If you haven’t figured it out yet, I run all of my MS through AGC first so I can get that extra 2%. I’m assuming you already know how to buy AGC’s, so let me try to get an FAQ questions and answers that is hopefully more advanced than what you’ve seen out there.
Q: When I submit my order, I get an error at the very end, but later, I get the APPROVAL email, and of course it didn’t track. What now?
A: This happened to me a lot a couple of months ago. It took me a month to figure out what I was doing wrong – if you LOG IN BEFORE adding the AGC to your cart, you’ll be fine. If you log in after that, you may get that error. You can still file a claim with the portal to get your cashback. It’s a hassle, but it should work.
Q: Does Citi really charge a cash advance?
A: I’ve been hearing more reports that they DON’T. Been a while since I’ve heard that they DO. But the better question is – why would you use a Citi card anyway? Citi DC only pays 1% I believe. Not sure if ATT More gives you 3X, but that would be the only card I’d use (besides meeting minimum spend.)
Q: Which card should I use to buy AGC?
A: In order of what you should use: Cards for you to meet minimum spend -> SPG/Arrival/FIA AMEX/any other 2% card (depends on how you value SPG and Arrival.) Personally, I use SPG or FIA AMEX or Ebates (when it bumps to 2%). Why don’t I use Arrival? Because I already use them for Buxx loads
Q: Personalized or generic?
A: Depends on where you live, what stores you frequent, your cashiers, etc. I’ve been buying generic since they come faster, but slowly moving to personalized just in case I ever need to show the card. If you order personalized, it usually takes a week longer. Also, I read you don’t need to sign for the UPS package if they are personalized cards, so you might be able to bang out 5x$2K = $10K and not needing to sign for it.
Q: Business or Personal cards?
A: Really doesn’t make a difference in regards to using the cards. However, when paying for them, that’s another matter.
- When ordering personal cards, I can usually use whatever card I want. And I usually order $2K cards.
- When ordering business cards (this is important since most portals are only paying out 2% on biz cards):
- Use your Name as the company name and SSN as the EIN. It’s better if you use SSN since I think AMEX checks the EIN.
- If you use an AMEX card like SPG, you’ll get automatic approval. This goes for $2K generic or personalized.
- If you use anything else, you’ll get an “Order Received” email and then you cross your fingers. I’ve been able to buy $2K cards with FIA AMEX, but I can’t buy $2K cards on the Ebates Visa. I THINK I read you can buy $1K biz cards using Ebates Visa, but I’m too cheap to pay the extra $3.95 AGC fee. Thus, I only use my Ebates Visa when Ebates gives 2% on personal cards, and I get an additional 3% for paying with Ebates.
- If you are trying to buy a biz card using a non-AMEX and getting declined orders, try buying a $1K card instead of a $2K card. If you tried with an FIA AMEX, which I assure you works with $2K biz, I wonder if you need to season your account longer.
- Quick recap – when portals are paying out 2% on biz cards, I buy $2K biz cards using FIA AMEX or SPG. When Ebates pays out 2%, I buy $2K personal cards using my Ebates Visa.
Q: Is there a way to get free shipping?
A: The trick from May may still be working. Not sure these days. Think personalized. That’s all I’ll say although I did let it slip once already.
Q: What denomination should I buy ?
A: $2,000 cards. Portals don’t pay out for $3,000 cards. And why pay an extra $3.95 for $1,000 cards? So buy $2,000 cards unless you get cute like for this reason – at Kroger, you can only buy under $2K in gift cards including fees, so I buy $500 + $500 + $500 + $475 = $1998.80 with fees. I did $476.20 for a couple of months, and used them only at Kate, but that got to be too tiring to remember. So now I stick with $475 for the last one. I’ve been buying $2K cards, but that leaves me $1.20 left on each AGC, which I should be able to liquidate at self-checkout buying groceries. But now my buddy Sud has told me to just buy personalized $1998.20, which makes sense.
Q: Optimal order quantity?
A: I usually buy 2x$2K. If you order more than $5K, then someone has to sign for the package from UPS. They won’t re-route either. It’s a PITA, so I stick with multiple orders of 2x$2K.
Q: How many orders per day?
A: People will use up their entire CL on those 2% portal rebate days. I usually do $8K to $12K, depending on where I am in my billing cycle.
Q: Is that $10K per 15 days enforced?
A: AMEX actually upped the personal limit, but the portals have not. In practice, you can buy however much you want. I did hear of one guy getting rejected by Ebates when he filed a claim due to the tracking error from question #1. So, if it doesn’t track, you may have issues with a dispute if you went over the limits. By the way, as I was researching the limit, I noticed FT already has a pretty expansive Q&A for this. So go read it here.
Q: Topcashback price match?
A: I used it once when some small vendor had it at 2%, but TCB did not. Why didn’t I order from smallvendor? Because I like TCB and don’t know how good smallvendor is. So I took a screenshot of the 2% on smallvendor. Made my purchase through TCB. Then, IMPORTANT HERE, you have to wait for the tracking email from TCB. Once you see it, log in, and request a price match. There’s even a big button for it. Sorry, no circles and arrows here. They approved the pricematch within a day when I logged in and saw it tracking at 2% instead of 1.5%. Don’t expect an email from them saying it was approved.
Q: Where do I liquidate AGC?
A: Grocery stores and drug stores. You might have to do a slight of hand trick (swipe AGC but show something else). Only once has someone actually compared the last 4 numbers. That’s why it might be better to use personalized cards just in case. Other great options – overpay your Ebay account fees, use it on Raise.com, use it on Sears.com, load it to your Paypal account and buy stuff on Ebay. If you have a Simon mall that doesn’t care…use them there. AAA takes them too if you get lucky. Even the armpit of America will take them for a certain celestial body gift card that they sell.
hey vinh, I wasnt aware of the ebates CC, just googled it and I see that it offers 3% CB for ebates purchases at over 1800 places. does AGC count or what do you mean by when it bumps up – do you perhaps have a diff card/diff grandfathered benefits?
are there any requirements differences for the personal vs. biz AGCs? as in do you need an EIN/tax ID to buy biz AGCs? … I noticed AMEX raised the limits to $100k/15 days. are ALL portals still limited to $10k? each portal or cumulative? is there a $ amount limit per order?
The problem for eBates “VISA” is that you most likely get your order cancelled for “Business AMEX GC”. If you just want to play with “Personal”, it should be OK.
I understand that it’s cumulative.
BW, yes it gives 3% on AGC too. That’s really the only place you should use it. And like MrWho said, it only works on Personal 2K cards. I MIGHT have read that it works on Biz 1K cards, but I haven’t tested since I don’t want to pay the extra $3.95.
To get approved for biz, just use your name as the company and ssn as the EIN. It’s actually better to use your SSN than EIN. I believe ALL portals are limited to $10K per 15 days for personal; $100K / 15 for biz. However, like I said, you can go over, just don’t screw up the order and have to file a claim. There is no $ amt per order; the bottleneck there is the UPS guy and whether you are home to sign for it.
thanks guys! I meant are portal CB payouts cumulative, say I order from multiple ones – does AMEX track us and limit payouts to each person at a rate of $10k/15 days (via any & all portals)? if so, no reason to go over. however if I can order $10k from portal A, another $10k from portal B, etc – that would be a great way to get around the CB limit per portal.
but that only works if the portal payouts are not cumulative and thus not capped at a hard $10k (from AMEX?) … I ask this cause in theory it could be easy for em to track if I’m using my SSN. I could order using my fam members/SSN in the same household, but not sure how much hassle that would be (esp in terms of tracking) if I’m using MY ebates/TCB/SBC acct and MY CC # etc while ordering under their name/SSN.
All portals are independent so have at it.
Cumulative from all the portals exist, I understand.
“I’m using MY ebates/TCB/SBC acct and MY CC # etc while ordering under their name/SSN.” I don’t recommend of doing this…using your CC with somebody’s else’s SSN. Probably better if you add your family members as your AUs, then create an AMEX online account & order using their CC # and SSN.
Thanks. I’ve recently exprienced the error message thing while checking out and am trying to get the portal to track. In the past I would always log in prior to ordering. But this time when I did that I was limited to AGC in $200 denominations. So I had to put the $2k cards in my card then login. Not sure what’s with that.
That was an error in the past. I haven’t heard of that still happening lately. Is that for biz or personal cards? What if you log in first and try personalized? Can you do 2K cards?
This was for biz cards on last Monday’s SBC 2% back day. In the past I have only purchased personal cards and never had a problem. Next time I’ll try personalized see if it’s an issue.
>The trick from May may still be working. Not sure these days. Think
personalized. That’s all I’ll say although I did let it slip once
already.
It is not easy to be your reader. Isn’t it? You seem to
be a big teaser. Why can’t you be more straight forward and honest? If you was sold to keep something as secret, don’t even mention in your article. Just because you happen to know some tricks doesn’t make you superior than others. Have some respect and don’t patronize your
readers- we also spend time to read your article and don’t deserve these craps.
You also need to be careful about your repeated racist jokes like “ import Chinese dentists to Amex card “ It is low class and offensive.
And that post regarding your car dealership experience is absolutely disgusting…it a portrait of low humanity and how awful an environment can harm the nobility of people. Maybe all of these doesn’t matter to you because all you care is great deals!
(redacted)
Shannon,
If you had emailed me privately, I would have told you the trick, but instead you decide to put me on blast publicly, so for sure, I’m not going to tell you. The reason I did not post it here is exactly why people hate bloggers – I don’t want to kill the deal by publicizing it. It’s on FT, so you can search for it there.
As for the importing of Chinese dentists, you clearly are not getting the humor. The picture was of the gold “grillz” aka fake teeth. But then again, if I could import Chinese dentists using an AGC and make a profit, I’d do it. And how can I be racist when my best friend is Chinese and my wife is Chinese?
You know what’s great about the internet? IT’S HUGE. So if you don’t like my blog, UNSUBSCRIBE AND STOP READING IT. It’s that easy.
@ Shannon, I re-read the article on “car dealership experience”, I FAILED to see why you find it “absolutely disgusting……people”.
With regard to Business vs. Personal cards, lately most (all?) portals have only been doing the 2%+ rates on Business. So that should definitely factor into the decision.
Yes good point.
Nice timing as they have a 2.25% CB rate on Topcashback today for the business cards. Might just knock out my KAL $3000 spend in one shot if I can. Have fun in Africa!
Interesting you got the KAL card. You’re the 2nd person this week who I know got it.
Hah, probably helps that I’m Korean… availability is really solid and my folks go a lot, so even 30k helps.
The wife and I applied for 2 of these each as well. The KAL booking process is a huge pain, but it’s hard to argue with their availability. I’m hoping to use the points for future travel to Europe and maybe Tahiti (much more of a long shot though).
For reference isn’t the MS $2K though?
http://www.skypassvisa.com/credit/offer.do?redirect=33267&lang=en