Ultimate American Express AMEX Bluebird / Serve Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

I have been meaning to write this for months now, so finally decided to write it.  I’m not sure if someone else has written one; if they have, then I just wasted a lot of time.  So here are the things you need to know that is not known or widely known.

Updated 04/26/2015 – As of 4/15/2015, AMEX no longer allows credit card loads online.  At this point, you should get a Target Redcard/Redbird instead of Bluebird/Serve.  Also, the Softcard version no longer exists.

Update 5/17/2017 – This MS play is pretty much dead these days, so don’t bother.

What is Bluebird/Serve?

• Q: What is an AMEX Bluebird or Serve card?
• A: It is a prepaid card run by American Express.  The card is geared for people who can’t get checking accounts due to bad credit reports/scores.  You “load” money to the card either online (credit or debit) or at Walmart stores (cash or debit cards).  You can then spend the card like a regular credit card, bill pay to credit cards, mortgages, etc, or you can withdraw the money to your bank account.

• Q: What are the differences between the 2 cards?
• A: At this point, there is not much difference between the Bluebird and Serve cards in regards to ability to load, subaccounts, AMEX Offers availability.  I believe Bluebird lets you write checks, but you shouldn’t be writing Bluebird checks anyway, which I’ll explain later.  The Serve with Softcard however gives you an extra $500 of both an online credit and debit load over the normal Serve card (total $1,000.)

• Q: Does this affect my credit report/score?
• A: No it does not.  There is no credit pull or even a ChexSystems pull.  It does not hit your credit report at all.  It might improve your chances of getting an American Express card in the future if you can’t get one now.

• Q: Why should I get one?
• A: Everyone in the miles and points game has 1.  It’s an easy way to earn at least 60,000 points or more a year and hundreds of dollars in savings on AMEX offer deals.

• Q: Which card should I get?
• A: At this point, there’s really no reason to get a Bluebird card, so you may as well get a Serve card.  If you have a compatible phone that works with Softcard (most newer Samsung phones have the capability – you’ll need to go to your carrier and ask them to upgrade your SIM card to a Softcard compatible SIM.  This should be FREE, but they might charge you for the SIM card.  For T-Mobile customers, it should be free.

• Q: Can I have both cards at the same time?
• A: No, you can only have a Bluebird OR a Serve account.  You can not have both cards active at one time although I’ve heard stories this has happened to some people.

• Q: Do Bluebird/Serve cards qualify for AMEX Twitter offers?
• A: Yes, for the offers that have a Twitter hashtag.  AMEX sometimes will put out offers that can only be signed up for real American Express cards that you have to sign on to your account to load.  These offers you won’t have access to.

Signing up

• Q: What do I need to sign up?
• A: You need a social security number, an email address, and a phone number.

• Q: Can I sign up my spouse/parent/friend?
• A: Yes, if you know their ssn, bdate, etc.  However, eventually you’ll need a picture of their driver’s license if you want to do online loads, so don’t identity theft them.

• Q: How do I sign up?
• A: While you can buy the temporary cards at Walmart, I suggest you just go out to www.serve.com and sign up for a card.  If you want the Softcard version, you’ll have to sign up using the Softcard app.  Download it and follow the steps.  It’s pretty self explanatory.

Switching from Bluebird to Serve or Serve to Bluebird

• Q: Can I switch from Bluebird to Serve or Serve to Bluebird?
• A: Yes, you can.  You can close your Bluebird or Serve account online.  Make sure your balance is $0 and that you have no pending transactions.  Once that is complete, within 1 hour, you should be able to sign up for Serve or Softcard Serve?

• Q: When I switch from Bluebird to Serve, does my monthly limit reset?
• A: YES they do.  That means if you’ve loaded $5K to your Bluebird and it’s the 10th day of the month when you close Bluebird and sign up for Serve, if you get the Serve card in time (usually within 7-10 days), you have another $5K that you can load for the month.

• Q: Can I switch back and forth until the cows come home?
• A: Theoretically yes and if you are the type, then go for it.

Subaccounts

• Q: How many subaccounts can I have with every Bluebird or Serve card?
• A: 4

• Q: Why do I want to create a subaccount?
• A: See below question

• Q: Do Bluebird/Serve subaccounts qualify for AMEX Twitter offers?
• A: Yes, each card can have 4 subaccounts.  Each subaccount, if linked to a unique Twitter account, can register for AMEX Twitter offers

• Q: What is required for a new subaccount?
• A: You just need a unique phone number and email address

• Q: Can I have all 4 subaccounts be the same name?
• A: Yes!  However, I’d put your initial on 2 of the 4 accounts for this reason.

Loading the card

• Q: What is the monthly load limit at Walmart?
• A: The monthly load limit is $5,000 at Walmart.

• Q: Can I load the card anywhere else?
• A: Yes, Family Dollar also lets you load $500 a day using a debit card (prepaids work).  DO NOT TRY to load a 2nd $500 or load another card.  It’ll lock up the registers and a manger needs to get involved.  There is a daily limit of $500 per store per day, so if someone has loaded $500 at the store before you, you are screwed.

• Q: What is the daily load limit at Walmart?
• A: The daily load limit is $2,500.

• Q: When does the daily load limit reset?
• A: At 9pm PST or midnight EST.  That means you can load $2.5K at 8:30PM PST, walk around the store for a half hour and then load another $2.5K at 9:01PM PST and you’ll be done for the month.

• Q: What is the max load per transaction at Walmart?
• A: The max load per transaction is $1,000.  That means you can’t tell the cashier, “I want to load $2,000 to the card.”

• Q: What do I tell the cashier if she’s never done one before?
• A: Tell her to push ’70’ and then ‘action code.’  It’ll then prompt for the account number.  Either you can swipe the card or give the card to the cashier to swipe.  She’ll then want to push “1” for LOAD and then you tell her how much you want to load (usually $1,000)

• Q: What is the optimal load I should do at Walmart?
• A: Since the max transaction is $1K and the max daily load is $2.5K, you should first do a load of $1K, then another load of $1K, and then a 3rd load of $500.  This is assuming the cashier will let you load that many times.  Some cashiers will only let you do 1 load per day.  If she says this, walk away.

• Q: Can I load someone else’s card at Walmart for them?
• A: Yes, I do this all the time.  I’ve never had a cashier look at the name on the Serve card.  Some stores will let you only do 1 load per card per day, but you can load different cards.  That means if I load $1K to my card, then they will not let me load another $1K to MY card again, but they’ll let me load $1K to my wife’s card.  This is cashier dependent.

• Q: What can I use to load the card?
• A: You can load cash (don’t do that) or you can use a ‘real” bank debit card (don’t do that either) or you can use a prepaid debit gift card.

• Q: Which prepaid cards work at Walmart?
• A: USBank gift cards (USB Visa are best) that can be found at Staples, Safeway and Kroger affiliated stores work as well as Metabank gift cards.  The “Vanilla” cards found at drugstores like CVS and RiteAid do NOT work.  There are other ones like Simon’s gift cards (found at Simon malls), AAA (yes, the auto company) Visa gift cards, and other cards out there.  Try them out.

• Q: I have a USBank Mastercard and I can’t get it to work at Walmart?
• A: When using a USB MC, the system defaults to using it as a credit card, which would not work..  Therefore, right after you swipe the card, you will need to push the ‘change payment’ button on the screen and push ‘debit.’  You’ll then enter your PIN and select ‘no cashback.’  I try to avoid USB MC cards for this exact reason.

• Q: If I have 2 x $500 prepaid cards, how do I load $1,000?
• A: You can either load 2 transactions of $500, but that takes a while and will hold up the line.  You can tell the cashier to load $1,000 and when the screen prompts for payment, tell the cashier you want to “Can I swipe 2 x $500 cards?”  or “Can I split this into 2 x $500 cards?”  You’ll then want to swipe the 1st card and enter in the PIN number BEFORE the cashier pushes 500 debit on their screen.  Most cashiers know to wait for you.  When the screen says ‘approved,’ then you swipe your 2nd card, enter PIN, and you’re set.

• Q: What is the max number of swipes can I do?
• A: Walmart limits 4 credit card swipes per transaction and the Serve card swipe counts as 1 transaction.  Therefore, if you have $200 cards, your max load in one transaction would be $600 since you swiped the Serve (swipe #1) and then the 3 x $200 cards (swipes #2,#3,#4).  I wouldn’t waste my times loading $200’s with a cashier; go to a moneycenter machine and use them there (see below)

• Q: My store does not allow prepaid cards to load, what now?
• A: Try a different Walmart.  Or try a regular cashier instead of the customer service desk that aren’t as strict on the rules.  The official corporate policy doesn’t exclude prepaid gift cards (if they wanted to stop it, they can simply program the registers to not accept them like how they stopped accepting “Vanilla” prepaid cards.)

Loading using the Moneycenter machine at Walmart

• Q: What should I call the Moneycenter machine at Walmart?
• A: I’m not sure how or why, but this Moneycenter machine is commonly referred to as ‘Kate’ on the Internet.

• Q: What is the max load per transaction with Kate?
• A: The max load at ‘Kate’ is $500 per transaction (remember the cashier’s max is $1K)

• Q: What is the optimal load patter using Kate?
  • A: If you are using $500 cards, you can load $500, $500, $500, and then $499.99.  Then you will need to wait 10 minutes!  If you try $500 again on the 4th load, Kate will prompt for a manager to come by.  If you try a 5th load (any amount) before the 10 minutes is up, it will prompt for a manager.  This is because there is a ‘velocity limit’ of $1999.99 every 10 minutes.
  • A: If you are using $200 cards however, you can load until the cows come home without locking up the machine.

Loading money online

• Q: What are the limits with loading money online with a credit card?
• A: You can load $1,000 max per calendar month using an AMEX credit card that was not issued by AMEX (like the FIA AMEX).  The daily load limit is $200 for Bluebird and Serve or $500 if you were grandfathered into the Softcard version.  That means you’d have to load 5 times per times.  The Softcard version of Serve has a limit of $1,500 per calendar month and $500 daily limit.

• Q: What are the limits with loading money online with a debit card?
• A: Same as the above.

• Q: What credit cards work online?

A: You can load using any Chase credit card, any Mastercard, and AMEX card.  Citi Visa, USBank Visa, and Bank of America Visa cards will be charged a cash advance fee.  AMEX cards won’t generate points, but it’ll qualify for bonus spend.  For example, if you need to charge $3,000 on your AMEX SPG card to receive the 25,000 bonus, you will not get any SPG points on the $3,000 load, but you will get your 25,000 point bonus.  Also, the Citi AA AMEX works as well (receive miles and not charged cash advance).  I recommend the Barclays Arrival to use as your credit card load.  See this reddit thread on what cards work.

• Q: I’m an authorized user on my wife’s card.  Can I use that card to load?
• A: Yes, you can IF the authorized user’s card has a different card number.  Barclays issues authorized user cards with new card numbers.  Bank of America issues same numbers.  I’m not sure about Citi and Chase, but if it’s a new number, you can use it.

• Q: When I tried to make a 2nd load, I got an error with the load.
• A: This means Serve wants to verify that the card is yours before letting you do more online loads.  You can call Serve at 1-800-555-4318 to resolve it.  They will 3-way call you with the credit card company.  The other option to get this resolved is to take a picture of the credit card and your driver’s license and upload it here https://secure.serve.com/user/SecureFileUpload.  In a couple of days, the online loads will magically work again.

• Q: When I tried to change credit cards, I get an error when trying to load.
• A: See above.

• Q: What debit cards work online?
• A: You can NOT use prepaid debit cards for this.  You can NOT use USBank Buxx cards.  I also would probably NOT use cards like AccountNow, Green Dot, Chime, etc.  You CAN use the Payal Business Debit Mastercard though or any “real” bank debit load (you can also use the UFB debit card to get 0.5 AA miles per $1 load.

Liquidating Serve

• Q: What’s the best way to liquidate the funds in my Serve account?
• A: Like I said earlier, there is no need to have Bluebird or Serve send checks to pay bills.  Just withdraw the money to your bank account!

• Q: Can I ‘bill pay’ someone else’s account using my Serve account?
• A: Sure!  I pay my wife’s credit card all the time.  All you have to do is enter in the account number (credit card number) that you want to pay.

• Q: Can I ‘bill pay’ myself using my friend’s account?
• A: Sure! Remember the max to bill pay a person is $5,000 a month.

• Q: Can I send money from my Serve account to another person’s account?
• A: Sure!  The limit is $2,500 a month to send money via Serve.

• Q: Can I ‘bill pay’ the credit card that I used to load Serve with?
• A: There is a saying, “Don’t poop where you eat.”  You CAN do it, but I wouldn’t.

More questions?

Have more questions that I haven’t addressed above?  Leave it in the comments and I will update the post.