I am not an MS-er, but this might be useful. Messing around in my AMEX account and saw promo code for no activation/purchase fees for AMEX gift cards bought through their portal. AXP17 . My card has the $10 back/$200+ AMEX Offer for that too, but unfortunately can’t ship them to my address.
As far as the fuel rewards go, keep your eye out for 4X rewards periods. I no longer have access to Kroger, but they use to occur every 2 or 3 months. During these times, gift card purchases earn 4 points per dollar spent.
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But what area code do you use?
Going forward, I would certainly be careful about MSing using GC to meet min spend on AMEX cards. There are other more legit ways to spend where RAT would be less likely to object to. These can include pre-pay utilities, pay estimated taxes, pay property taxes, buy non VGC gift cards for future use (don’t go crazy with this due to risk of having your card drained by theft). Plastiq.com used to be another great way but AMEX cards don’t currently work for mortgage payments. You could still use it for car payments, student loan payments, etc.
MS using VGC is still a viable method on non-AMEX cards for minimum spend though. There have not been many reported issues from other issuers.
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And hence. Shall we begin?
Time to get creative, boys and girls.
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There’s a new pos update at my USPS. The screen now has a cartoonish looking card and it no longer is black with white text. Background is now white with black text.
Took my debits without issue.
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Choose any extended local area code. Cancel until you get one that works.
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I was in a private group that was making money off these up to and including a bot to play blackjack…what killed it (for me at least) was 9/11 and not wanting gigantic flows of money to dodgy offshore banks.
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That blackjack bot was slick. I think we pitched in and each paid something like $200 for a license to use it. Went from having to hold a mechanically tally counter in my left hand (to track how many hands I had played), while I mindlessly used my right hand and the mouse to play blackjack to being able to walk away from the computer for a half hour and come back to all the wagering being done for me.
If anybody wants to create a device to automatically shuck gift cards for me and remove the adhesive I’ll bet a lot of us would throw in money towards that. 
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Those were the days. I’m basically retired now because of it.
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Does Tab Bank still accept Flying J giftcards for deposits? I switched to more lucrative MS methods and put Tab bank on hold, but might go back to the Flying J churn if it is the most profitable option out there ATM.
Either way, keep on truckin brothers and sisters!
I work in a canned chicken food processing plant where there is a machine that seperates chicken meat from the bones and puts the meat into cans. I am thinking that meat separator will probably be able to separate giftcards from the packaging. I will throw in a handful of VGCs and get back to you all.
Otherwise, if anyone has an antique Eli Whitney cotton gin, that might work too.
I apologize in advance if anyone finds bits of plastic giftcard in their canned chicken.
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Here’s another data point. I have an individual health insurance plan since I am self-employed. The money was generally coming out of my checking account. I decided to see if that was something I could pay with a prepaid debit card.
It worked! And when I navigated to that section of my health insurance payment site, there was a note that said something to the effect of - we are required to accept prepaid debit cards as a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
So for those of you paying for insurance outside of your employer, this may be a route to liquidate several thousand dollars of prepaid cards per year!
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I’ve done the same thing. Just remember to keep good records on your expenses so you don’t forget that expense when doing your books.
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Especially given that you can deduct the premiums for SE health insurance right off of your income. Has saved us a decent chunk of taxes in prior years.
I’m not so optimistic here. People who are not self-employed and who receive health insurance from their employer get both the federal income tax deduction but also the 15.3% FICA tax deduction. Us self-employed people get screwed here since we have to pay 15.3% SE taxes on our income without getting to deduct the health insurance expense.
I have not been keeping up with this thread but wanted everyone to know I just posted a topic that AAA is offering $0 fee debit cards from Nov 24 - Dec 24. Sounds perfect for MS
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Bad week for me. USPS rumor turned true and my GiftCardMall account was blacklisted (shouldn’t have used that stupid promo code).
Time to improvise, adapt and overcome.
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I really need the mall to do fee free visa gc’s again, I got like 10k MSR that needs to happen and I’d rather hit it over 2-3 days with easy to liquidate visa than the current mc that I’m getting from grocery which requires quickly hitting the correct button on wally world terminals.