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How to Make Money with the Target Prepaid Redcard

Last week I took a short road trip across the state to pick up the New Target Prepaid Red Card [1].

Originally, I was excited about the Target Prepaid Red Card [2] just to stack the Target discount with credit card rewards in a multi-step process. What I actually found was fantastic, easy way to make money with direct reloading!

Target Strategy to Earn More Cashback

My initial strategy was to load the Target Prepaid card with gift cards (with a pin) previously purchased with a credit card, however, you can actually reload your Prepaid Red Card [2] directly with a credit card and earn the credit card rewards!

How to Make Money with the Target Prepaid Redcard

  1. Purchase a new Target Prepaid Red Card [2] in a store [3] that carries them.
  2. Register your card online and load up to $1500 on the card in store with a rewards credit card.
  3. Request a permanent card and load up to $2,500 per day ($5,000 per month) with a rewards credit card.
  4. Cash out your prepaid cards and pocket the credit card rewards.

How to Cash Out Your Prepaid Card

You can use the prepaid card to shop at Target with the 5% discount for things you were going to buy there anyways. Otherwise you can cash out your prepaid cards at Allpoint network ATMs for free. You can also pay bills online with the account. This could be a great new way to Pay Your Mortgage with a Credit Card [4] if it works.

How Much Money Can You Earn?

Depending on which rewards credit card [5] you use, you’ll earn various amounts. Here are some of the various cards and categories I’m exploring to maximize this deal:

5% or 2% Cash Back Cards.
If you have a current 5% card from Wells Fargo [6] or TD Easy Rewards [7] you’ll probably see some of the highest returns. If you don’t have a 5% card, then there is always the 2% Fidelity Credit Card [8] or New Citi Double Cash [9] card. Update: Just to clarify, you could use the Fidelity card or Citi Double cash card to load directly. The other two cards would still have to use the original strategy of buying a gift card (with a pin) at a store that earns 5% and reload it if that works.

Stack with Sign Up Bonus.
Besides using standard cash back reward cards, I also used various cards from my last $2,075+ Application Spree [10] to meet the spending requirements to earn various sign up bonuses.

To maximize the opportunity, you could put $3,000 on a new Barclaycard Arrival [11] to earn $400+ or $5,000 on a Chase Ink Plus [12] business card to earn $700+. If you just want to start small you could easily put $500 on a new Chase Freedom [13] card for the $100 bonus.

Stack with 4th Quarter Rewards.
If you don’t have any new cards that you need to meet spending requirements, I’m also testing to see if the Discover it [14] card will count Target purchases as department store purchases for their 4th quarter 5% bonus. They list target.com as an online retailer included in the promotion, but they don’t specifically include or exclude the regular Target store.

You should note that Chase Freedom specifically excludes Target from the quarterly rotating 5% [15] rewards on department stores. Citi Dividend does not list the stores in their rewards promotion.

Shopping at Target for Triple Rewards

If you shop at Target, the prepaid card is a better deal than the Target credit card [16]. You can buy the prepaid cards to earn your credit card rewards and use the prepaid card at Target to stack the 5% discount. If you shop on Target.com, you can also stack your savings with a cash back portal [17] to earn triple rewards on your purchases.

Target Prepaid Red Card Issues

Like anything, there are a few hurdles. Here are some to consider:

Technical difficulties. I bought two cards (one for me and one for my husband) since I had to drive 2 hours to get the cards. One activated without any problems, the other one is still stuck in “technical difficulty” land and cannot be reloaded…

Do you really want to close your Serve or Bluebird account? You can only have one of the cards in the Serve/Bluebird/Target Prepaid Red card family. If you have a Serve or Bluebird account, you have to close it before getting the permanent card. Think this through if you were planning to use your Bluebird [18] or Serve [19] accounts for the American Express $30 Small Business Saturday Shopping Credits [20].

How far would you have to drive to get a Target Prepaid Red Card?

Recent Cash Back Rewards Opportunities