Last week I managed over $47,000 worth of gift card churning at GiftCardMall, Simon Mall, Staples, and Safeway. In total, I earned 41,499 points and miles. I also earned a $35.88 cash profit after off-setting all gift card fees.
At most, I’ll spend around $42 liquidating these gift cards through money order purchases, though about a third of them will be liquidated via GoBank cards….once they arrive in about a week. Below is a breakdown of the points and miles I earned last week:
American Miles
I recently burned through almost 400,000 American miles, so it’s time to replenish that stash. I placed nine GiftCardMall orders for $1,517.85 each. This will result in about 13,660 points at a cost of $25.65.
To give you some context, I can use those miles to travel anywhere in the U.S. on a saver award for $26. But that’s not what I’m saving for. Most likely, I’ll redeem my American miles for business and/or first class tickets on a partner airline like Etihad.
Points earned: 13,660 points
Fees: $160.65
BeFrugal cash back: $135
Total cost: $25.65
Cash back
With the Simon Mall $1 off promotion ending, I made a final run to max out my Discover It Miles Card. I can’t use this card at GiftCardMall and weird glitches have been happening on Giftcards.com.
My best option for generating cash back with the Discover It Miles card was the Simon Mall promo. So I bought $9,500 worth of gift cards, which carried $56.05 in fees.
At 1.5% cash back, I generated $143.45. Subtracting the fees, I’ll end up with $87.28 profit.
Cash back earned: $143.34
Fees: $56.05
Total profit: $87.28
Chase Ultimate Rewards
I placed a single $1517.85 Visa gift card order with the Freedom Unlimited. I’ll put more spending on this card throughout the month. My mom also has a Freedom Unlimited card, which I should be making better use of. She’s been using it for everyday spending and I don’t want to put MS on it and make it difficult for her to track her spending.
Being able to earn 2,276 Ultimate Rewards points (post transfer) works out the same as taking advantage of that 50% bonus if I end up transferring points to Flying Blue.
At some point (probably when the Citi ThankYou Flying Blue promo ends) I’ll trade her Freedom Unlimited card for the Citi Premier.
Ultimate Rewards points earned: 2,276
Fees: $17.85
BeFrugal cash back: $15
Total cost: $2.85
Citi ThankYou Points
I haven’t done as well on the Citi ThankYou front as I had intended. I placed five GiftcardMall orders for $1517.85 on both my Citi Prestige and my mom’s Citi Premier card. This will generate 7,589 ThankYou points for $14.25.
Realistically, I don’t think I’ll earn another 50,000 points by the end of the month like I had planned, but that’s fine. If I get halfway there (which shouldn’t be a huge issue) I’m good with that.
I’ve been earning these points with the intention of transferring them to either LifeMiles or Flying Blue, which runs some pretty great promo awards. Both programs charge 126,000 miles for a roundtrip ticket to Europe. The taxes on Flying Blue are substantially higher, clocking in at 441.97 Euro or $611 between San Francisco and Amsterdam.
With the 50% transfer bonus, I’ll only need 84,000 ThankYou points. That will cost me about $231.73 worth of manufactured spending fees. Do I also want to pay $600 on top of that for a flatbed seat to Europe? Nope, especially since earning 126,000 Lifemiles via ThankYou points would cost me a little over $300 (including award taxes and fees).
Flying Blue promo rewards can offer further discounts of up to 50%, which could make speculatively transferring ThankYou points to Flying Blue worthwhile.
Points earned: 7,589
Fees: $89.25
BeFrugal cash back: $75
Total cost: $14.25
Hilton Honors Points
I’m slowly spending my way to the $60,000 point requirement for a free night through the Hilton Aspire card. Not because that free night is worth all that spend, but it will also earn me at least 180,000 Hilton points. Depending on where I put those points to use, they could be worth thousands of dollars.
Last week, the $1517.85 purchase at GiftCardMall got me about 2.5% there. I earned 4,553 Hilton points at a cost of $2.85. To give you some perspective, a free night at a top-tier Hilton hotel costs 95,000 points.
At this rate, I’ll spend about $104 on Visa gift card and money order fees to generate those points. Considering 95,000 points can be redeemed for a pool suite at the Conrad Koh Samui or a Beach Villa at the Conrad Maldives, that’s an incredible return in value.
Points earned: 4,553
Fees: $17.85
BeFrugal cash back: $15
Total cost: $2.85
Korean SkyPass
I can’t even remember what I’m saving Korean SkyPass miles for. My initial goal was to earn 80,000 miles for a roundtrip business class ticket to Europe. But I’ll likely cover Europe with those Citi ThankYou points I’ve been racking up.
There are lots of other great uses for Korean SkyPass miles, so I will figure something out. The 10,624 miles I earned at a cost of $19.95 will be put to good use.
Points earned: 10,624
Fees: $124.95
BeFrugal cash back: $105
Total cost: $19.95
Membership Rewards Points
I know I should be earning more Membership Rewards. Last week, I didn’t make much progress on that front but I did turn a small profit from the few points I earned. Through Amex Offers, I was targeted for a $25 of $100 deal at Staples. The terms excluded “bulk gift card purchases”.
What constitutes “bulk”? I had no idea. So I purchased a single $300 Visa gift card that cost me $8.95. Shortly after placing the order, I got confirmation from American Express that I had successfully redeemed the offer.
That leaves me with a $16.05 profit and since I activated the 20% bonus for completing 20 transactions this cycle, I earned 369 points. I know, I’m booking that Singapore Suite as we speak.
Additionally, Safeway was offering $10 cash back on $100 Visa gift cards and higher. I picked up two $500 cards, which cost $5.95 each. The Amex Everyday card earns 2x on the first $6,000 spent at grocery stores, earning me 2,428 points with the 20% spending bonus. My out of pocket cost came to $1.90.
Overall, I earned 2,797 Membership Rewards points and $14.15 cash back.
How many points and miles did you earn last week?
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I had heard that AMEX cards aren’t earning points on giftcard purchases. Have you noticed that with your Aspire card? Or any other AMEX cards? Thanks. Love the posts 🙂
They’re not earning points at Simon Mall right now. Time will tell RE Staples and Safeway. 🙂
I’ve heard of numerous shut downs at Walmart with money order purchases, but have never had an issue myself, although I tend to alternate my amounts.
Just out of curiosity, how often are you visiting Walmart in a given week, and are you purchasing $8000 in gift cards during each visit under your DL? I know sometimes you bring other family members, but I’m just trying to get an idea if I can ramp up my MO purchase and frequency.
Really depends on how many gift cards I have (it takes about a week for them to arrive) and whether I can drag someone along to help me liquidate. I would say on average, two days a week.
OK, thanks. I’ll try to ramp it up a bit to save on the number of trips to Walmart.
What are you doing with all those money orders? I just got back into MS this week after a 1.5 year layoff because of the Staples and OD offers. I have various bank accounts that I opened due to the account bonuses and i spread the MO’s around to avoid bank shutdowns. But you seem to have tons of MOs.
Deposit and pay off credit cards.
How do you get around the GoBank monthly fee?
You can get it waived with a monthly direct deposit of $500.
I want to do MO but no Walmart nearby. Can any of this be done completely online?
Not completely. You can buy money orders at lots of other places though.
Like?
See this post: https://www.pointchaser.com/where-to-buy-money-orders-with-a-pin-enabled-gift-card/
Curious how much time this will take you to buy and liquidate (and track, if that’s something you do).
It takes me about 1.5-2 hours to buy and liquidate $16k. It depends on a few factors though, including whether WM is busy. My store has a policy of making MS’ers get in the back of the line in between transactions so that other customers don’t have to wait.
I’ve found a friend WM and have been doing 999 with two swipes. What are you doing to liquidate 16k?
I do 2x $999.12 and liquidate 4 cards at a time. They allow four such transactions at my local WM.
how r u liquidating GCM visas at WM when WM dont accept vanilla visas?
I’m using Metabank visas.
Hi Ariana,
I am confused buying gift cards at Giftcard mall works when using a creidit card? Is it coded differently on the billso the CC companies can’t tell?
It still shows up as “gift cards” on your statement, so the banks can tell.
Im unable to buy Simon mall gift cards with my Discover card. When I try to do it online, I get a error message saying they only accept visa MC and amex. How do you get around this?
Buy them in-store.
I’m seeing Be Fregal as 1% for Gift Card Mall. How are you getting such a large cash back for the Citi AA portion?
It’s $15 per order. I placed nine orders, so I got $135 back total.