About a year ago, I had heard about a new app for text messaging where I thought “Great.. Another app that will likely be bloatware.” The text messaging app had all these “features” like telling people “leave me alone I’m driving” or “text your friends from a computer” a la Google Hangouts and Apple iMessage. I quickly wrote it off because why do I even need that junk? The reason why I call it “the New Old” method is because you already know where to get your 5x from either Chase Ink or American Express Simply Cash. Telecommunications.
The App
It turns out that junk has features embedded in it since 2014 that allowed you to send an electronic gift card to your friends and you can bill your account. Enter Verizon’s Message and you’ll see that you can send a variety of gift cards.I recently upgraded to the LG G5 and was forced to use the Verizon Messages until I got myself situated with my own apps and played around with it and was able to see all the gift cards that are available. In order to send gift cards, you need to be a Verizon Wireless customer and you can text anyone the gift card and have the option to charge the account.
The selection of gift cards are quite good. The screenshot is only a sample. Here’s a screenshot of how you can check out:
Your New 5x Way
The method for 5x from the Chase Ink or American Express Simply Cash isn’t new, we always knew that mobile service was always 5x. The ability to send immediate electronic gift cards to yourself gift cards and having it go to your Verizon Wireless account is beneficial to hitting your 5x category. The top 2 unknowns that I can think of right now are the caps before Verizon will force you to use a credit card and how sensitive they are with you sending gift cards.
I have only 2 options to pay – Apple pay or Add a new CC.
Any way around it?
You might be at the max of how much you could add to your account
I only have Starbucks as an option. Hire do I find the other stores?
I am not sure, I would play around with the app some more. It should all be visible
I wrote about this a couple months ago on my blog. It was a small play, limit was $100/month. I haven’t used it since then, so not sure if anything has changed.
Good to know thanks
After hitting the 100.00 limit, has anyone tried entering their credit card and doing another 100.00. Does that code as telecommunications as well?
Thanks for finding out that AMEX is telecommunications. Visa is computer hardware
Seems not to. pending charge to braintreecharge.com. coded as internet services. BTW trying to use this method to juice my verizon bill in conjunction with the 10% amex offer. We’ll see….
Correct. In the end it didn’t work for me. I was only able to get the 10% for the one 100.00 ebay giftcard you can do a month. Bummer.
Yeah, bummer. Curious though is that limit applies per account or per line? Will check if not known…
What can i do with vzw rewards ??
I am using them for gift cards to resell. I also signed up for a year of free Wall Street Journal