What’s your smallest profit on a $500 Visa gift card?

There is a lull here in good manufactured spending opportunities with the loss of Dosh at Kroger. It got me thinking, what is the lowest profit for $500 gift card I’d be willing to work for? With all the different methods we employ to pick up cash or miles and points, I’d like to hear when you guys say: “It’s not worth it to me.”

My typical Visa gift card churning cost

My top method actually involves $200 Visa gift cards at Staples when “fee-free gift card week” happens. I buy $1,000 worth with no fees per trip and have to buy a total of three money orders at $0.89 cents at Kroger (two at $399 and one at $199).

Total cost is $0.89 x 3= $2.67

I value my Ultimate Rewards points earned at 5X at 1.5 cents each, or 1000 x 5 = 5,000 UR with Chase Ink at 1.5 cents each or $75 – $2.67= $72.33.

We are solving per $500 spent, so divided by two we net $36.165 cents per $500.

Buying gift cards without bonus categories

The low end for me is buying a gift card at 1x (no bonus category) paying with a 2% cash back card, paying $5.95 for the card and $0.99 for the money order.

The math is $505.95 x 2%= $10.119

Minus $5.95 – $0.99 = $3.179 profit per card. I don’t know how it could get much worse than that. I won’t do that deal.

Sure, you may do a 1 point card on a minimum spend purchase. But the rewards on meeting minimum spend can be 10X, 20x or 40X even. I just did $1000 spend for 60K Avianca miles using their 1X card.

Using cash back portals

If I look at online shopping portals, Ariana is big on BeFrugal, it pays 1% cash back on Visa gift cards. So her math is 506.95 x 2% cash back card =$10.139, less the $6.95 and $0.99 money order fee PLUS the 1% cash back of $5.07 = $7.27 profit per card.

Incorporating Dosh

When I was doing Dosh for Katy and myself with one trip to our closest Kroger and one card each, I could net about $32 per trip which covered a nice lunch out for 40 minutes of effort.

Our Sam’s Club still sells $250 gift cards for a $4.88 fee and pays a maximum cash back of $15 per trip at 4% earned through Dosh.

We would use a Bank of America 2.625% cash back and an Amex blue business card for that trip, earning 2 Membership Rewards points per $1 spent. But its 25 minutes out and 25 minutes back plus gas and money order fees.

I haven’t done the math yet. It was a simple yes when I could combine it with the Kroger that was right across the street from that Sam’s Club.

My typical cost range

My sample ranges are a low of $3.18 per card to a high of $36.17 per $500. Everybody has their own stopping point. What methods or variations have I missed? Where is your breaking point?

Sorry for all the math but our time has value. Personally, I think I should be earning $30-$35 per hour MS’ing.  How about you?

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