I buy a lot of stuff at Target (actually a ridiculous amount of stuff when you factor in my purchases for selling on Amazon), so I was excited to see that Target rolled out a new Target Prepaid Red Card last weekend!
I like using our traditional Target credit card to shop there for the nonrotating 5% discount. However, when I’m trying to meet spending requirements for my latest $2,075+ Application Spree, load up on some recent large bonuses, like the Chase Ink Plus $700+ bonus, and squeeze in some extra spending on our travel card to get a few more points for our upcoming ski trip over the holidays, it comes at an opportunity cost to have to use my Target credit card for the 5% discount.
There’s a new game in town which might just make it possible to stack the Target discount with credit card rewards!
Target Prepaid Red Card
The new Prepaid Red Card is a prepaid card that gets the 5% discount, just like the traditional Target Red Card credit or debit card. But this one is a prepaid card that you can reload similar to Serve or Bluebird. This could be a great alternative to Bluebird or Serve for those of us who go to Target often, but never to a Walmart.
Where to Get the Target Prepaid Red Card. You can purchase the prepaid Red cards in stores. They’re only a select locations right now; search for your state. I’ll have to plan a roadtrip to pick one up soon! You can buy your temporary card with a credit card loaded with $500. Once you get a temporary card, you can register for a permanent card online.
Serve/Bluebird. 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.
More on Target Red Card
Fees. There are no monthly fees or fees to reload the card.
Maximum load limits. You can load $2,500 per day and $5,000 per month using the “cash” option at registers. It’s not 100% clear on their website what will and won’t work for the cash funding option. They specify you cannot use gift cards to add money, but it appears uncertain if the gift cards with pins that function like debit cards will work.
Target Strategy to Earn More Cashback
If the strategy to load the Target Prepaid card with a gift card + pin works out, we might be able to purchase gift cards (with the PIN feature) to earn cash back and rewards. Then we could load the gift cards onto the Target account for free at Target and make our purchases to get the additional 5% cash back! Stack it all with a cash back portal and Target could be an incredibly cheap source for everything!
Otherwise, I might have to consider switching our Target Visa card to the store card and pay it in small increments with our Evolve account to maximize the cash back.
Action Plan
I need to identify the closest Target where I can purchase one of these cards since they aren’t available in my area. I also look forward to hearing more on the new Target Prepaid card once the permanent cards are issued! Specifically, if this will allow us to maximize spending on our other high priority cards and still get the Target 5% discount!
Have you picked up a new temporary Target Prepaid Red Card?
Recent Cash Back Rewards Opportunities
TD and WF 5% cards to not get 5% at Target. So I suppose you keep buying VGC at drugstores and groceries with 5% and then see if it loads to Target card. If it does, this won’t last long..
barryGood catch Barry! I’ll be sticking to our Barclaycard and trying the Discover it card to see if those earn the rewards at Target. Of course that’s after I meet all those spending limits on the new cards.
And I agree, I don’t expect it to last very long either.
also, I don’t think it’s a good idea to promote this method, as it will probably get shut down from all the publicity as other methods have already. BTW, CVS is going to a 2K limit on gift cards per day, from 2500.00 starting next week.
barryGreat tip on the new CVS limits.
Also, I’m guessing it will be shut down shortly… not from publicity, but because I don’t think they intended for us to be able to refill directly…