UPDATE 5/8 – You can disregard this entire post since credit card loads for Redbird have died. Actually, this is still valid, but you’ll have to add an intermediary step of buying gift cards using your credit card. Read how here.
Okay, for those of you who applied for the AMEX Platinum 150K promo from yesterday, I think it’s best to outline how to spend the $20,000 in 90 days to get your full 150,000 Membership Rewards points. I’ll go over an easy way and a more lucrative way.
You MUST get a Target Red Card NOW
Get an AMEX Target RedCard! This is a MUST! It’s even better if you get 2 of them (1 per SSN). It’s even better if you get 10 of them! 😉 To get one of these cards, you’ll need to either buy it from Noonradar or buy it on Ebay (make sure you buy the right one; DO NOT buy the old Target Red Card. Buy the one in the picture below. And make sure you buy one from a RELIABLE SELLER that has already activated the card. They will email you with the 16 digits and 4 digit code in front which you then register here. If you have a BlueBird or Serve card, you will need to zero out that account and wait for the payments to clear. Then you can close your account online (don’t move until you see it.) After you close it, wait an hour or two and then you can register your Red Card. You will get the permanent card in about 7 days.
Easy Way to spend $20,000 in 90 days
- Once you have the permanent card in hand, drive your behind to Target. Go to the customer service desk. Hand them your card and tell them you want to load $1,000. If they look at you funny, just tell them to swipe the card and follow the prompts. Once they swipe it, a screen will pop up asking them how much to load. They type in $1,000. Then another screen pops up saying “Can not load with a Target gift card.” You’re not doing that, so tell them to push OKAY. Then you swipe your shiny new AMEX Business Platinum card. Give it 10 seconds and a receipt will print out. YES, IT’S THAT EASY! Then you tell them you want to load another $1,000. Follow the same steps as before. Then you want to load $500. Same steps again. The reason you want to only load $500 is because the daily limit is $2,500.
- The next day, go back and do everything in step 1 again. That’s it. You’re done for the CALENDAR MONTH. $5,000 easy. Now how do you get the $5,000 out? Withdraw it to your bank account! Or pay back the same American Express card!
- This means that you’ll load $5,000 in May, June, and July if you had 1 card. If you had a 2nd Red Card, you would have done $30,000 and gotten the bonus. If you only have 1 Red Card, you’ll need to spend $5,000 on every day things, which means you use the Platinum card as your go-to card for 3 months. And keep track of it! Don’t fall short by $1,000 and miss out on 50,000 points. If push comes to shove, in the last 2 weeks, go buy gift cards to Amazon, gas, groceries. Whatever! You’re basically front-loading your spend to qualify for this bonus.
Profitable way to spend $20,000 in 90 days
- Some of you have never messed with AMEX Gift Cards. Some have. For the ones that haven’t, now’s the time to start. Here’s a quick rundown. Go to www.topcashback.com FIRST. If you’re not a member, you can sign up using my referral link XXXXXX. Now once you’re at the TopCashBack site, search for “American Express” and you should see the American Express gift cards link with probably a rate of 1.5% next to it.
- Click through to the American Express site and LOG IN BEFORE ADDING A GIFT CARD TO YOUR CART!
- If you already have free unlimited shipping, then go buy 2 x $2,000 gift cards. If you buy more than $5,000, then UPS will not drop off the package unless a person signs for it (pain in ass).
- If you don’t have free unlimited shipping yet, go buy a PERSONALIZED personal AMEX gift card for $25 and enter code FSADMIN or FSMOM and check out with the Unlimited Shipping plan. Hopefully it 1) deducts $99 from the shipping plan and 2) you get to keep it for a year. If the code doesn’t work, abort mission and pony up for the $99 shipping plan (or take the 3 month free trial). If it does work, wait until that order gets approved and now go buy 2 x $2,000 gift cards. More info here.
- DO NOT BUY $3,000 denomination cards and DO NOT USE ANY FREE SHIPPING OR FEE FREE CODES or it will nullify your cashback.
- Once you get the AMEX gift card in, drive out to Target and do the ‘easy way’ mentioned above, but instead of swiping your Platinum card, you are going to swipe your $2,000 AMEX gift card.
Conclusion
The method you choose will be based on how much effort you want to put into this. The easy way is easy and requires little to no effect. The profitable way… assuming you bought $20,000 in gift cards and there is a 1.5% portal rebate, you would actually make $30 – $3.95 = $26 per $2,000 card. Ten cards would result in a profit of $260 and you’d get the same 150,000 MR points. It doesn’t get any much easier than that folks.
Do you know if American Express will treat these Redbird charges as cash advances?
There have been NO reports of any credit card issuers charging Redbird loads at Target as a cash advance (you may get a Fraud Alert which would be the main annoyance). Buying the AMEX gift card is another matter though. There is a Flyertalk wiki thread that shows who charges cash advances when buying AGC (I think only some Citi cards are doing it).
Vinh, great guide. Also, thank you kindly for the mention!
Quick loading availability note for your readers: Currently Redbird can’t be loaded at the Target stores in North Carolina or Arkansas (something to do with the POS system, state wide) but it can in the other 47 states (Vermont doesn’t have any Target stores). A few stores in big cities, NYC mostly, have also started to implement lower daily limits since Feb, a couple have disallowed credit cards there, but I think (just an educated guess) it has to do with the large number of people per store and hence with higher incidents of fraud also.
P.S. For people who do a lot of gift cards, here’s a post I wrote about loading multiple of them via one Redbird transaction: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+NoonRadar/posts/38p5P2Jsr11
Nice post. I had to learn this through ‘trial and error.’ I hope my readers who do buy Ink $200 VGC will read it to help them.
You mentioned using multiple redbird cards. When loading at Target do they ask for ID when loading? Wouldn’t that cause a problem trying to load a card under your dad’s name perhaps?
Thanks
It depends on your store and cashier. My stores don’t even look at the name on the card, but I hear stores around the Bay area check names. You won’t know for sure until you try it out yourself. If they asked me why the card has my Dad’s name, I would just say, “Because he is retired and this is how I help him pay for living expenses.”