Free Money Friday

I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to pass up offers for free money! As long it doesn’t require too much effort, I’m on it.

Here are some deals I plan to sign up for:

American Express prepaid card, load at least $50, get $10 bonus gift card

Fine print: (1) Offer expires on July 31, 2012. To receive a $10 American Express® Gift Card (“Gift Card”), you must load $50 or more at the time you order an American Express Prepaid Card (“Card”). Card orders must be received by 11:59 PM ET July 31, 2012. Limit of one $10 Gift Card per new Card User named on a Card. Offer valid for all new Card orders with a single $50 load, including additional/supplemental accounts associated with an existing Card purchaser’s account. Card must be active when offer is fulfilled. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Limit one (1) offer per Card. After qualifying for this offer, please allow 6 weeks for the $10 Gift Card to be mailed to the Card purchaser. American Express reserves the right to refuse or to delay the delivery of Gift Card if it has determined or suspects that fraud has been committed in connection with the Card or this offer. American Express reserves the right to terminate the offer at any time if it determines, in its sole discretion, that causes beyond its control have destroyed or severely undermined the integrity, administration, security, and/or feasibility of the offer. Gift Card terms and conditions apply.

Amex Serve digital prepaid account, load and spend $25, get $25 bonus. Fine print: Valid for new Serve account holders only through 8/31/12. Receive $25 back as a statement credit when you use your Serve card for a single purchase of $25 or more.  Neither load nor person-to-person send/receive money transactions qualify as spend transactions to receive a credit.  Statement credits may take up to seven days after the qualifying transaction to post to your account. Limit one statement credit per account. Please allow 7-10 business days after completion of account registration for your Serve card to arrive in the mail. Subaccount holders are not eligible to earn a credit and a subaccount transaction does not qualify towards earning a credit.  Offer subject to change or cancellation at any time. 

NationwideBank Visa Buxx prepaid card $25 load, get $50 bonus

Offer Code: 02010059

The $5 activation fee is waived, but there is a $2 fund load fee, so I will probably load $27 instead of $25. You load using a debit card or credit card. Select PARENT option, not a gift giver. Offer code comes up when you add a teen. Apparently, you can use the same profile info for both the parent and teen section (list yourself twice). Net bonus: $48

Total bonus potential: $83

These bonuses are perfect to put toward your vacation savings account or any other big ticket item you might be saving up for. I plan to put my bonuses toward my car replacement fund. I’ll give the prepaid cards a shot, if for some reason the bonuses are denied or don’t come through, it’s really no big deal. I’d be spending the money anyway, as I’ll use these cards for groceries or any purchases that I’d typically use a credit card on. Also, none of these cards require a credit check. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Before I go, I feel should mention that prepaid cards seem to be all the rage lately, with banks desperately trying to recoup the revenue lost when the government clamped down on processing fees last year. Banks tout the prepaid cards as good for the “unbanked” person who needs a Visa/MC/AMEX branded card but can’t or won’t get a checking account/debit card or credit card. Unfortunately, for consumers these cards often carry steep fees, so one should always read and understand the fine print. Here’s a recent news article on the subject: http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/07/02/prepaid-cards/

 Since I really have no need for a prepaid card, I will not be reloading them once they are spent. I will simply drain the initial funds and bonus as quickly as possible and then shred the card.