UPDATE: I had written this before needing to call American Express about my Bluebird… will post a follow up on my Bluebird account.
UPDATE 2: AMEX just needed to verify my identity
It’s been a few months having both the American Express Bluebird and Serve. I do not use the Serve too much as I do not find it very useful to me at the moment. I have written about receiving my Serve here, and fee structures and not being able to be a Serve cardholder at the time here.
However, for a team working with a Bluebird and Serve the combination is very powerful. Here is how I would do it. Since Serve updated the fee schedule late February, no fees exist for anyone that use a credit card or debit card to load.
- Serve
- Load with debit card to $1000 a month
- Load with credit card to $250 a month
- Load with Moneypak at $500 a day and $2500 a month max
- Only applicable for those that are able to find and purchase with a credit card
- Total load dollars per month: $3750. Fees involved would be ($4.95 * 5 (assuming you load $500 max)) for $24.75 a month.
- Potential Points at 1%: 3775
- Bluebird
- Load strictly with Vanilla Reload at $5000 a month
- Fees, assuming you load $500 per VR, $39.50
- Potential Points at 1%: 5040
- Load with debit card, $1000/day $5000 max a month, $0 fees.
- Load strictly with Vanilla Reload at $5000 a month
The Vanilla Reload and MoneyPak route would be best for those not near a Walmart. This combination would be or monthly fees of $64.25 for $.0072 / point
