Gift Card Churning Reader Questions And Answers

[Chasing The Points]

In the last few weeks, I’ve received a handful of questions that I hadn’t previously covered in any of the posts and with the Merits of Gift Card Churning I tried to answer many of them. I missed a few and here are a couple of questions that I wanted to make as a separate post.

Have you had any problems buying from one gift card reseller and selling to another?​

This one, I have done in the past when I purchased gift cards from Cardpool and sold to Plastic Jungle. The one thing you need to keep in mind is that the source gift card exchange will never take back the gift card. As an example, Person A sells on Cardpool Card 1. Person B buys Card 1 from Cardpool and sells on Giftcard Zen. Person C buys card 1 from GCZ and sells to Cardpool, this will not work. Cardpool will not buy it. The gift card number has to change and then Cardpool will buy it. This tactic is incredibly useful if you can buy a heavily discounted gift card some where and have the ability to change the gift card number.

Are there any portal limitations in terms of how much you can receive?​

Besides the written exclusions on the portals, I haven’t seen any limitations in terms of max amount. The only lifetime cap that I know of is Cardpool for the first $1000 in transactions.

You’ve mentioned that a lot of the time you end up taking a cash loss in the favor of earning points. I was just wondering what % of the gift cards you sell end up this way?​

I would say around 95% of the time, I sell my cards for a loss, they are generally used as a play for points. My goal is to keep the average cost basis under a penny a point. Some tactics to get closer to the point that I use are stacking portal payouts like buying American Express gift cards when the right opportunity arises, waiting for increased payouts, and using 5% cashback cards to name a few.


From Twitter:

@ChasingThePts how much do you think you sold before getting higher rates? Thanks

— rgpromax (@rgpromax) February 12, 2015
​

That question was directed from the post on Cardpool surprising me with the highest tier. I started selling on Cardpool at the end of 2012. 6 months after I started, I had approximately $10,000 in sales and I had requested to be part of the bulk seller program. I figured, I had enough volume and would be a good start. Here, I learned that they offered advanced notice before gift card rates changed. 6 months after the request to be a bulk seller, (12 months in total working with Cardpool), I requested higher rates. That is when they gave me a site wide .25% increase in all sales. It wasn’t great, but it definitely helped. 24 months of business, and after $30,000 in sales, I asked for another bump and this is where we’ve landed.


After 20k in sales with Cardpool, I had inquired about GiftCard Zen’s bulk seller program. This was to diversify where I sell cards and I am extremely happy I did. I told them I was already a bulk seller on Cardpool, and that was it. After about $10,000 in sales with GCZ, I approached them about higher rates, but they only came through on a couple, which is fine because it has totally made gift card churning worth while. Previous cards that were complete losers and out of reach are now within reach and selling profitably when I have the time.


Questions?


I hope I answered many of the questions people are thinking about, but never asked. If you have any more questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll be sure to answer any that you may have.

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