Bethry
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2010
- Messages
- 94
So I searched and searched for specific posts trying to find the most number of Disney Entertainment cards at Target that someone has purchased at one time... I found lots of people with transactions in the hundreds and maybe one that said $3000 at once, but we needed to pay off our cruise and we had ONE pharmacy rewards coupon (with Red Card debit) with which to do it, to maximize the discount.
So we bit the bullet and went all out, figured we might as well give it a shot - we needed $8000 to pay off the balance on two cabins for our cruise. So I just wanted to share our story in case it's helpful to anyone else out there.
My local Target stores have had tons of these in stock lately (must have caught on to their popularity in the last year - when I bought $500 last year it wiped one store out). So we found the endcap in the back by electronics that had a whole peg full and counted out 160 cards (there were still some left, even).
My sister and I took them up to the counter and set down the pile on the belt, then eyed the clerk to see if he'd say anything. He started scanning, so we started chatting, asking if he'd had many people buying stacks of these cards. He said he'd done a few transactions where someone bought a bunch, but never this many.
Then a supervisor lady of some sort walked by and saw how many and excitedly started chatting about how it's such a great deal to use these to pay off your vacation, and to let her know if we needed any help, etc. Phew.
So we get 'em all rung up and scan the pharmacy rewards card. Off comes 5% from our total. Then my sister swipes her Red debit card and we wait to see if it will go through (she has excellent credit, FYI). She entered her pin, waited some more, then out spits the receipt saying to call the phone number. She calls and is put on hold for 8 minutes, then they come back saying they can't authorize that large of a transaction due to her spending history not showing a pattern of such large transactions like that in the past. They ask to speak to the associate, and the supervisor lady is standing there, so we hand the phone to her. She talks, asks if there are any options like signing up for the Red credit card (then we'd know the limit), but they seem to not be able to give her much info. We also asked if they could tell us the limit on the debit card so we'd know how many we CAN purchase, but they wouldn't/couldn't give anyone that info, either.
By then the head manager Ron is standing there and she hands the phone to him. He talks for a minute, then hangs up. He then looks over our transaction on the computer and starts to say that the Red card 5% doesn't work on gift cards anyway. We both quickly assure him it does, these are entertainment cards, we've done it before, etc., then he does a little test transaction on a terminal to see, and low and behold the Red card does give 5% off. So at least he believes us, phew.
Since he doesn't know how much her debit card will approve the transaction for, he asks for a different method of payment. She hands over her Delta skymiles card, and he manually takes off the 5% (the terminal wouldn't accept a manager-override coupon for $380, but he was able to put in 4 separate coupon amounts and break it up). He ran the transaction with her alternate card (it took forever to print out the receipt, but eventually it came out), and we went on our way, congratulating ourselves.
It was the best possible scenario with being able to use her Skymiles card, (so she got the points for that!!), while still getting the 5% off red card discount (albeit manually), plus the pharmacy rewards!
We were seriously in shock, but as long as you have a cooperative manager, this should be possible!
Also just a heads up, Dreams Unlimited puts a limit on how many gift cards per day you can apply to your balance, so we spent the next couple weeks applying 10 per day to get our accounts paid off.
So we bit the bullet and went all out, figured we might as well give it a shot - we needed $8000 to pay off the balance on two cabins for our cruise. So I just wanted to share our story in case it's helpful to anyone else out there.
My local Target stores have had tons of these in stock lately (must have caught on to their popularity in the last year - when I bought $500 last year it wiped one store out). So we found the endcap in the back by electronics that had a whole peg full and counted out 160 cards (there were still some left, even).
My sister and I took them up to the counter and set down the pile on the belt, then eyed the clerk to see if he'd say anything. He started scanning, so we started chatting, asking if he'd had many people buying stacks of these cards. He said he'd done a few transactions where someone bought a bunch, but never this many.
Then a supervisor lady of some sort walked by and saw how many and excitedly started chatting about how it's such a great deal to use these to pay off your vacation, and to let her know if we needed any help, etc. Phew.
So we get 'em all rung up and scan the pharmacy rewards card. Off comes 5% from our total. Then my sister swipes her Red debit card and we wait to see if it will go through (she has excellent credit, FYI). She entered her pin, waited some more, then out spits the receipt saying to call the phone number. She calls and is put on hold for 8 minutes, then they come back saying they can't authorize that large of a transaction due to her spending history not showing a pattern of such large transactions like that in the past. They ask to speak to the associate, and the supervisor lady is standing there, so we hand the phone to her. She talks, asks if there are any options like signing up for the Red credit card (then we'd know the limit), but they seem to not be able to give her much info. We also asked if they could tell us the limit on the debit card so we'd know how many we CAN purchase, but they wouldn't/couldn't give anyone that info, either.
By then the head manager Ron is standing there and she hands the phone to him. He talks for a minute, then hangs up. He then looks over our transaction on the computer and starts to say that the Red card 5% doesn't work on gift cards anyway. We both quickly assure him it does, these are entertainment cards, we've done it before, etc., then he does a little test transaction on a terminal to see, and low and behold the Red card does give 5% off. So at least he believes us, phew.
Since he doesn't know how much her debit card will approve the transaction for, he asks for a different method of payment. She hands over her Delta skymiles card, and he manually takes off the 5% (the terminal wouldn't accept a manager-override coupon for $380, but he was able to put in 4 separate coupon amounts and break it up). He ran the transaction with her alternate card (it took forever to print out the receipt, but eventually it came out), and we went on our way, congratulating ourselves.
It was the best possible scenario with being able to use her Skymiles card, (so she got the points for that!!), while still getting the 5% off red card discount (albeit manually), plus the pharmacy rewards!
We were seriously in shock, but as long as you have a cooperative manager, this should be possible!
Also just a heads up, Dreams Unlimited puts a limit on how many gift cards per day you can apply to your balance, so we spent the next couple weeks applying 10 per day to get our accounts paid off.
