Target’s Prepaid Redcard might be the best manufactured spending tool we’ve had over the last few years. It offered 100% free loads directly with a rewards-earning credit card, and you could turn around and pay off that credit card the next minute through your Redbird account.
Well, today (5/5/15) is the last day that’s true. At least according to Dansdeals, who heard it from a reader and then verified it himself.
Note that the memo (according to Dansdeals) says that credit card transactions will no longer be allowed, but that doesn’t mean debit card (or for our purposes, PIN-enabled gift cards) will also be disallowed. We also don’t yet know if credit cards will be denied by the system or if it rely on staff to decline them. These are experiments that will have to be run in the coming days.
Regardless, that’s a massive blow to the manufactured spend community. And really, anyone that’s been in this game for a couple of years or more knows that this day was coming, and many are surprised it even lasted this long. It certainly was just too good to last.
But don’t worry…it’s not the end of the world! I wrote a comparison post of Redbird versus Bluebird a while back, and in it I actually decided that I personally benefit more from Bluebird than Redbird. If you’re looking to manufacture $10K or more per month, I’d definitely say Bluebird (or other methods) are better than Redbird.
Not that Target’s card wasn’t useful to me – indeed I maxed it out every month in just a matter of minutes. But it really was too good to last.
Remember, when one deal dies, another one is not too far behind. Just be sure to take advantage of Bluebird before that door is closed as well!
I am maintaining an up-to-date list of working gift cards for Redbird, as reported on various blogs: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+NoonRadar/posts/QZ1eCSFrdCG
Please let me know if you have tested a different type of gift card from what’s mentioned there. Thank you.
Thanks for the list!