What’s the Deal with Plink, Shopkick, and Visa Savings Edge?

[This post contains affiliate links, if you sign up for any of the programs our guest poster Grant will receive a commission. Also a friendly reminder that we pay up to $50 per guest post or allow you to link to your website].

First off, this is Grant from Travel with Grant and I am doing a guest post for my friend Will. Will emailed me a few days ago and asked that I talk about Plink and explain it to his readers. Since Shopkick and Visa Savings Edge are so closely connected with Plink, I figured I would talk about all 3 programs at the same time.

What is Plink?

Plink is a website that rewards you for shopping at select merchants with a designated credit card. You earn Plink Points based on the amount you spend at each merchant. You can redeem Plink Points for e-gift cards for Amazon, Walmart, and other stores/websites.

Right now, Office Depot is a merchant on Plink and you can earn up to 300 Plink Points (worth $3.00 in gift cards) for any purchase of $60 or more.

Join Plink.

What is Shopkick?

Shopkick is similar to Plink, but has some key differences as well. You can link up to 6 credit/debit cards (3 Visa and 3 MasterCard cards) to your account. You earn Shopkick Kicks in 3 ways: opening the Shopkick app on your smartphone when you enter select merchant stores, using a linked credit/debit card at the merchant, or scanning bar codes of certain items in-store. Shopkick Kicks are worth 4/10 of a cent and can be redeemed through the smartphone app for gift cards to Target, Walmart, Starbucks, and others.

Right now, Office Depot is a merchant on Shopkick and you earn 1 ShopKick Kick per dollar spent in-store along with 375 bonus Shopkick Kicks for purchases $75 or more.

Join ShopKick.

What is Visa Savings Edge?

You must have a Visa business credit/charge card to sign up for this program. You can link up to 10 Visa business credit/charge cards to your account. If you use any of your linked credit/charge cards at select merchants, you will earn 1-5% cash back in the form of statement credits posted directly to your credit card statement.

Right now, Staples is a merchant on Visa Savings Edge that will earn 1% cash back on
all purchases of $200 or more.

Join Visa Savings Edge.

How can you use these 3 services to generate miles/points cheaply?

The card I have linked to all three programs is a Chase Ink Bold Visa Business Charge Card. I use this card at Office Depot to purchase $200 Visa gift cards. Each gift card has a $6.95 activation fee (which represents a 3.5% fee). By shopping at Office Depot and paying with my Ink Bold, I will earn 1,035 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points ($10.35 face value) + 300 Plink Points ($3.00 face value) + 581 Shopkick Kicks ($2.32 face value). So if we add up all those values, we get $15.67 in value for a $6.95 fee, or a $8.72 profit per gift card.

[Editor note: You can use Bluebird + Walmart to unload these cards]

Alternatively, when Staples was a merchant on Plink, you could also earn 300 Plink Points for all purchase of $60 or more. If I use my Ink Bold at Staples to purchase a $200 Visa gift card, I would earn the same 1,035 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points ($10.35 face value) + 300 Plink Points ($3.00 face value) + 1% cash back from Visa
Savings Edge ($2.07). So if we add up all those values, we get $15.42 in value for a $6.95 fee, or a $8.47 profit per gift card.

Thank You

A big thanks to Grant for giving us this guest post, we’ll be exploring all three programs in greater depth in the future but it’s nice to have the basics up and running on the blog. If you haven’t already, make sure you go on over and subscribe to his blog.