I just received an email from American Express letting me know of a great enhancement for all Bluebird accounts.
“Adding funds to your Bluebird Account is easy. Now, Bluebird is adding another no-fee way to add funds online to your Account.
Effective immediately, you can add funds to your Account from your debit card for no fee (previously $2.00 per transaction). Click here to learn more about adding funds with a debit card.”
This means that in addition to buying Vanilla Reloads (or instead of), you can get more money on your Bluebird card by using a debit card. Previously it was $2 per transaction which made it not worth it since you are allowed to add at most $100 per day. This is for loading the funds online, doing a debit transaction at Walmart js different. With the debit card option you are still limited to $1,000 per month, but if you are not able to find any Vanilla Reloads in your area this could be a way to at least earn something on your points/miles earning debit card from the comfort of your couch.
I’ll post more next week on the details of each debit card that can earn you points and miles, but here is a summary:
- Alaska Airlines Debit Card from Bank of America – Earn 1 Alaska Airlines mile per $2 spent
- Delta SkyMiles World Check Card from Suntrust – Earn 1 mile per $1 spent
While this is still limiting you to 12,000 Delta miles a year or 6,000 Alaska Airlines miles, it is still something. Although both these debit cards come with annual fees, so if you only have these cards (or would get these cards for this purpose) the annual miles earned isn’t worth the annual fee.
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Can we use a gift card as a debit card? I see that BB limits having 4 debit cards per account, but is there a way to just add/delete “debit” cards.
I tried linking a gift card debit card but it didn’t work with onevanilla. Maybe because onevanilla doesn’t let you register an address, which is necessary.
Aren’t gift cards debit cards as well once you have a pin for them?
just buy regular gift cards at whatever store and load them up
no?
@Stacy – Just remember that there is a fee when buying gift cards and you are limited to $100/day.
I use a Delta Sun Trust debit all the time, but I only get miles for purchases and not account transfers or ATM withdrawals. Loading at Walmart has kept me earning points because the loads are considered a purchase and not a transfer. Will this appear as a transfer though? Has anyone received confirmation on how the bank will see it?
@kyle – good point. Let me look into it a little and get back to you
I still have some Chase visa gift cards that I go to Walmart to load into my BB account, can I go online to load them now for free? Thanks.
Anyone know yet whether if I buy an Am Ex gift card for $2000 using a portal like Extrabux for 1% rebate (and completing a minimum spend on a new credit card), can I then transfer $1000 a month from the Am Ex gift card to my Blue Bird account for free?
@ShSimons – Gift cards must have a pin. However, I’d caution with gift cards as you need a billing address and Amex has shut down accounts with gift card transfers.
You can get a UFB account and debit card which gives 1 American mile for every $2 spent. Very easy to use at Walmart for Bluebird reloads…not sure if you will get miles for internet loads?