I posted this over on The Chat too, but in case anyone over here wants to kick the tires:
I’ve been working on a spreadsheet to help figure out the total savings for the process of buying discounted Target Gift Cards at Raise.com and then using them to buy discounted Disney GCs at Target.
You can enter how much money you need to pay Disney, the maximum size of the gift cards you want to buy at each site, and the percentage discounts. (All in the Yellow cells.)
It will tell you how many of each card type & denomination to buy & tell you how much you saved, as well as how much money will be left on the last Disney card.
Wait. I thought you only got the 5% off on the amount that goes on the redcard. That is, not on the amount tendered via gift card. I know that’s the case in store. Is it different online, or am I missing something? If so, Wow!
People have found that if you have your RedCard as the primary form of payment on your online account, but then apply the Target gift cards as payment when checking out, the 5% discount does get applied.
People are also talking about stacking other sites on this process as well, such as using ebates to buy at Raise.com for an extra 1% back, using Disney Visa to buy the Target cards for 1% in points, adding all the Disney gift cards to a Disney Vacation account, which later gives you something like $20 for every $1,000 you spend through the it…
Going to see if I have time to add these to the sheet as options to check off, then total 'em all up!
Fantastic! I’ll be giving that a try for sure! I’ve been doing the vacation account for the extra 2%. Can I suggest that you try adding a variable return rate on the credit card, since there are cards like the Citi Double Cash, etc., that will get more than the 1% from the Disney Visa? Either way, thank you for the info! That’s amazing.
Sure - when I get time to add other stackable discounts, I’ll make it so you can override the % discount, and/or add some that are fill-in-your-own, since I’m sure there are many I’d never know about!
I feel like I need a video conference on this topic LOL. But I am going to try to focus and follow what you have shown us! Thank you so much for sharing it.
Sometimes my spreadsheets start out confusing and all over the place, then I streamline them.
You should have seen the one before this version! I’ll probably think of some better ways to display the info, especially as I add other stackable discounts.
FYI all: I fixed an error in formulas bottom of the savings table that told you how much money would be left on each type of card after the purchases were done.
Worked a little on adding other transaction types to the stack, but not ready for prime time.
Many great ideas for saving with ebates, swag bucks etc in the chat thread… Thinking I might try to compile them here for posterity later…
Ok - I just gave this a trial run with the ebates->raise->target and my goodness! Add in that I’ll eventually get 3% back from my Discover card, and that I got $5 off for making my first raise purchase, and it’s slightly over 15%. Even without the first time purchase discount, I should make 12-13% going forward. Thank you so much!
Here’s a flow chart that I put together based on everything we’ve discussed on the chat. Basically there seems to be several ways to get to a 15% discount. Here s a link: http://bit.ly/1h1czI6 Please let me know if you find any errors in math or logic.
Don’t forget to check your AMEX offers. Frequently, your able to buy Disney/Target gift cards in store, then get the AMEX discount. For example, AMEX recently had a promo for getting a $75 credit when making a $250 purchase at Staples/Home Depot. I purchased Target cards, then used those cards stacked with the 5% redcard discount to purchase Disney gift cards.
