Are you super excited about the Simon Mall $1,000 Visa gift card promo next week? Chances are, you’re liquidating gift cards, depositing money orders and paying off card balance STAT to get your most valuable credit cards ready for the big point bonanza.
But before you get swept up in the excitement (guilty), there is something really important to consider: How does the $3.95 per $1,000 Visa gift card promo stack up against other Visa gift card options? Let’s review them below:
Buying $1,000 Visa gift cards vs. GiftCardMall
You’re undoubtedly wondering how Simon Mall’s $1,000 Visa gift card promotion stacks up against GiftcardMall, which is currently the cheapest. Let’s keep it easy and use $15,000 as an example.
That’s a nice round number we can easily compare across the three purchasing channels.
Simon Mall
At $3.95 per $1,000, Simon Mall Visa gift cards are a good deal on the surface. A $15,000 purchase will cost you $59.25 in card fees.
- Cost per $1,000 = $3.95
GiftCardMall
Buying $15,000 worth of Visa gift cards through GiftCardMall in $1,500 increments will cost you $28.5 after portal cash back.
Normally, fees come to $17.85 per $1,500 order. However, you’ll get $15 back from the shopping portal, resulting in $2.85 fees per order. Multiply that by ten to get $15,000 and you’re up to $28.5 in fees.
That’s less than half the cost of buying Visa gift cards from Simon Mall.
- Cost per $1,000 = $1.90
Why buy from Simon Mall when GCM is cheaper?
For starters, shopping portals have a cap on how many gift cards you can earn cash back on. Most of them impose a $60,000 monthly limit, though I’ve seen some even lower. Check the terms before you buy.
You’ll also have to wait 60-90 days for a payout, which is a long time if you’re buying large quantities of gift cards.
Another factor to consider? Time. Liquidating $1,000 Visa gift cards as opposed to $500 cuts down your Walmart money order transactions in half. Instead of four transactions for $2,000 each, you can do two for $4,000 each.
Not to mention, some Walmart stores allow only one transaction per customer. If that describes your situation, you’ll be able to churn more gift cards than normal.
The last reason you’ll still want to consider taking advantage of Simon Mall’s $1,000 Visa gift card promotion is for diversification. GiftCardMall doesn’t accept Discover cards, so your only option is GiftCards.com.
Simon Mall vs. GiftCards.com
A $2,450 Visa gift card order through giftcards.com will cost $42.20 in fees. You’ll get about $24 back from shopping portals, bringing your total out of pocket to $18.20 per $2,450.
That breaks down to roughly $109.20 for $15,000 worth of Visa gift cards. That’s almost twice what you’d pay for a $1,000 Simon Mall Visa gift card. Hard pass.
Skip the online order for a couple of weeks if Giftcards.com is your go-to portal. Unless, of course, you’re trying to stock up on Amex points. Why? Because American Express no longer pays out points on Simon Mall purchases.
- Cost per $1,000 = $7.28
Simon Mall vs. Staples
Office supply stores like Staples sell $200 – $300 Visa gift cards and you can earn 5x points with cards like the Chase Ink Plus (no longer publicly available) or the SimplyCash Plus Business Credit Card.
The fee for a $300 Visa gift card is $8.95 at Staples. Sometimes Staples runs $0 Visa gift card promos, eliminating gift card fees altogether. You can buy up to six cards at a time. To earn 15,000 points you’d have to spend $3,000. That would cost $89.50.
- Cost per $1,000 = $29.83
That being said, you can also earn a maximum of $5 cash back per day through Dosh. Just link your card to the Dosh app and earn 3% cash back at Staples, capped at $5.
At most Staples stores, they only sell $200 Visa gift cards that cost $6.95. If I wanted 15,000 points, I could buy fifteen cards at $1.95 each (assuming I bought one per day to get $5 off). Total cost? $29.25.
That makes Staples the second-best option behind GiftCardMall and about half the cost of Simon.
- Cost per $1,000 = $1.95
Bottom line
It’s always a good idea to evaluate a promotion for yourself and compare it to what else is out there. The $1,000 gift cards are a great deal if you’re trying to generate extra spend on the Discover It Miles card.
Or maybe you have trouble liquidating gift cards in more than one transaction, in which case the $1,000 Visa gift cards will enable you to do more manufactured spending.
Regardless, compare the cost and make your decisions accordingly.
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Thank you for the breakdown. What cards will you use? Discover, Freedom Unlimited, or ?
A bit of everything. But Mostly cash back cards, since that makes the most sense from a cost perspective.
Are you churning your Discover It Miles card? I thought you already went through a year with it already being 3X.
Also travel time/gas cost have to be factored in. Nearest Simon mall 1.5 hour drive each way.
Hi Ariana, I thought you, like me, had been banned from gcm?
I was, but when I tried a few months ago it worked. I’ve been successfully ordering since.
Good analysis!
Thanks!
Very helpful !
You started out with the goal of purchasing $15k in gift cards and completely changed goals when calculating costs for Staples. Either be constant with earning a set amount of points (you’d have to consider all CC bonuses on all purchasing avenues) or be constant with buying $X in gift cards. Otherwise, it is not an actual comparison.
Yes, but Staples is a tough comparison because you earn 5x as opposed to 1x everywhere. What I should have done was focus on “15,000 miles”. You’re right about that.
What do you recommend as a good portal
I use BeFrugal. Here’s my referral link if you’d like to sign up: https://www.befrugal.com/rs/ZGMBUHJ/
If you use the Discover Card at Simon and get your 3% back, then the cost per card gets down to 95 cents. Yea!!!
Which discovery card?
Thanks very much Ariana for reminding us all that portals via gcm can be a very good deal in our ms efforts. (Thanks too for the wisdom about diversifying sources and methods. 🙂 ) I remember there was a time when we could even get 2% cashback for customized photo visa gift cards. (even as we for months stayed mum about it, lest we “kill the deal.”)
At the present, I just confirmed I’ll be getting 1% cashback on a GCM VGC order, via the befrugal portal – even tells me what date I can expect the cashback to be paid — 30 days from purchase. By contrast, I was disappointed to see that topcashback is now back down to .75%, so that prompted me to check around. Which portal have you been using for your GCM shopping? I’m bit confused if ebates is till around as a portal post-Rakuten….
Ooops, I just saw above you already responded to Ken’s question about your preferred portals…… (as such, happy to be another data point re. befrugal working nicely.)