Introduction
This is actually a ‘zombie’ deal meaning it was a deal in the past, and came back to life due to Target’s Citi-level IT skills. As you may know, for the past month or so, Target has been playing around with their web site (sometimes giving you the old site, sometimes the new site.) Well it seems that in all that construction, they must have re-coded the Visa gift cards to be able to accept coupons again (or maybe they released coupon codes that worked on the Visa gift cards) because this was posted on Slickdeals.
The play
The best cards to use were either a 2% card if you like cashback or maybe the ATT card to get you 3X TYP or if you were targeted, use an AMEX Platinum card that earned 2 MR. I chose to go with the MR card since those are harder to MS on.
We also tried with various portals and tacking on items to see if any would track. Some mixed results which I will not share.
Sometimes Target would cancel the orders; sometimes you had to wait 24 hours to try placing orders again. Just totally random that we could never figure out the cancellation algorithm (or maybe the orders were manually approved…)
After a week, the initial coupon stopped working. Then someone found another working coupon code. I think the total duration lasted about 2.5 weeks, which was a looong time in this new MS world.
How did I do?
There’s no need for me to show my :eggplant: but I’ll just leave you with this:
Lessons Learned
- Zombie deals are your friend
- Hogs get FAT. Pigs get slaughtered along with the hogs.
- Want to learn about the deal while it’s still alive? Check Slickdeals more often? Better yet, network with people and build a dream team of your own.
This deal was discussed on reddit and possibly FT. Nothing special IMHO as target.com didn’t earn any bonus categories, but I guess it’s ok if you badly needed to meet minimum spend and wanted to avoid some fees.
Switched between EDP and AT&T on this one. AT&T gives me 3x and EDP gives me 2.5x MR (1.5x per $ + 1x bonus MR until end of year). Was able to buy 5 Target VGC per order 2 months ago but in the last month only 1 VGC per order. More than 1 per day gets cancelled.
Nice play on the EDP. I don’t have that card yet. I was able to get up to 5 per day consistently at the end. The key was pacing out the orders.
hey hope you ignore the haters, love these posts – thanks Vinh!
This is the reason I try not to read this blog. I will tell myself not to click anymore click bait titles. Way to blog about dead deals. I won’t be back good luck “Vinh”. Hope they close more of your cards.
How is this click bait when 1. I tell you it’s dead and 2. It did happen. Sorry for not blogging about it while it’s live since that would have brought on even more trolls telling me I’m killing the deals. Go back to reading MMS. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
bummer
“Hogs get fat. Pigs get slaughtered along with the hogs.”
Lol. So your behavior often drags everyone else down with them. Congratulations.
So how many accounts have you had shut down? Strange, I’ve never had any shut down. If your blog shows anything, it’s that hogs often only slaughter themselves. So there’s that.
Congrats on not having been shut down. Tell me again how many miles/points/cash you earned on this deal.
Not that many. I’ve already got more miles/points/cash, well, maybe not the ‘cash’ part, than I can use up now, so these sorts of MS deals aren’t worth the hassle. Just commenting on the hog/pig mentality (“Look! I got 12 BofA Alaska cards at once!!” sort of thing) (not referring to you of course) and happy that the hogs don’t ALWAYS have to ruin it all for the more ‘slow & steady’ among us.
But good luck on your approach. Each to his/her own.
I think you’re living in the past. These days, there are too many ppl in the hobby and too many HH. While we used to preserve deals in the past, these days, it’s, “hit it as hard as you can before it gets shut down.” I know people who did 2X my volume on this deal (they just don’t blog about it) and some who only did a handful. We all got slaughtered, so for this deal, it would have behooved you to go hard.
Guess it all depends on the type of deal, but in general, you may be right. Probably should just admit I’m just tilting at windmills and need to face the reality of ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!’
Did those GCs come with PINs?
Nevermind, SDs answered me.