May be safe - Older reports of cash advance fees but more recent reports of not being charged a fee: For this reason, if you have a low cash advance limit, your purchase may be declined. Some banks (such as Discover and US Bank) treat Amex gift cards as a cash advance while authorizing the transaction, but it later changes to a purchase.Please chime in with your experiences and I’ll add to this list: Safe - No cash advance fee for Amex gift card purchases: Below I’ve listed cards that are safe, maybe safe and not safe to use based on reader input (so, your mileage may vary). For example, readers have reported in the past that Citibank cards incurred cash advance fees, however recently transactions have been coding as purchases. Q: Will I incur cash advance fees? Which credit cards are safe?Ī: Some credit cards do charge cash advance fees. Check this CashBackMonitor page and this one for up to date portal offers. The Barclaycard’s portal unfortunately also no longer offers Amex gift cards. Since their return, portal rates have ranged from 1.5-2.25%. Unfortunately, Amex gift cards have disappeared from portals a couple of times recently. Delta SkyMiles Shopping portal: 3 miles per dollar.Alaska Airlines MileagePlan Shopping portal: 3 miles per dollar.Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal: 4 miles per dollar.Here are examples of offers that we saw in 2014: For more, please see: Amex Gift Card Strategy.Īnd now, without further ado, everything you may want to know about Amex gift cards in the form of Questions and Answers… Q: What are the best current portal offers for buying Amex gift cards?Ī: Portal rates for Amex gift cards change regularly. It’s a great opportunity to run up spend on credit cards to meet minimum spend requirements, hit big spend thresholds, or just to earn regular everyday rewards. The idea of buying American Express gift cards just to earn miles or cash back may sound boring to some, but to me it is fantastic. We will leave this post in place, though, in the hopes that the restrictions will be lifted sometime in the near future.Ī number of online portals offer cash back or miles when purchasing American Express gift cards. As long as this restriction is in place there is no good reason to buy Amex gift cards through portals. They now only allow cash back for gift card denominations of $200 and below. UPDATE : Amex has changed their terms for portal cash back.