Back in November, I shared that gift cards.com has increased ash back rates on Metabank MasterCard gift card purchases to 1.25%. If you think a 0.25% cash back increase isn’t significant, it actually saves you $6.25 on every $2,500 order. Until recently, I’d never purchased Metabank MasterCard gift cards before and wasn’t sure they were even PIN-enabeld.
Yes, there is a “Debit” label on the gift cards, but can you buy money orders with them? After putting it to the test myself, I would warn against purchasing Metabank MasterCard gift cards from giftcards.com.
As most of you know, Metabank Visa gift cards are pretty much foolproof if you’re looking for gift cards that can be used to buy money orders. They come with PIN numbers and when you swipe them at Walmart, they automatically get processed like debit cards. Easy, right?
“Change Payment”
The problem with MasterCard gift cards is that they get processed as credit cards. Most people deal with this by hitting the “change payment” button during the brief moment when it pops up on the PIN pad. Not all PIN pads will actually give you that option.
The cashiers at Walmart can’t change the payment from credit to debit, and since the registers are hard-coded to reject credit payments, you won’t be able to use Metabank MasterCard gift cards for money order purchases.
Of course, this is just my experience. When I tried to use a Metabank MasterCard gift card to pay for money orders at my local Walmart, the “change payment” option didn’t appear. I asked the cashier about it and she didn’t know what to do. There was no option on her end to change the payment type. So I was out of luck, unfortunately.
I have, in the past, seen the “change payment” option pop up at other Walmart stores. But those locations aren’t MS friendly. I’d hate to waste my time going back there to try this out, miss my chance by a split second, and essentially get blacklisted again.
Luckily, I have other ways to get rid of my Metabank MasterCard gift cards. But the reason I bring this up is that you should be aware of the possibility that you won’t be able to use Metabank MasterCard gift cards to buy money orders at Walmart.
This is really unfortunate because saving even ~$6 on a $2500 order stacks up. If you hit the monthly $30,000 limit, that’s a saving of over $70. Over the course of a year, that adds up to over $800. While the higher cash back rate is tempting, you may not be able to liquidate the gift cards at the end of the day.
I want to hear from you all. Have you tried to buy money orders with Metabank MasterCard gift cards? Have you had any issues with changing the payment type from credit to debit? Please share in the comment section.
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