Use Serve to Cash Out Gift Cards via ATM

Posted by Madison on January 29, 2013

Whenever a store offers a bonus to buy a gift card, I take advantage of the deal. For example, I loaded up on $100 Visa gift cards with my Chase Ink Bold card to earn 5% cash back and get the $500 sign up bonus.

I also buy gift cards every time I go to the grocery store on my American Express Blue Cash to earn 6% cash back. As my pile of gift cards grow, I’m always looking for creative ways to cash out the gift cards.

I had a Serve account sitting around from an old Free Money offer, so I decided to give it a try! And it worked. Here’s more:

What is Serve?

The Serve card is a prepaid card from American Express. You can fund your serve card via your bank account, credit or debit card, and my favorite: with Visa gift cards!

Access Cash. You can access the cash at ATMs. You get one free ATM withdrawal each month (it’s $2 after that). Since our ATM is fee free, I can withdraw the cash without any fees.

Combine Multiple Small Gift Cards. One of the benefits is being able to compile all of my smaller gift cards into a larger card. Because Paying Taxes with Credit Cards individually is limited to just 2 transactions per quarter, I really wanted a way to combine these cards.

Serve Terms and Conditions

  • No Credit Checks.
  • No Monthly Fees.
  • No Annual Fees.

More on Serve

Load Fees. The fees to load your Serve card are waived until March 15, 2013.

Monthly load limit. You can load $100 per day from a credit card or $250 per month. You can also add $1,000 per day from your bank and $200 per day with a debit card ($1,000 per month). There is a maximum of 30 loads in a month. It’s not a big limit, but it does help to compile lots of those small gift cards. Since my gift cards are classified as debit cards, it’s an easy way to transfer $1,000 per month!

Beyond Cashing Out. Obviously, the Serve card wasn’t designed just for us to cash out gift cards, so be sure to use it for more than just cashing out gift cards! American Express will probably shut down the account if your only transactions are multiple loads and ATM withdrawals.

Have you used Serve to cash out gift cards?



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Comments to Use Serve to Cash Out Gift Cards via ATM

  1. Bank of America had a $400 sign up offer for a credit card (instead of the usual $100 offer). I went to the bank and signed up and never received the $400 because “You never signed up for it.” I had the form in my hand and showed the personal banker when I signed. The moral here is to be sure and follow up and see if you are really credited with the offer when you full fill your obligation. I notice that a lot of mistakes in billing are in favor of the corporation.

    Joe


    • Great reminder Joe! I like to print out a copy or take a screenshot of sign up offers directly from the company website… that way there is no question about the terms.

      Did you get your $400?

      Madison


  2. How to find out if my gift card will be treated as debit card?

    unimax


    • I’m testing it with trial and error. The card says debit, but I don’t always assume that’s how it will be treated!

      Madison


  3. I seem to be having trouble adding the debit card to my Serve account. I did register the card first but when I try to put it into my Serve account, it kept telling me the address did not match the billing address on my debit card. Did anyone else have problems with this?

    Linda


    • Just talked with a Serve rep. and was told that I couldn’t load my Serve account my debit (gift) card because it’s a prepaid account and the verification system didn’t recognize it. Did I buy the wrong kind of card? It says DEBIT right on the card and I did register it before I tried to use it to load my account.

      Linda


      • Mine say debit too and work no problem. I get the ones with the Visa gift card logo. They’re sort of silver/gray in color. They list giftcardmall.com/mygift as the registration website.

        Madison


  4. Hmmm, mine also have the Visa log but the registration website is different.

    Linda



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