Does AMZN Allow Split Payments?
3I’ve received a couple of $30 “virtual” Visa debit cards by doing surveys on a product I bought. I’m not linking the deal because it was invitation only through a coupon in the product.
But the first one I received last month I used on AMZN to buy something for $19.20 which should mean I have $10.80 left. The other virtual card I just now received is worth $30. I should be getting a few more as I do the monthly surveys.
What do I do with the change left on the cards? Can I stack them on AMZN?
- 6 comments, 36 replies
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Buy gift cards and send them to your own email address. If that doesn’t work, just reload your gift card balance with a precise amount from each card. Then it’s just loaded to your Amazon account.
@luvche21 That seems pretty easy! Thank you!
@luvche21 That’s how I empty GC with just a few bucks left on them. Use the entire balance for an Amazon GC.
Always “burn” GCs in full. Many point-of-sale systems do authorizations rounding up to the next dollar so you’ll always wind up with partial balances you can’t use left over on the card.
One way to maybe get around this is to pay with cash first to bring the balance due to the exact amount left on the card.
For Amazon, since they are debit cards, you can’t use them to buy Prime or Kindle Unlimited gift subscriptions.
Turning them into a gift credit was probably your best option if you were going to use them at Amazon anyway.
@mike808 There is an option to receive a physical card but they’ll only load in $27. So online purchases I felt were my best bet to use them.
@mike808 @therealjrn What happens if you just apply it to your account and have the funds in reserve?
If you are loosing 10% just for applying it to your prime account, call CS and see if they can help you, Ask for an American agent.
@rtjhnstn These are not AMZN gift cards–they are VISA branded debit cards. I was just using them on AMZN as another form of payment–but thanks for the advice!
I receive a “virtual” card with my name, the card number, expiration date and ccv number. I don’t want to waste 10% just to get a physical card.
I know they split it if it’s an Amazon card but not sure about those. But I like luvchee21’s idea…buy Amaz gift cards with it and then it will def work. If you need to, add a few bucks to even out the amount.
@lseeber Heh, how did you know I didn’t like the odd amount?
@therealjrn Eyes in the back of my laptop.
@lseeber Eyes in the back of your laptop, or in the back of @therealjrn’s laptop?
@Bakasama @therealjrn
@luvche21 @lseeber Thanks so much for your help! I ended up reloading (loading?) up my heretofore unknown gift card account at AMZN. It was super slick and super easy.
Except now I have to find something that costs exactly $40.80…kidding!
I imagine that I can spend the AMZN GC money first, and if it comes up short, then I can fill in with my AMZN branded Chase credit card.
/giphy Thanks again!
@therealjrn You’re welcome! Exactly, use more or less than the remaining balance and no problem. When you do end up going over whatever is left, you just charge to any other credit/debit card the remaining balance. I do this all the time.
@luvche21 @therealjrn And… don’t forget, if you always make your Amazon purchases thru the smile amazon link, you can select a charity of your choosing and they will get a small percentage of every purchase you make. It can add up over time and it doesn’t cost you an extra penny!
@therealjrn For a Woot BOC experience, stock up on a pile of cases and accessories to cell phones you don’t own and outdated calendars via Amazon Warehouse Deals!
https://smile.amazon.com/s/rh=i%3Amobile&bbn=10158976011&sort=price-asc-rank
https://smile.amazon.com/s/rh=n%3A10158976011%2Cn%3A283155%2Cn%3A!1000%2Cn%3A3248857011&bbn=10158976011&sort=price-asc-rank
Deposit the remaining balances to your bank account.
/image piggy bank
@eonfifty I’ve never done that with a debit card–my credit union is a little backwards so the less I deal with them the better. Nice idea though, if I could do it electronically.
@therealjrn Buy bitcoins and then transfer them to your credit union account.
/image Bitcoin transfer credit union
@eonfifty @therealjrn Credit unions and deposit banks are on different systems that don’t play nice with each other because they have different rules to follow (liability, reserves, clearing, etc.). Remember the “Keating 5” when a bunch of senators bilked the taxpayers to save their credit unions, much like a warmup for the 2008 Busch bailouts. Except Keating & pals went to jail for that fraud.
@eonfifty @mike808 Except they didn’t: The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators—Alan Cranston (Democrat of California), Dennis DeConcini (Democrat of Arizona), John Glenn (Democrat of Ohio), John McCain (Republican of Arizona), and Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (Democrat of Michigan)—were accused of improperly intervening in 1987 on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr., Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). The FHLBB subsequently backed off taking action against Lincoln.
Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed in 1989, at a cost of $3.4 billion to the federal government (and thus taxpayers). Some 23,000 Lincoln bondholders were defrauded and many investors lost their life savings. The substantial political contributions Keating had made to each of the senators, totaling $1.3 million, attracted considerable public and media attention. After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB’s investigation of Lincoln Savings, with Cranston receiving a formal reprimand. Senators Glenn and McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised “poor judgment”.
All five senators served out their terms. Only Glenn and McCain ran for re-election, and they both retained their seats. McCain would go on to run for President of the United States twice, and was the Republican Party nominee in 2008.
@eonfifty @therealjrn I meant Keating, his son and his son in law, who ran the S&Ls into the ground and taxpayers with a $4 Billion tab – went to jail. Unlike the 2008 Busch Recession, not one banker responsible went to jail for the taxpayer cleanup.
The senators were on the take, beholden to money interests, much like many others before, then, and since. You can thank the Koch-driven Citizens United decision for making it all “legal like” and the shit show we have going on in DC today and a generation to come if Kavanaugh is seated.
Fun fact: Keating was sentenced by Judge Ito – yes, that Judge Ito from the OJ trial.
@mike808 @therealjrn I’ve moved small amounts of money (less than $500) between a bank and a credit union many times. It takes a few days though.
/image credit Union Bank differences
You can “top off” your Amazon default account “gift card” balance with any payment. No need to “buy” an Amazon GC and then apply it to your account.
Another place to use “free money” is to apply it to your phone bill. Prepaid and postpaid accounts (like AT&T (Phone, Internet, or Uverse)) will accept an “overpayment” for a credit balance.
I put $600 on my internet bill when my credit card (Chase Feeedom) was giving 5% CB in the “phone, internet, cable” category. Basically got 5% off my phone bill for over half a year.
@mike808 Nice, I too have received many monies from Chase. They literally have to buy new customers, they are that bad.
In addition to the “Freedom Card” cash back I have received $500 bounties from them twice for opening a savings and checking account.
@therealjrn “that bad”, how? I get max 5% CB in the categories every quarter and no fee (and I pay off every month). Been saving for a while getting ready to max my warehouse spend with Costco and Sam’s GCs. Discover gets some love too with ordering Costco GCs from costco.com.
5% monthly CB is better than my Citi Costco Visa with 4% CB annual.
@mike808 I suppose they are fine for you judging from your question.
I can best describe it as Chase bank is great, until they’re not. The internet is replete with complaints about the way they treat customers. I am scrupulous in my financial affairs and even then, I have ran into difficulties on a local level with my account information being co-mingled with a previous resident years prior at my address. Simple ineptitude or disinterested staff are common complaints.
I still use their generous bribes though. Free money is free money.
@therealjrn Free money is free money. I don’t use them for anything else. So for me, they’re just peachy.
There is a downside to always paying off your credit cards. A lower credit score. Yup.
/giphy for realz
@mike808 I feel ya. That’s the only way to win the game with the cash-back and bonus credit cards.
/giphy play the game
@therealjrn I also keep a Chase card and do take advantage of some of the cb offers. I’ve had a chase card for yrs and have never had a problem with them thus far.
@mike808 Paying it off doesn’t really hurt your credit score as long as there’s an average daily balance, at least not in any meaningful way. I do have an average daily balance on all three of my cards, which they like, but they all get paid off in full.
I don’t have an installment loan, like a car loan or a mortgage, which would boost my score. I don’t pay interest on any debt. My FICO score is still higher than some people think they go.
What does help, I think, is that I’ve got a Visa from 1989 and a Discover from 1992. Old credit is good credit.
@craigthom @mike808 Using and paying off your cards is the best way to raise your credit. The higher your card utilization, the lower available credit you have. That negatively affects your score. The more available credit you have, the better your score. It’s the same reason your score is impacted negatively when you close cards which lowers your available credit. I currently have a score of 840 and worked very hard to raise it from around 600 several years ago.
@cinoclav @mike808 Too much total available credit can hurt, too. I guess they are afraid you’ll run them all up too high.
But, yes, having enough to keep your utilization low is more important.
Grab a PayPal Here card reader (or Square but they suck). Ring up your cards as a sale for whatever the exact amount of the card is. You’re basically converting your gift cards to cash. They charge you 2.7% per transaction so that $30 card gives you $29.19 cash in your PayPal account.
@cinoclav I’m loving all these options! Thanks!
“If” I request a physical card the issuer will charge me 10% right off the bat, so to swipe it will cost me $3 + $0.73 so that’s a pretty big hit, percentage wise.
To key in a card, PayPal charges 3.5% + $0.15 per transaction. $1.65 per $30 virtual Visa debit card.
That’s more reasonable.
But the chip and swipe reader costs $25 from PayPal…darn.
@cinoclav Looks like Square is free to set up! It appears to be 3.5% + 15¢ per keyed-in transaction.
$1.20 per $30 card. And it’s cash, not bad.
@cinoclav It’s too early for maths. PayPal’s keyed in is $1.20 as well. But it looks like they will make me buy the $25 card reader anyway.
@therealjrn You can get the mobile reader for free.
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-here-display
@cinoclav No free ones I can see
https://us.paypal-here.com/card-readers/
@therealjrn I followed the link below. Once logged in it gave you a link to download the app and said you could order your free card reader from the app. It used to be you could buy it at places like Staples and they would refund you the purchase cost. I had tried Square first but had endless problems with the reader and their customer service sucked.
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-here-display
@cinoclav right on
@cinoclav @therealjrn best use it to pay a bill you otherwise would pay with your cash. Except if there’s a fee to pay with a card.