- 10% eBay Bucks: -$27
- Final cost: $237.60
- Sell at 87%: $261
- Profit: $23.40
Not the best deal in the world, but it requires very little time so it will make sense for some. The better deals are the ones that are sold by PayPal Digital Gifts because those earn 5X Ultimate Rewards with Chase Ink. Let’s take a look at another example:
$150 Best Buy Card + $15 eBay Bonus Card for $150 – Email Delivery from PayPal Digital Gifts
You can purchase four of these Best Buy cards which can be sold for 88% of their face value. In my math I’ll assume the $15 eBay gift card is worth face value since it can be used later on just about anything including other gift cards.
- Cost: $600
- Portal cashback: -$12
- 10% eBay Bucks: -$60
- Final cost: $528
- Sell BB cards at 88%: $528
- Profit: $0
As you can see you can buy and sell these cards for a breakeven, but then you will also have:
- 3,000 Ultimate Rewards points if purchased with Ink through PayPal.
- $60 in eBay gift cards
I personally value the eBay cards and Ultimate Rewards at more than $100. Better still, this purchase and sale could be done in less than 10 minutes sitting at my desk. This is a great deal.
Related: Gift Card Arbitrage – Guaranteed Money Makers & Big Credit Card Rewards
Conclusion
There are some other great deals available, so I suggest heading over to the eBay gift card sale page to see which cards have the potential for profit. I have been doing a lot of reselling and thus my eBay Bucks account is almost maxed out at $500, however I still have my eye on one or two of these deals.
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Isn’t there a cap of $500 that you can buy through the special offer?
You can only earn $500 in eBay Bucks per quarter.
How many different ebay accounts can you have? Just wondering if anyone has more than one account?
eBay regularly shuts down dupe accounts used to bypass gift card purchase limits. Stay away from it if you can. They track by email, IP, address, phone, etc.
One per person. You might be able to manage someone else’s account but eBay may catch on and shut down both accounts. I don’t mess around with it.
Sadly untargeted as well. Would love more Exxon GCs.
Oh well. 🙁
How will I get ebay 15$ GC. I bought 150$ BB GC which was delivered instantly but I am yet to get 15$ ebay card. When that will be delivered?
It should have come shortly after the Best Buy cards via email.
Total novice here so sorry if this is a stupid ? , but, can e-bay Bucks be moved just like cash into your linked personal bank account or are they only valid for e-bay purchases?
Only good for ebay purchases.
Got it. Thanks!
What gives…I haven’t been targeted for ebay bucks in like a couple months. My marketing settings haven’t changed (and I’ve been getting more daily merchandise emails) and I haven’t seen anything on my ebay homepage.
Any ideas?
Interesting. Not targeted. This has been the first time for me not being targeted for bucks offer since a few months ago.
How long does it take for you to get the cash back, the eBay bucks and the buy back portals? Do they pay right away? Thank you!
You receive eBay Bucks quarterly. The next payment is early in April. As for Splender, it takes about 45 days for the transaction to become payable and then you receive a check at the end of the month.
does SaveYa or ABC Gift card pay right away when you sell your gift cards?
No. You have to mail them in. I a couple in on Monday this week and got the email from them today that they are processing the payment to PayPal, so they move pretty quickly.
Thanks!
When I enter the $150 BB card value at cardpool using the electronic code redemption option, the sale value is equal to 82.5% not 88%.
I mentioned Cardpool for the gas card. Both SaveYa and ABC Gift Card pay 88% for the Best Buy cards. You can find all of the payouts compared at Gift Card Wiki. http://www.giftcardwiki.com/giftcards/Best%20Buy
Hey, Shawn — for some reason, my Ink Plus got removed from my PayPal account after I made a few GC purchases with it. I haven’t been able to re-add it for the last few months. Well, actually, it initially lets me add the card, but then if I were to log out and log back in, or try to log in on eBay and pay, it disappears from my PayPal account. If I try to check out on eBay via PayPal and add the card, it says the card was declined or not able to be added (depending on the day). Of course, my Ink Plus works fine — I use it regularly. Have you heard of PayPal blocking the Ink Plus on anyone?
I’m able to pay with any of my other CCs and I don’t have too many cards in my PayPal account. I’ve tried removing and adding, etc. I can add other cards, just not the Ink Plus….
That is strange and I haven’t heard of that happening to anyone else. The eBay PayPal system is so strange that this doesn’t surprise me at all though.
My Ink and my 2% cards are still in Paypal but it won’t let me use either to make a purchase from PPDG. Only options are my PPEMC and bank account.
It’s taken a while but I’m starting to understand why so many people despise Paypal.
@SCJ, have you just hit the monthly limit with PayPalDigitalGifts? They do limit how much you can buy from them with a CC each month. Mine hasn’t worked for many months…and I can buy from them with any of my other CCs, just not IP.
No. I purchased the $95 ebay GC that was on sale back on 2/26. Purchase before that was 2/1.
I can only imagine that Paypal writes screwy code to curb behavior it doesn’t like and then applies it at different levels to see the effect. For instance, there’s mention of a $1000 per rolling 30-day limit, or the new 4 card per 10 day limit. But I haven’t been able to add a single BBY GC to my ebay order until today due to some imaginary Paypal limit.
Who knows.