I love upgrading gift cards because this is where the real money is made when gift card churning. It’s not too often that I am able to do it. I used to buy discount Sears gift cards and upgrade at Kmart for BP or Shell gift cards. Unfortunately, in New York City it is quite difficult to upgrade gift cards. It is almost as difficult as buying prepaid cards with credit.
Big Habitat reported that you can upgrade your gift cards at Game Stop. His Game Stop offered Amazon gift cards, but in the end those cards will cost you money because there’s no easy way to liquidate Amazon cards without actually spending the money for merchandise and you can’t upgrade with Amazon. A Game Stop that I stopped by had Shell gas cards and according to Gift Card Granny they can be sold near 90% of the value.
I don’t understand the best way to take advantage of this. As far as I know, Game Stop isn’t a bonus category for any major credit card. I don’t know if you can earn shopping portal points or cash back for buying Game Stop gift cards. Are there any big opportunities now that you can upgrade Game Stop gift cards in-store?
Brandon,
Occasionally Twosmiles.com will offer 10% or more off GameStop gift cards. I’m not aware of a way to get 10% off consistently though. I was upgrading/converting to Amazon to use for personal spending since Amazon cards are rarely discounted much.
I was thinking go to Gift Card Granny to look up where you can buy discounted Game Stop gift cards. Then you can use the Game Stop gift cards in-store to buy gas station gift cards, and then either use the gas station gift cards or sell them on a gift card exchange site. My concern with this method is that the most highly discounted Game Stop gift cards are for sale on Ebay. How risky is it to buy gift cards like this on Ebay?
Correct, you would want to buy Game Stop gift cards at more than 10% off so that when you redeem for a Shell gift card you would profit from the arbitrage between the price you paid for Game Stop to selling the Shell gift card.
I have never bought a Game Stop gift card from eBay before – I have done plenty of Starbucks in the past. My general rule of thumb is if it doesn’t feel right, it’s probably not right
This is not an “upgrade”. Upgrade to me is merchant GC (specific) to VISA/MC/AMEX GC (non-specific) merchants. This is just “converting”.
To me, upgrading a gift card is more general. It would be just changing it from one to another.