Deal has ended, view more Stockpile deals by clicking here.
The Offer
- Stockpile is selling gift cards without any fees, use promo code BLKFRI2020
The Fine Print
- Valid Thursday, November 26th until Sunday, November 29th at 11:59PM PDT
Our Verdict
Normally they charge both a fee for paying by credit card and an activation fee, both of these are being waived. For more information on stockpile read this post.
Hat tip to reader JG
If anyone’s still reading, I’m wondering if I should transfer out to a real brokerage account (for me it would be Ameritrade or Merrill) and pay the $75 transfer fee, or keep it in Stockpile for hopes of a similar deal this holiday season.
New code, HOLIDAY2020 valid till 12/24/20. Waives the gifting fee for gift cards(2.99)/buy more options (.99), as well as the cash purchase option (.99). Doesn’t waive the credit card fee tho, so not nearly as good.
The 3% credit card fee is the killer. On $1000 investment the cost to fund the account is $30!
BLKFRI2020 is no longer working. It’s showing: The promo code you entered is invalid or expired.
But the gifting fee is still only $2.99, no 3%.
I don’t remember, but does the 3% show up during checkout under the gifting fee when buying gift cards normally on other non-black friday times?
Yes it does
Overseas and I kept getting card error please contact customer service. Popped on a VPN and info went through. Citi / Barclays both went through. But not sure if Barcalys is CA since it is pending.
Got points on Barclays reward card. Not sure about double cash with the 5% promo yet tho, fingers crossed.
Will this count toward MSR for amex?
No one knows. It’s a gift card purchase, so you are not on solid ground if they deny it.
it counts. Got the bonus
I did too, but keep your eyes on that balance. My $2k purchase still hasn’t posted points, even though every other purchase has, even those made a couple days later.
I posted a couple days ago on testing 5% (on 500 Citi online scenario), I responded to my post this morning (but that gets buried) so dropping below in case curious
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Just closing the loop. As others have noted, there is no CA fee on the credit card purchase which is nice. For the particular test of getting 5% back for Citi ‘online’, no 5% (bummer) but I did get the normal reward which is still a good deal. I went ahead and scaled up a bit using BofA premium to get extra stockpile GCs that I’ll sprinkle into the market over the next couple weeks.
If you were looking to increase general market holding anyway (and aren’t fussy on controlling exact timing for some of your investments) this is a sweet deal letting you have almost a reverse ‘commission fee’ upfront with getting cc rewards. But cold be a hassle for some flippers who might just find it easier doing one of the more traditional broker sign ups, or even bank sign up bonuses. One plus for the stockpile scenario is because your get credit card rewards, those are tax free. Brokerage/bank bonuses show up on the 1099s…
I don’t think the Citi 5% statement credit has posted for anyone yet (for any kind of purchase), so you can’t tell yet whether this counted.
Good point SG, very likely some lag time for this so we’ll see how it goes.
You were right SG, like others giving data points I’m seeing the 5%/$25 online purchase bonus on my citi cards start to come through. Nice! Good for future note when other offers surface.
DP: 12/17 the Citi 5% statement posted for my cards.
$25 statement credit post on my AA card on statement close, so I think it is gonna work just fine on all the Citi cards.
$25 statement credit posted on Doublecash for P2.
Chase codes as “Professional Services”, not a cash advance
Anyone know if this triggers 3% cashback for online purchases for BoA cash rewards? I charged mine successfully for $2k today but since the charge is pending I can’t tell yet if it qualifies.
Yes, it does fall into the online category for BOA CR.
Thanks! The transaction posted and confirmed coded as Online Purchase for 3% CB.
PSA: 25K yearly gifting cap. Failed transactions appear to count toward this limit as well, same as they do toward the daily cap.
If you’re not logged in, how are they tracking you with the failed transactions?
My guess is that they’re using IP address to track it. I tried different email addresses, and the same error came up. Then, I tried on my phone, and it still didn’t go through, but the message was different (appeared to be my credit card declining the transaction). I don’t know if that’s it, but I was encouraged by the message not being about a limit that’s hit.
Maybe that Nord VPN deal is really going to pay for itself, they have like 15 servers in the US.
Not hard to track since you are entering your e-mail and billing address and that can be verified with the credit card issuer.
It’s easy to fool using different email addresses and virtual credit cards, though. Just my thoughts
Come to think of it, I was logged in… oops. And it appears to be per account? Will check.
It looks like it’s based on email, as I used a card that was rejected on a different email and it worked fine.
failed multiple times when sending gc #10 from same recipient. So appears to be a combination of per email as well as a max of 9 gc from the same sender name? Also, appears that their system responds better to orders being placed further apart than 30 seconds/single card orders, i.e. lower failure rate.
I’m gonna buy stock in Moneygram and western union 😉