The Simon Mall $1,000 Visa gift card promotion continues through the end of the month (fingers crossed it gets renewed – again). When the promotion started back in July, I wrote about how these gift cards were not the cheapest way to manufacture spend. At $3.95, the cost of a $1,000 Visa gift card is significantly higher than what you’ll pay at Staples or GiftCardMall.
That doesn’t mean Simon Mall gift cards aren’t worth buying. In fact, there are several advantages to buying Simon Mall Visa gift cards over cheaper alternatives.
1. There’s no waiting period
A major advantage of buying gift cards from Simon Mall is that you don’t have to wait a week for them to arrive. That’s my biggest pet peeve about GiftCardMall orders. Yes, they work out cheaper at $2.85 per $1,500 but they sometimes take ten days to arrive.
Because I don’t want to ruin my credit with manufactured spending, I diligently track all of my credit card statement closing dates and make sure my utilization rate stays well under 30%.
So when I have to wait 10 days for my gift cards to arrive and another day for my money order deposits to post, I really have to be precise in how I time my purchases.
With Simon Mall gift cards, that’s not an issue. You can buy, receive and liquidate your gift cards all within a matter of minutes. Assuming there’s an easily accessible Walmart store nearby.
2. You can buy gift cards in larger transactions
I like to keep my out-of-pocket cost low, but I’ll gladly pay more for convenience’s sake. Simon Mall lets you buy up $25,000 worth of gift cards per visit.
You’ll save time vs. placing smaller gift card orders through GiftCardMall. Because as I’ve pointed out, if you want to maximize your savings, you need to keep your GiftCardMall purchases under $2,000 to qualify for free shipping.
3. You can liquidate more gift cards per transaction
Most of you are aware that Walmart has a 4-card swipe limit when it comes to gift card purchases. In the past, that limited us to $2,000 worth of money orders per transaction (four cards at $500 each = $2,000).
The $1,000 Visas from Simon Mall allow you to liquidate more gift cards per transaction, saving you time and hassle. So even if you’re just limited to a single transaction, you’re still liquidating $4,000 worth of cards per transaction. That’s nothing to scoff at.
Your profit per $1,000 may not be as high with Simon Mall Visas, but the fact that you can churn cards more quickly means you can also earn miles faster. If you’re MS’ing for cash back or trying to maximize the 3x bonus on the Discover it Miles or Chase Freedom Unlimited cards, this can be really valuable.
I generally advise people against cycling credit limits, especially nowadays when the banks are weeding out the churners. But I wouldn’t worry too much about getting shut down by Discover. The reward is worth a possible shut down. Just don’t have that same attitude when it comes to Chase.
Note: If you’d like a referral for the Chase Freedom or Discover It Miles card, shoot me an email.
4. You’ll save time
I really can’t overstate the importance of saving time when you’re churning gift cards. Spend too much time and money doing it and it becomes more costly than paying for travel.
Rick recently wrote about setting a minimum hourly rate and comparing that against your points and miles earnings. Keep that in mind and make sure the miles earned are worth the effort.
Final thoughts
Simon Mall’s $1,000 Visa gift cards aren’t the cheapest gift cards out there but ultimately they offer convenience. You can buy them in large quantities without waiting weeks for them to arrive. You don’t have to worry about shopping portals like BeFrugal not paying out your cash back rewards to off-set the card fees.
More importantly, you can liquidate gift cards in larger quantities via money orders. That alone makes churning Simon Mall Visas faster and overall easier. Work in a few thousand dollars worth of manufactured spending on a cash back card and you can cover the higher purchase fees on these cards.
Luckily, we’ve got a couple of weeks (and hopefully a few months beyond that) to take advantage of the $1,000 Visa gift cards.
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