Get Free Money with the Amex Bluebird and Office Depot

We recently wrote about the game-changing American Express Bluebird and its potential to reshape the prepaid conversation around cost, not marketing materials. But as the Frequent Miler points out, the Bluebird isn’t just for people who don’t want or can’t get free checking. It’s also the base of a nifty rewards hack: With cards that give a bonus on office supplies, you can score big rewards just for paying off your bills.

Update November 13th, 2012: According to Frequent Miler, this deal is no more: Office Depot managers have been given notice to pull their inventory of Vanilla cards.

How it works

1. Order the Bluebird online (it costs $5 in-store).
2. Get a card that gives bonus rewards on office supplies.
3. Buy a Vanilla reload pack from Office Depot for $3.95. Since the Ink cards give 5% back on office supply purchases, you’ll need to load the card with at least $80 to turn a profit on any given load.
   • Make sure you’re buying a Vanilla Reload pack, not a Vanilla prepaid gift card.
   • You can load up to $1,000 a day or $5,000 per month – that’s $46.05 a day or $230.25 a month in rewards, after accounting for the Vanilla reload pack fee.
4. Use the money on the Bluebird to pay off your bills – perhaps the bill for the same credit card you used to make the purchase.
5. Hope that Amex doesn’t take this perk away, like they did the unlimited 6% rewards on groceries.

This idea of buying card loads or prepaid cards to earn rewards can also be applied to gift cards for other merchants. If you shop often at Starbucks, let’s say, you can pick up a prepaid gift card at the Office Depot register and effectively earn 5% rewards on Starbucks purchases.

Ink Bold® Business Card
	Earn 50,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months from account opening. No interest charges because it's a pay in full charge card. Earn 5X points per dollar in select business categories. 1:1 point transfer to leading frequent travel programs. No foreign transaction fees Direct access to a live service advisor anytime. $0 Intro Annual Fee for the first year, then $95.		Pros No foreign transaction fee Cons Has annual fee

Cards to use

• The American Express SimplyCash, which gives 5% on office supplies up to $12,500 spent annually
• The Capital One Venture, which gives an unlimited 2% rewards on all purchases. You’d have to load about $200 each time to make up for the Vanilla’s fees with the Capital One Venture Rewards.

What makes the Bluebird different in this trick is that you can cycle your money through by paying $1,000 ($1,003.95 with the fee) to load the card, and then using that $1,000 to pay off your credit card balance, picking up $50 along the way.

The downside – no FDIC insurance

The biggest drawback of the Bluebird its that its funds aren’t FDIC-insured. If American Express goes under, you’ll lose all the money in your account.

The upsides – there are a lot of ‘em

On the bright side, you do get a number of checking-account-style perks and protections

• Fraud liability. If you notify Amex within 2 days of your card being lost or stolen, your liability is limited to $50. If you don’t, liability could be as high as $500.
• Mobile check deposit. You can deposit checks into your account via an iPhone or Android app.
• Multiple accounts. You can set up multiple accounts for family members, with different daily spending limits and the ability to turn ATM access off or on.

You also get some perks that are normally reserved for premium credit cards:

• Purchase protection, if something you buy is damaged within 90 days of purchase
• Global Assist and roadside assistance
• Customer service, which, while not ideal for getting flowers on February 14th, is a nice thing to have on a prepaid card
•  Entertainment access, which includes priority or exclusive access to concerts, sporting events, etc.

It’s quite an exciting card, and this hack simply reinforces the mantra: The Bluebird is for everyone.

SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express	Capital One® VentureSM Rewards Credit Card
Signing Promo
Flexible 0% introductory APR terms on purchases.	Earn 10,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,000 on purchases within the first 3 months, equal to $100 in travel
Intro APR Promo
0% on Purchases for 6, 9, or 12 months	Purchase: None Bal Trans: None
Annual fee
N/A	$0 intro for first year; $59 after that
Details
With no annual membership fee, it's a smart choice for your business Automatic cash back - cash back is earned on eligible purchases and automatically credited to your statement 5% at U.S. office supply stores & on wireless telephone services purchased directly from U.S. service providers 3% at U.S. gas stations 1% on other purchases Up to $12,000 in purchases in each 5% and 3% category per rebate year, then 1%. Terms and limitations apply	2 miles per dollar on every purchase, every day As seen in Money® Magazine's "Best" issue three years in a row. - Money® Magazine May 2010, 2011, 2012 Earn 10,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,000 on purchases within the first 3 months, equal to $100 in travel Redeem your miles for any travel expense No limit on the miles you can earn and miles don't expire Fly on any airline, any time with no blackout dates No foreign transaction fees $0 intro annual fee for the first year; $59 after that