[Update: Dead Deal] Giftcards.com: Gift of College Giftcards, No Purchase Fees

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• $75 max now with $5.95 fee.
  Is this a joke?

• Did anyone reach out to GoC for redemption issues? What's the turnaround time? I filled out a contact form on Sunday and still haven't heard back.

  • Did you ever hear back from GoC?

    I'm curious about this as well. Of the 4 cards I purchased, 1 made it to my 529 after 3 days. The other 3 have not shown. An interesting thing is the 1st card (the one that was forwarded onto my 529) was accepted by the GoC website right after purchase. The 3 that have not shown up at my 529 were in the batch of cards that took several days to be recognized by GoC.

    • I did hear back but they are claiming that it was redeemed to my account, which it wasn't. I'll wait a few days before sending screenshots of cards that were redeemed successfully.

      Your issue is different though. Credits to my 529 have been processed any time from 2 - 14 days. So perhaps yours will be sent eventually. Good luck.

      I was never a fan of gift cards in general, and this experience has put me off even more 🫤

• $100 max now with the same $6 fee. Dead.

  • Sooo dead now lol. @2 please update.

    This went from $200 gc no fee, +2% giftcards.com rewards cash, +portal cashback), to 5.95 purchase fee, to nerfed giftcards.com rewards cash to 1% to now max value nerfed to $100.

    It was still ok deal when you could purchase $200 card as it came to around 3% which was offset by portal cashback, giftcards.com rewards and credit card cashback (1% to 5%).

    Now with $100 max value it is kind of ridiculous. Do they expect people to buy $100 card with 5.95 purchase fee? Granted, you can still stack paypal, portal cashback and giftcards.com rewards but it's just not worth the time investment at that point.

    • I'd have to do the math, but it almost might be cheaper to just buy VGCs @ GC.com then just eat the 3% reload fee directly at GoC. It'd also be 2.5x as fast to liquidate too which doesn't count for nothing.

• Some good discussion here. In the past I've used CIC to buy VGC from staples and then used them to buy GC on the GOC website, but it's a little tedious having to register the VGC first. Have to do the math to see how getting CB through portals and my daily driver CC will work out.

  • The big advantage here is the ability to pay with PayPal or Mobile Wallet since PayPal is the Freedom 5x category this quarter. Of course, with mobile wallets that would let you use the US Bank Altitude Reserve too (USBAR) for 4.5% back.

• How hard can we hit this? I'm starting gently to not get any bans. Did 3x orders 1 card each, then 1 order 2 cards.
  Can I just buy 7 cards in one order? I have a lot of Freedoms to go through.

  • I bought 7 cards per order with multiple orders the past 3 days, they all tracked with various portals and I have been able to redeem them all.

    • My PayPal started freaking out when I tried 5 cards in a single order. It only showed checking account as payment option and started sending text verification.

• This is kind of interesting. I am planning on paying my college tuition with my credit card and eating the 3% fee for the spend. Then I'm going to request reimbursement from my employer and I set it up with my college to pay my tuition out of pocket BEFORE Pell grant funds are applied. Would buying these and then using these to pay down a loan save me the 3%?

  • The student loans I took out (all standard unsubsidized federal loans) had a minimum 1% origination fee from my memory (plus whatever interest accrues before payoff), which might kill the benefit to you. You can get the fee and interest refunded if you “cancel” (repay) the loan within a short time period (90 days?), but I’m not sure if you could use a gift of college card to do that (probably can). I partially canceled a few of my loans and it was super easy when requesting it through the school, but then you’re paying it back through the school directly and presumably can’t use the GoC card. You can cancel through your loan servicer as well, but in my experience that was a nightmare with hours on the phone with CS that was only resolved through a CFPB complaint (and that was without trying to do anything weird like pay with GoC cards). Maybe it’s better now and servicers treat early payments as cancellations without having to fight for it. You could certainly test it with a smaller loan your first semester.

    I’m having trouble finding recent info on the above since search results are saturated with Biden “loan cancellation” stories. Check your master promissory note for the exact terms.

    I’d say redeem to a 529 plan instead, but I suspect that prevents you from requesting reimbursement from your employer (at least without running into tax issues). It could also eat into your ability to claim education tax credits and deductions.

    That said, the fee on these $200 cards comes out to basically 3%, which you can “avoid” (by which I really mean offset”) by going through a portal. Maybe you can find a way to make it work for your situation.

    • Can you expand on buying GoC gc through a portal? I’ve done so much research on the cards. I know this all works too, as I’ve work traveled to TX, purchased $4000 of them at HEB’s and uploaded to GoC and 529, then sent to university tuition pmt. It’s so annoying that I cannot purchase these directly in the Midwest!!

• Bummed I missed this deal. Am going to start getting more aggressive with some student loan payments now that interest rates are going down and arbitraging by keeping funds in treasuries or high-yield savings accounts/money markets doesn’t work as well. Would have been nice to run that through a credit card. Oh, well.

  • Also missed the deal but I'm hitting it for all I can get with the fee.

  • Most servicers allow you to pay over the phone with debit (VGC). Yes, it's a pita, no the CSR getting paid $12/hr doesn't care if you do 20 $200 payments back to back.

    • Might look into that to see if that’s an option with my servicer. I am planning on eating the fee on these cards on the upcoming Bank of America rewards day for 4.65% cash back plus portal on a $2,500 purchase.

  • Portal to negate the activation fee plus paying with either CF / PayPal or a Citi card with a merchant offer that gets you 4% back is still a good way to buy these cards. Last few years I've been buying GoC cards at gas stations ($500 cards with $5.95 fee) with cards offering 5% / 5 UR / 5 TY or better, and this is just as good, if not better.

    • Yeah, I live in an area with literally none of the $500 cards or I would have been buying those already. Already have a different plan for maxing out the PayPal category on my CF and CFF cards or I would be doing that. May still consider going through a portal to negate the fee and using a flat cash back card. I just don’t have as much experience as I should using portals and whenever I try it seems the offers don’t track.

• Maxed out three freedoms last night. Few are still having issues getting redeemed.

  • @guest_1940061 did you buy one buy one or did you do a large order (like 7 cards)?

    • 7 cards of $200

  • I couldn't redeem this morning, but it worked this evening.

• Missed the no fee deal, but still worth it for the combination of portal rewards, giftcards.com rewards (stated clearly in the confirmation) and Chase Freedom 5X.

  • Yeah, honestly, it's even pretty close to being worth it just for the periodic 2x at AAeshopping to generate 4k LP+miles each month. Pretty easy calculus when they're back in stock to use PayPal too for the 5x in Q4. Wish I'd done more than just $600 today but oh well.

• Damn I shouldve hit this deal harder. I was too cautious waiting to see if everything would track correctly.