Tuesday, July 21, 2015

my Simon mall gift certificate buying experiment

A challenge in my new endeavor is to acquire enough gift cards. I shop at all the local drugstore chains but I am always looking for other options.  One I had not explored yet is Simon malls. Reading online I see that in general the policy at the malls is to allow 10K a day in purchases of gift cards and the fees are slightly lower than the drug stores. These are both good things. All malls seem to be a bit different in what they follow so I knew a visit was the only way to know for sure.

I went to http://www.simon.com/search/your-location and discovered that there were two Simon malls in my area (both about 30 minutes away. To try and figure out if they sold gift cards I looked at the map of the mall. I checked out the first one but it does not appear that they sell gift cards, luckily the second one had the icon. So, off I went.

I arrived at the mall and found the information kiosk at 11:15, only to find a sign that says closed until 12 noon. I guess the only person working the booth had gone to lunch. I left to go run a few other errands and came back. This time a lady was there. She asked me what I was looking for and I told her I wanted 3K in Visa gift cards. She asked me if I had bought there before. I told her I had not, she then grabbed a form that needed to be filled out to purchase the cards. After mentioning I would be back to buy more in the future, she told me that they would make copies of my form so I did not have to fill it out again next time.

All in all this was a very painless experience. I will definitely go back to get more cards. This will not replace any of my current sources as they either accept AmEx gift cards or gets a bonus category on credit card, both of which increase my profit. 

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