Since you're new to this, most of us who post in this thread would advise against starting out by buying discounted Target gift cards from resellers like Raise, Cardpool, Giftcardzen, etc. Other members have already talked about what we mean by "resellers."
Gift cards that you buy from reseller sites come with the history of the previous owner, and that gift card becomes linked to your account when you spend it. Based on stories from people who report having been banned from shopping online at Target, they used gift cards purchased from resellers and there is some thought that Target may have flagged or banned those people perhaps because their gift cards were linked to prior reselling or fraudulent activity. Of course, it could have been those people’s own activities, like one member who bought $25,000+ of gift cards from Target online in just a few months and reported she was banned. We don’t know. But tread carefully.
This is why we’re suggesting you start out with “clean” Target gift cards that you can buy from your local grocery store if they have a fuel rewards program (giving you savings on gas), Gift Card Mall on eBay when eBay is running a sale or an eBay Bucks promotion (more on that later), Target on the rare occasions they have a sale on their own gift card, or earning free Target gift cards from shopping at Target’s sales or through rewards/points programs.
The thing you’re “missing” is you need to think creatively about where and how to realize savings on gift cards, how much time you have before your vacation to make the most of these opportunities for savings, and how much risk you’re willing to tolerate. Every deal that offers either a discount ($ off) or a bonus (extra $ added or $ back) is an opportunity to put that $ into your own pocket and ultimately towards your vacation.
The classic (1) buy Target gift cards at a discount, (2) use those discounted Target gift cards together with the Target Red Card 5% discount at Target online to buy Disney gift cards (You should have a Target Red Card), (3) Disney gift cards for your vacation, is your most basic way to save but misses a lot of other opportunities to realize more savings.
eBay and Ebates offers additional ways to get more savings.
Ebates is a shopping portal that offers cash back via a check or PayPal deposit sent to you for qualifying purchases made on hundreds of retailers, including Target and eBay, by first clicking through their portal. Currently Ebates pays 1% back for gift card purchases on eBay, and 2% back on qualifying purchases at Target (gift cards typically don’t qualify for cash back, but if you add a small item, e.g., office supplies, beauty products, you can get cash back for the whole purchase – even the gift cards). Always be sure to click through Ebates to get credit for your purchase – it adds up.
eBay sells gift cards through authorized sellers Gift Card Mall (“GCM”) and PayPal Digital Gifts. As previous posts already mentioned, Gift Card Mall is a legit company that runs the gift card kiosks you see in grocery stores, and they happen to sell Target gift cards on eBay. GCM’s cards are “clean” with the balance freshly loaded, and are physical cards that are mailed to you. GCM sells Target gift cards in $50, $100 and $150 denominations, plus shipping cost of $1.99 for the first card of any amount and $0.99 for each additional card of the same denomination. Occasionally, GCM will have a sale on Target cards that offer something like a $100 Target gift card for $95 or $92 with free shipping. Outside of these sales, you’re probably wondering why you would pay face value plus shipping for a gift card? This only makes sense and becomes a “deal” because eBay offers eBay Bucks, which is essentially “bucks” that earn on your eBay purchases that you get back the next quarter to spend on a future eBay purchase. The regular amount is 2% back, but eBay runs very frequent promotions offering 2x (4%), 3x (6%), 4x (8%), and 5x (10%) eBay Bucks. You have to sign up for this program and accept communications from eBay to receive these offers. (You should also have an eBay and a verified PayPal account.) There is a 4x eBay Bucks promo going on right now until tomorrow.
Now, how do all the pieces fit together and work to save you money?
Like I said before, a lot of us will tell you to avoid starting off with Target gift cards at reseller sites and buy them instead from someplace like GCM during a 4x or 5x eBay Bucks promo (saving you 8-10% right at the start).
So let’s work out your $100 as an example.
(1) You start with about $100 out-of-pocket to buy a $100 Target gift card from GCM on eBay (the actual cost will come out to $102.99 with shipping), maybe pay with a credit card with some form of cash back that is linked to your PayPal account (giving you say, 1% or 2% back), during a 4x (8%) eBay Bucks promo (giving you $8 eBay Bucks to spend next quarter). You also clicked through Ebates and should get another 1% back next quarter ($1). So with $102.99 out-of-pocket, you’ve got a $100 Target gift card and at least $9 “cash” back (~5.5% savings, which is comparable to the current discount you’d get at Cardpool or Raise). GCM then mails you the Target gift card.
(2) Use the $100 Target gift card you have in-hand on the Target site through Ebates. You should have your Red Card set as the default payment to get the 5% discount applied to your order. You buy a $100 eBay electronic gift card for $95 after the discount (netting you $5), and because Ebates doesn’t pay cash back on purely gift card purchases you add a $0.49 pack of erasers or a $0.99 bottle of hand soap to your order to get 2% back on the whole transaction. So now you’ve spent about $96 of your Target gift card on a $100 eBay gift card, have $4 remaining on the Target card, and about $1.92 cash back through Ebates.
In other words, your original $102.99 has now turned into about $114.92 ($100 eBay gift card, $4 balance on your Target gift card, and about $10.92 in some form of cash back), resulting in about a 10.4% savings.
(3) Use your eBay gift card to buy another $100 Target gift card on eBay during another eBay Bucks promo (say, 5x), and remember to click through Ebates. Assuming your $100 eBay gift card goes toward the $100 Target gift card, and you may have to pay the $2.99 shipping out-of-pocket. On a 5x promo, you’ll get $10 eBay Bucks back and $1 from Ebates.
Now you’re $105.98 out-of-pocket, but you have a $100 Target Gift Card, $4 remaining on your other Target gift card, and about $21.92 in eBay Bucks and Ebates that you can use eventually to purchase more gift cards, resulting in about a 15.8% discount.
Depending on how much time you have before you have to “cash out” the Target gift cards into Disney gift cards in time for your vacation, you can repeat and keep “churning” through this cycle with increasing savings each time. When you finally buy the Disney gift cards using these Target gift cards, remember to buy online so the Red Card discount applies to give you that final additional 5% discount.
This process is largely scalable, so you will see more actual dollars grow with each churn the more you have invested in the process. The risk is any of these companies could change the rules at any time and leave you “stuck” with either eBay or Target gift cards. But there is no specific reason to think gift card churning will stop anytime soon. And, although I really only discussed Target (because their 5% Red Card discount makes it more worthwhile to go through them), other retailers like
Best Buy and Game Stop allow use of their gift cards to purchase eBay and/or Disney gift cards.
There are a lot of wrinkles and some limits to the whole process, and many specific deals that pop up, but you can see that even an overview has already turned into a long post. So if you have any other questions, feel free to ask. Good luck!
I'm sure i'll have more in the future!
