It’s another Monday which means it’s time for another post on manufactured spending. The Campus Edition (CE) card is a reloadable prepaid card that can be loaded with any credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) or cash at any participating campus bookstore (Barnes & Noble). This card is similar to the AmEx for Target card except it’s targeted at college students. The card can then be used as a regular credit card, it’s also possible to withdraw funds from an ATM. The first ATM withdrawal per month is free, after that it costs $2 per withdrawal. This is in addition to any ATM owner operator fees that are charged.
Getting the card
It’s possible to apply for this prepaid card online, you can do so by clicking here. Alternatively you can go to one of the participating campus bookstores and get a temporary card, although these can be difficult to find which is why we’d recommend applying for this card online. There is also a $4.95 fee charged if you purchased a temporary card from one of the bookstores.
It should take around 10 business days after your application is received for you to receive your Campus Edition card. This card is not available to those living in Arkansas or Vermont. American Express does not do a credit check to open this card, which means no hard inquiry is done and it will not affect your credit score. There is a limit of one card per person.
Funding your card
You can fund your new card with cash or a direct deposit, but the most interesting funding option is with credit or debit cards. This can only be done at participating college bookstores. When loading with a credit or debit (e.g a gift card or prepaid Visa/American Express/MasterCard card) a fee of $3.95 is charged.
Most cashiers will be unfamiliar with the loading process and may state that their bookstore doesn’t do this. This is almost always not the case, politely ask them to swipe your Campus Edition card. They will ask you how much you want to load, the minimum you can load is $25 and the maximum is $500 per load. Once your card has been swiped, the terminal will guide the cashier through the process and this should settle any nerves they have. As always it’s a good idea to try and build a relationship with your cashiers so they become comfortable with you doing this. You should also be able to do consecutive loads (e.g load $500 and then load $500 again).
- Each load comes with a $3.95 fee
- You can load anywhere form $25 to $500 per load
- Your card can have a maximum of $1,000 on it at any one time
- You can load a maximum of $1,000 per 28 day cycle
- Load limit of $6,000 per year, this is based on when you applied for your card and not a calendar year
On FlyerTalk user jgstecker states that once you hit the $6k load limit you can apply for a new card the same day and you’ll get a new card with the limit reset. We haven’t tried this before so obviously can’t comment if it works.
Obviously you’ll want to load your campus edition card with a credit card that earns well in the bookstore category. We developed a list of the best credit cards for bookstore purchases which can be found here. Alternatively this can be a great way of unloading prepaid/gift cards that you did earn a good category bonus on.
Unloading your card
As we mentioned previously you can unload your card via ATM. The first withdrawal each month does not have a fee, after that American Express charges you $2 per withdrawal, this does not include fees that are charged by the ATM owner/operator. View our list of fee free ATMs here. The maximum you can withdraw at any time is $400. You can also use the card like a regular credit card to pay for purchases.
Fees
This card doesn’t have any annual or monthly fees. They charge you the other following fees:
- $3.95 per reload at campus bookstores
- $2 per ATM withdrawal + any ATM owner fees. The first ATM withdrawal per month is fee free
- $4.95 if you purchase a temporary card from the bookstore.
Our Thoughts
This is a great way of manufacturing a little bit of credit card spend to help meet minimum spend requirements. It’s also a good way of getting a high cash back rate on all your purchases if you have a credit card that earns at a high rate for bookstore purchases. Big thanks goes out to reader R. who alerted us to this opportunity in our post on why the Sallie Mae card is underrated.
The main advantage in this card to the AmEx for Target is that it’s much easier to get category bonuses on bookstores than it is for discount stores (which is what Target usually codes as, unfortunately). I’ll be testing out this card in the coming weeks to find out how useful it actually is.
F.A.Q’s
Can B&N gift cards be used to load this card?
No B&N gift cards cannot be used to load this card. This is hard coded into the registers and as such there is no way to get around it.
Can I split my loads over multiple cards?
Yes it’s possible to use multiple different cards for payment. This means you can unload multiple small value gift/prepaid cards in one transaction.
Will loading this card code as a cash advance?
We haven’t heard of any reports of this loading this card counting as a cash advance, that said that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. We also recommend that you set your cash advance limits to low or zero to avoid this problem.
View Comments (7)
Does this still work? This link says no. http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2014/12/30/amex-neuters-the-campus-edition-card/
Also, participating bookstores link is 404'd, which may also indicate that this is dead.
Can you still load the amex CE with credit cards? I just looked at the FAQs and it doesn't list CC or Debit even.
where I can buy these cards in miami ?.
thanks
I ran some calculations based on my potential with this card. I live in Boston with access to several campus bookstores, but the lowest-fee ATM I have access to is Wegmans ($1 per transaction). So here's what my potential monthly net would look like using different scenarios, from the most to least profitable. Look carefully at spending amounts, as it determines number of reloads and ATM withdrawals (altering amount in potential fees paid). Hope this can help some folks:
-- If I used the Sallie Mae Mastercard (5% back at bookstores up to $750 per month) for $800 in spend, I would profit $26.10.
-- If I used the Sallie Mae Mastercard for $1,000 in spend, I would profit $25.10.
-- If I used the Sallie Mae Mastercard for $750 and a 1x-points earning travel/hotel card for $250, I would profit $18.65 plus 250 points (costing 2.98 cents per point relative to potential income)
-- If I used the Sallie Mae Mastercard for $500 and a points card for $500, I would profit $10.10 plus 500 points (3.2 cents per point)
-- If I used a points card for $1,000, I would lose $14.90 but would earn 1,000 points (4.1 cents per point)
Thanks for those calculations, you could always get a second bookstore card and do $1,000 a month that way.
I work at a university with a B&N campus bookstore, so I've been using this card since January to manufacture a little bit of spend. I agree with the advice about being patient with the cashiers. Most of them now know how to load the card for me, and they've told me that I'm the only person on campus (with over 10000 students!) that is reloading the card at the register.
I do have one question. I've never seen anything about the $6k load limit per year. After reading this post, I checked the card's website and didn't see anything about it in the fees or FAQ section. Do you have a link that lists this restriction? I was expecting to be able to spend $1000 each month for the rest of the year, but my limit may be up in a few months if this is true.
I wasn't able to find it either, but those are the reports I saw on forums and other blogs. The information may be inaccurate, so let us know what happens in a few months for you.