Disney Gift Card Deals

[wendow]

My specific question about the eBay component is that when I followed this thread in the past, I recall that folks were buying eBay cards from Target and then buying Target cards from eBay through Gift Card Mall, but I think I'm missing something there because there's no discount from Gift Card Mall and in fact, there's a shipping charge. Is it just about getting the eBay bucks when they are double (or more) or am I not looking at the right eBay listing?

GCM does sell Target gift cards at face value plus a shipping fee. The benefit comes with ebucks promos which are typically 6%-10% 'cashback' in the form of ebucks. Those are paid out quarterly which you can use to purchase anything ebay sells, including more gift cards. You can also go through a cashback site like ebates or topcashback when buying from ebay for additional money saved.

 

[lorijohnhill]

Has anyone tried this process with purchasing pre-paid Visa or MasterCard instead of Target or GameStop? Is there a downside to going that route?

 

[Marionnette]

My specific question about the eBay component is that when I followed this thread in the past, I recall that folks were buying eBay cards from Target and then buying Target cards from eBay through Gift Card Mall, but I think I'm missing something there because there's no discount from Gift Card Mall and in fact, there's a shipping charge. Is it just about getting the eBay bucks when they are double (or more) or am I not looking at the right eBay listing?

Mostly, I was following the thread over on the cruise section (less activity with similar information, a bit more distilled with less noise) but that thread, as noted, is gone, so here I am back over here. The water is much deeper and I feel like I need a life jacket!

You're right about GCM. It rare for them to offer Target GCs at a discount but it happens about once a month and includes free shipping when it does. But the real savings comes in when you go through a rewards program before making that purchase on ebay (you'll get anywhere from 0.5%-2%, depending on the rewards program) and with the ebay bucks that @Vernie822 mentioned.

GCM also reduces the shipping price when you order more than one Target GC of the same denomination. For instance, if your ordered 3 $50 Target GCs, you would pay $2.99 for shipping the first GC but only 99¢ for each of the other GCs. You would also want to cut your shipping costs by purchasing the higher denominations of Target GCs, since the shipping price becomes a lower percentage of your total amount spent (plus it gives you more to work with on Target .com since they limit you to 4 GCs as a form of payment).

 

[linzjane88]

Yep. I only read it a few times but it appears to have been deleted. It would be nice to know why it was deleted (which rules were broken...) so we do not make that same mistake here.

Yeah thats what I was thinking. I don't want this to go away . I like my people.

Also since I am on the West Coast in addition to being a night shift worker (I.E. schedule is about opposite of you guys) it is easier to check here first to see if a deal drops. You guys always know LONG before I do! I always know if there is 6 new pages from when I logged in the day before. Haha.

 

[jaccceee]

It's being discussed here http://www.disboards.com/threads/raise-target-redcard-megathread-gone.3499818/

However, that thread my also get deleted or locked because discussing deleted threads is kind of a no-no on the disboards.

@Mike&AllisMom, I don't normally do PMs but I'll open mine up for just this purpose. Could you also PM me the info on the FB group? I'd like to stay in touch in others case this thread also gets *poofed*.

This was said on that thread. "There was a thread last week about someone losing a 1k on stolen gift cards from a site similar to raise. Many were suspecting it was in Targets end. ".
I don't know if this happened to anyone else but a few months ago, I purchased a Target $500 gift card from Target..com and it had ALL the numbers exposed. This was by design. i quickly brought to my local Target to swap for safer gc.
I don't know who stuffs Target's envelopes but it doesn't take a criminal mastermind to figure how to steal these.

 

[disfanforlife]

This is the weirdest order ever. Now, I received an email from target saying that they have shipped my other ebay egift cards, but I have not received the separate egift email that I always get from target. So, I went through the email that I did get with the one $50 egift card yesterday but it only shows that one and not the other 3. I am going to give it some more time since it appears that the order did go through - but no idea why I haven't gotten the egift card link. Very strange. I even tried logging in through the egift card center with my order number but the gift cards are not there.

 

[MrInfinity]

I am in a Disney money saving group on Facebook that has been very helpful. Am I allowed to post the name? I'm not sure what the rules are.

The operators of that group just take the ideas from out here and repost them as their own. I haven't seen anything original come out of it. And the owner stickies her own referrals to portals, so she's trying to get massive referral bonuses by running the group.

 

[davper]

I was credited through March 9th. My purchases on the 14th and 15th are still pending.

That sounds right. I think one other person got credit on the 16th and then no one has gotten credit since.

 

[Mike&AllisMom]

It's being discussed here http://www.disboards.com/threads/raise-target-redcard-megathread-gone.3499818/

However, that thread my also get deleted or locked because discussing deleted threads is kind of a no-no on the disboards.

@Mike&AllisMom, I don't normally do PMs but I'll open mine up for just this purpose. Could you also PM me the info on the FB group? I'd like to stay in touch in others case this thread also gets *poofed*.

I tried, I can't start a conversation with you.

 

[Bree]

I will be on a cruise next week. I'm sure that's when any ebay deals will happen. That's the story of my life LOL! I refuse to pay for internet on the ship at $20 a day.

 

[DIS_MERI]

Has anyone tried this process with purchasing pre-paid Visa or MasterCard instead of Target or GameStop? Is there a downside to going that route?

You usually pay a pretty hefty percentage to purchase pre-paid Visa and Mastercard in the first place. And, where would they go in the line up? I will occasionally buy them when I want to earn a lot of reward points, and there's a decent cashback. But not very often. Kroger will only give fuel points on fixed value cards, and the highest fixed value they have locally is $100, with I think a $4.95 fee per card. So, there goes 5% of the profit. One of my cashback cards gives 6% on grocery store purchases but only for the first $6000 per year, so I don't use that card. And, spending them can be a problem. A long way to say: I don't recommend it

 

[HHMcG]

I am in a Disney money saving group on Facebook that has been very helpful. Am I allowed to post the name? I'm not sure what the rules are.

I'd love that info too. Please PM.

My specific question about the eBay component is that when I followed this thread in the past, I recall that folks were buying eBay cards from Target and then buying Target cards from eBay through Gift Card Mall, but I think I'm missing something there because there's no discount from Gift Card Mall and in fact, there's a shipping charge. Is it just about getting the eBay bucks when they are double (or more) or am I not looking at the right eBay listing?

Yes, the eBucks are the gains from the eBay step. eBucks rewards can be up to 10% (5x promo) which can add to a good chunk of change.
I'm not in the deep end of churning - started with $300 at the beginning of the year. I only "churned" by cards thru ebay when there was a promo (which averaged about 3 time a month) and I made $200+ in eBucks. When I add in the 5% saving from Target each time i churn and anything I made from using the Ebates portal for each transaction, I pretty much doubled my money. So next quarter I have $600 to churn.

 

[Mike&AllisMom]

The operators of that group just take the ideas from out here and repost them as their own. I haven't seen anything original come out of it. And the owner stickies her own referrals to portals, so she's trying to get massive referral bonuses by running the group.

It's not original but it's easier to find answers than reading 200 pages of material. Everyone is allowed to post referral links as far as I know.

 

[Lain]

As I originally indicated, right now I just stalk Raise for Target cards and then convert to Disney using the 5% Red Card thingie.

My specific question about the eBay component is that when I followed this thread in the past, I recall that folks were buying eBay cards from Target and then buying Target cards from eBay through Gift Card Mall, but I think I'm missing something there because there's no discount from Gift Card Mall and in fact, there's a shipping charge. Is it just about getting the eBay bucks when they are double (or more) or am I not looking at the right eBay listing?

A lot of us here have given up on Raise and similar gift card reseller sites because (1) the discounts for Target have not been very good lately, usually < 5%; and (2) you can't know where the gift cards you're buying from these sites come from, and whether there's any fraud associated with them. Instead, many of us buy Target cards as a starting point from our local grocery stores when they run a fuel bonus, or eBay when they run an eBay Bucks bonus or other sale.

Like @Vernie822, @JKalai, @wendow, @Marionnette et al. already noted, buying from GCM really only makes sense when eBay is running an eBay Bucks promotion, which offers 2x, 3x, 4x, and 5x bonus Bucks (or 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10% eBay "cash" back that you can use towards eBay purchases, including more gift cards, next quarter). You can earn up to $100 per transaction, and up to $500 eBay Bucks per account, per quarter. So for example, if you were to buy $900 in Target cards from GCM, you'd pay $7.94 extra in shipping, but potentially get $54 eBay Bucks on a 3x bonus, $72 on a 4x bonus, and $90 on a 5x bonus.

Right now, in April, we're in a redemption month, which is when eBay Bucks certificates have been mailed out for the quarter that just closed and we have 30 days to spend the Bucks. Because this is a "spend" month, we don't expect to see very many eBay Bucks offers. Come May and June, you can probably expect to see offers 3-4 a month, or almost every week. Because GCM mails out Target cards via USPS/UPS, your funds will be tied up in transit for about a week after each purchase. Sometimes your Target cards will be delivered in time for you to turn them around at Target by buying eBay cards to use for that week's promo, or you'll be stewing with the knowledge that your funds are out there and you're missing out on a new bonus.

Because of these logistics, you have to consider how much money you want to tie up in gift cards so they're available to "churn" whenever there's a good deal somewhere, how you want to allocate your funds between different retailers like Target and eBay, and which offers to jump on (because for example, if you spend all your funds on a 3x bonus and your cards are still in transit when a 5x bonus drops, you'll feel very silly). You'll also have to consider how much volume you're doing because volume is the best way to maximize your eBay Bucks earnings and Target savings, but it's also the surest way to get yourself noticed and potentially banned by Target as a "reseller."

 

[janet biaglow]

Hi! I am a very long time lurker on the Dis. I never post because I generally am a shy, keep to my self person. However, this time, I wanted to post to let everyone know of a situation that I am going through and hope it doesn't happen to someone else. I have been churning for a while, very small amounts like $100 a week. I have never received ebay bucks even though I have been with ebay since 1999. To churn through ebay I simply wait for coupons or use the normal 2x.

Almost two weeks ago, ebay had a flash coupon of $15 off $75 for just a few hours. I had purchased an ebay GC from Target earlier in the week so I was using that as my payment along with the coupon, for a $100 Target GC through GCM. When I entered the ebay GC number, I verified it was for $100 and hit the button to process the transaction. I got an error message instead saying they couldn't process the transaction. I tried again but this time i saw my ebay GC only had $12.01 remaining. I thought the first transaction must have gone through. An hour later, I never received any confirmation that the transaction was processed so I checked my ebay and there was nothing there. I also checked Paypal and there was no transaction there either. I looked up my gift card balance on ebay and found it was only $12.01. So ebay took the money but never processed the order. I immediately called ebay who transferred me around and they told me I had to call Paypal. I called Paypal and spoke with a product specialist who saw that I didn't have any transaction that day nor was the gift card in the system as being tied to my account. Paypal even asked why I was calling them, that it was an ebay issue. The man was very nice and called ebay to find out what the problem was. He told me that ebay said they put a hold on funds and when it doesn't process it goes back to the gift card. I should have my money within the hour. By this time, I missed out on using the $15 off coupon because I was on the phone for hours. The next day, the gift card balance was unchanged. I called Paypal again who told me it was an ebay issue since it didn't appear tied to my account. They were nice enough to file a service request to look into the issue for me though. I then called ebay who told me I had to wait 36-72 hours. Each phone call lasted over an hour with multiple transfers to different departments and service members and I had to go through the whole thing each time. I waited 4 days and still did not have the money returned so I again called ebay. After 2 hours on the phone and multiple transfers, I was told it was reported on my account and would be another 36-72 hours to fix! I asked for a supervisor and waited on hold for 75 minutes. Then the original person came back on the line and told me the supervisor was on a call and would call me back within the hour. That call never came. I called ebay again the next day and asked for a supervisor. I was disconnected three different times! At this point I was very aggravated so I waited until today to call again. I have been on the phone for 2 1/2 hours so far and still waiting. I have been transferred to multiple supervisors and now I am speaking with "upper management". I am being told that there is an ongoing issue with ebay gift cards. Most notably egift cards. They tell me this same situation has been happening for 2-3 weeks and ebay doesn't know how to fix it. She tells me they want to "try to refund everyone's money but they don't know if they can!!" Needless to say I find this unacceptable and told her so but she says there is nothing they can do, it's a known problem. She has looked thoroughly into my account and called Paypal and had them look into my account and they can see the card was never used and I didn't have any transactions that day or any day around it. But, they cannot refund the money. I told her I verified the amount on the egift card I purchased and saw it on the screen when I tried to use it. Yet ebay stands by the claim that there is nothing they can do and she recommends not using egift cards! I have no idea what to do at this point. She is telling me that there will be no refund issued. She refused to transfer me to anyone else because "there is noone else to speak with". Frustrated can't even describe how I feel. Thankfully it was only a small amount.

I just wanted to warn anyone using egift cards. Mine was a small dollar amount but I know there are people who are using much larger amounts and I hope this does not happen to anyone else!

 

[Lain]

I am being told that there is an ongoing issue with ebay gift cards. Most notably egift cards. They tell me this same situation has been happening for 2-3 weeks and ebay doesn't know how to fix it. ... there is nothing they can do, it's a known problem. ... they cannot refund the money. ... "there is noone else to speak with".

That's very scary. I'm sorry this happened to you, but thank you for sharing. I've never had anything like that happen to me, but this gets filed under my list of potential risks to the process.

 

[davper]

You mean they had a thread like this over there that got deleted?

Can you imagine how many people would be launching themselves off the roof if this thread ever got deleted?

Has anyone tried this process with purchasing pre-paid Visa or MasterCard instead of Target or GameStop? Is there a downside to going that route?

No but I would love to know how you could purchase Visa GCs with a Target or Ebay gift card from an authorized reseller.

I will be on a cruise next week. I'm sure that's when any ebay deals will happen. That's the story of my life LOL! I refuse to pay for internet on the ship at $20 a day.

WHAT!?
'Hey dear? You know that DCL you want to go on? Yeah, we can't go!'

It's not original but it's easier to find answers than reading 200 pages of material. Everyone is allowed to post referral links as far as I know.

I thought no one was allowed to post referral links anywhere on this board.

Hi! I am a very long time lurker on the Dis. I never post because I generally am a shy, keep to my self person. However, this time, I wanted to post to let everyone know of a situation that I am going through and hope it doesn't happen to someone else. I have been churning for a while, very small amounts like $100 a week. I have never received ebay bucks even though I have been with ebay since 1999. To churn through ebay I simply wait for coupons or use the normal 2x.

Almost two weeks ago, ebay had a flash coupon of $15 off $75 for just a few hours. I had purchased an ebay GC from Target earlier in the week so I was using that as my payment along with the coupon, for a $100 Target GC through GCM. When I entered the ebay GC number, I verified it was for $100 and hit the button to process the transaction. I got an error message instead saying they couldn't process the transaction. I tried again but this time i saw my ebay GC only had $12.01 remaining. I thought the first transaction must have gone through. An hour later, I never received any confirmation that the transaction was processed so I checked my ebay and there was nothing there. I also checked Paypal and there was no transaction there either. I looked up my gift card balance on ebay and found it was only $12.01. So ebay took the money but never processed the order. I immediately called ebay who transferred me around and they told me I had to call Paypal. I called Paypal and spoke with a product specialist who saw that I didn't have any transaction that day nor was the gift card in the system as being tied to my account. Paypal even asked why I was calling them, that it was an ebay issue. The man was very nice and called ebay to find out what the problem was. He told me that ebay said they put a hold on funds and when it doesn't process it goes back to the gift card. I should have my money within the hour. By this time, I missed out on using the $15 off coupon because I was on the phone for hours. The next day, the gift card balance was unchanged. I called Paypal again who told me it was an ebay issue since it didn't appear tied to my account. They were nice enough to file a service request to look into the issue for me though. I then called ebay who told me I had to wait 36-72 hours. Each phone call lasted over an hour with multiple transfers to different departments and service members and I had to go through the whole thing each time. I waited 4 days and still did not have the money returned so I again called ebay. After 2 hours on the phone and multiple transfers, I was told it was reported on my account and would be another 36-72 hours to fix! I asked for a supervisor and waited on hold for 75 minutes. Then the original person came back on the line and told me the supervisor was on a call and would call me back within the hour. That call never came. I called ebay again the next day and asked for a supervisor. I was disconnected three different times! At this point I was very aggravated so I waited until today to call again. I have been on the phone for 2 1/2 hours so far and still waiting. I have been transferred to multiple supervisors and now I am speaking with "upper management". I am being told that there is an ongoing issue with ebay gift cards. Most notably egift cards. They tell me this same situation has been happening for 2-3 weeks and ebay doesn't know how to fix it. She tells me they want to "try to refund everyone's money but they don't know if they can!!" Needless to say I find this unacceptable and told her so but she says there is nothing they can do, it's a known problem. She has looked thoroughly into my account and called Paypal and had them look into my account and they can see the card was never used and I didn't have any transactions that day or any day around it. But, they cannot refund the money. I told her I verified the amount on the egift card I purchased and saw it on the screen when I tried to use it. Yet ebay stands by the claim that there is nothing they can do and she recommends not using egift cards! I have no idea what to do at this point. She is telling me that there will be no refund issued. She refused to transfer me to anyone else because "there is noone else to speak with". Frustrated can't even describe how I feel. Thankfully it was only a small amount.

I just wanted to warn anyone using egift cards. Mine was a small dollar amount but I know there are people who are using much larger amounts and I hope this does not happen to anyone else!

So they have no record of any transaction on the $100 GC you bought. And the balance, when you look now, is only $21. So call and say that the card you received is not what you purchased. They WILL have to rectify that or return your money immediately. Don't mention the other stuff.

 

[Mike&AllisMom]

Hi! I am a very long time lurker on the Dis. I never post because I generally am a shy, keep to my self person. However, this time, I wanted to post to let everyone know of a situation that I am going through and hope it doesn't happen to someone else. I have been churning for a while, very small amounts like $100 a week. I have never received ebay bucks even though I have been with ebay since 1999. To churn through ebay I simply wait for coupons or use the normal 2x. I just wanted to warn anyone using egift cards. Mine was a small dollar amount but I know there are people who are using much larger amounts and I hope this does not happen to anyone else!

I tried to order several times from GCM this morning and was kicked out after entering my egift cards. I was able to order this afternoon with success though. Hopefully they have been able to repair the software or whatever was causing this. Very scary! I would have lost $600.

 

[Mike&AllisMom]

I thought no one was allowed to post referral links anywhere on this board.

I'm trying only to quote the reply to me so it might not look right. Sorry if I wasn't clear in my previous post. I meant anyone could post their referral link in the Facebook group.

 

[PerfessorZ]

I appreciate the caveat, Janet. That is completely unacceptable that they're just throwing their hands up in the air and saying, "oh well". Not sure who I'd complain to next - maybe your local news' consumer watchdog would love to get a bit on a big corporation completely dropping the ball on this.

Definitely letters to the corporate bigwigs - this issue is obviously not being brought high enough up the chain.