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Bluebird

The basics:

Sign up for a free account from Bluebird. Wait 7-10 business days to receive the card. If you have a Serve account, you will need to cancel it and then wait about 30 days before signing up. You need to wait for your physical BB card before you can proceed here.

Please note: As of the beginning of July 2014, you can load a maximum of $2500 a day at a WM register or ATM, up to $5,000 each calendar month into your Bluebird (hereafter: "BB") account. As of September 4, 2014, you can also load an additional $200/day with a debit card, up to $1000/month, though this might be risky, see below, II.4.

You can find answers to many questions here: https://www.bluebird.com/faqs?linknav=us-Prepaid-Bluebird-Home-Faqs#bluebird-checks And here: https://www.bluebird.com/ (just scroll down instead of clicking 'log in')

How to load it:

"Gift" cards (GCs)
Mastercard (MC) and Visa GCs have PIN codes that will make the cards function as debit cards. GCs may be used to load up your BB account in any Walmart, as will be explained below, or to get cash back when purchasing with them. Note that not all GCs work this way. Those from Metabank do, as do others. AMEX GCs are not capable of working with a PIN. They can only be used as gift cards. GCs for a specific business or store (iTunes or Home Depot or whatever) will never work in the ways described here. Note that 'Vanilla' brand GCs can no longer  be loaded to BB.

1. Buy Visa or MC GCs. The larger the denomination the better, since the fee-to-balance ratio will be better. Buy them anywhere, but you get the most out of this if you buy them with a CC that pays more than 1 point per dollar at that store at that time.

2. You will need a PIN for each GC. If you bought a MC GC, call the number on the back of the card or go online to set a PIN. If you bought a Visa, the last four digits of the card number will usually work, as long as you have not used the card yet. If you have used it, you had to set a PIN, so use that.
The # for US Bank MC Gift Cards is 1-866-952-5653. 1/2/<16 digit cc>#/<3 digits from back>#/3/PIN#/PIN#.

3. Go to Walmart (WM).

There are two suggested ways to load the GCs to BB at WM. Via a MoneyPass ATM (preferred) or via any cashier. Neither method charges an additional fee to what you paid when you bought the card. Please do not go to the service desk. Certainly do not refer to the GCs as gift cards, as they are, in fact, debit cards.

3a. MoneyPass ATMs

Not all WMs have MoneyPass ATMs, and MoneyPass ATMs at non-WM locations will not work to load BB. You can search for MoneyPass ATMs at WMs here: http://www.moneypass.com/atm-locator.aspx

Some report that MoneyPass ATMs in WMs near areas with high concentrations of DDFers seem to be permanently out of service. You may need to go farther afield or use the other method, mentioned below.

Follow the instructions on the machine to load your BB card. In some cases, the "WM Money Card" option will work for BB as well. Be patient and careful with your card swipes, as the machines are often slow or touchy. Each GC will be a separate transaction. Remember, the maximum of $2,500/day per BB account always applies.

If you are using high-denomination GCs, have found a very quick ATM, had a fellow BBer ahead of you, or are just experienced and able to complete each transaction very quickly, it is possible that you will complete $2,000 of transactions within about 10 minutes, which locks up the ATM for a while. Take a walk around the store and come back to let the machine unlock.

3b. Cashier

Please remember to be friendly, considerate and compassionate in all your interactions.

Ask a cashier to load your BB account from a debit card. If they don't know how, tell them to use 70 action code (they may need to type 70 first, followed by "action code") and follow the instructions on their screen. They are able to split a single transaction into up to four different cards, but it can be simpler to add one GC at a time, especially with people waiting behind you on line. You can then go back around to the same or another cashier to add other cards. Again, the $2,500/day per BB account applies.

This method should work at any WM - as intended by the BB product - but there are many stores in which some or all of the staff and management are suspicious of such transactions and will not do it. Your chances of convincing them to do something they think will risk their jobs is slim to none so if you encounter such resistance, please: Do take no for an answer and leave courteously to try another store or another day.
You want to stay under the radar as much as possible, so if things start getting complicated, tell them that you just remembered that you need to pick your kid up from school or whatever (have a good excuse ready beforehand) and that you need to leave, but you'll be back later. Th is way they forgot about their suspicions much faster.

4. It is apparently possible to load up to $200 per day to BB from debit cards on the BB web site for free, up to $1000 per month. Please note that people have had their BB accounts frozen or shut down for using GCs to load BB online, and that the BB site clearly says that any debit card used must be in the BB account holder's name. You have been warned.

Using A MC GC
Frequently a MC is declined at WM

When using the moneypass ATM, press the button ABOVE the BB button.  It may work without the following workaround.
The workaround is to:
1. Swipe MC
2.If you have the black and green screen press Cancel.If you have the white screen with colored touch icons, then right after you swipe a yellow 'change payment' button well pop up for a second, press that (you have to be fast).  You can also push the physical yellow button on the keypad. It does the same thing.
3. Select Debit
4. No Cash Back
5. Enter the PIN

Also seems to work if only $99 loaded.  or 99.99, too.

What to do with the money on your BB:

On the BB site, money can be sent to pay bills that don't normally accept CCs (think rent/mortgage, tuition, insurance, car payment, gas bill, even pay your cc bill) or to anyone in the U.S. for free. Use the 'pay and transfer tab'.  Checks sent online this way are delivered within 5 business days. (It may be prudent not to use BB to directly pay the CC on which you purchased the VRs/GCs that funded BB, but, once again, YMMV.)

Some people would rather use the free physical checks that you can order from BB. Please note that these checks need to be pre-authorized by you online, and a number written on them, before you give them to the person/institution you are paying. For checks of more than $2,000, authorization will require additional information and time. You need to provide the information and wait for confirmation before the check will be valid.

The money in your BB account can be withdrawn directly to a linked bank account, which, if done too much, may be seen as risky by BB, but in moderation should be fine. You can also send money to your bank account online by check, same as any other payee, but this might be risky from the perspective of the bank (not BB) if you bank and have CCs at the same institution.

Useful organizing techniques:

It can be unwieldy and confusing when standing in front of the WM ATM with a BB card or two and a bunch of GCs, some used, some not. The last thing anyone wants is to end up throwing away several hundred dollars on a perfectly good GC because you mistakenly thought it was drained. I'm sure there are contributors to this thread who have woken up in a cold sweat from just such a nightmare. Plus, being unorganized costs you time, and may make it more likely that some employee thinks you are up to something. Here are a few strategies for how to be organized.

1. Cargo pants, or other clothing/accessories with plenty of different pockets. Use different pockets for GCs yet to use and used GCs.

2. If you have more than one BB card, shuffle them into the stack of GCs at the appropriate spots for how many GCs you plan to load to each card. That way, you can just work through the stack and finish/begin each new BB card in turn.

3. A Sharpie marker works well for marking off GCs or BBs that you're done with. The marks even come off the cards with a little alcohol. Careful not to mark yourself or your clothes though.

4. Sort your GCs in ascending order of last 4 digits.  That makes it easier to keep track of which GCs are used.

To Close Your Bluebird:
While logged into your BB account, open this page: https://secure.bluebird.com/Profile/CloseAccount   

This no longer works and the only way to close your account is to call
For more details, including how to close family accounts, see (FM writeup)
« Last edited by justmeha on January 11, 2020, 11:55:46 PM »

Author Topic: Bluebird: Now you can pay bills that don`t take credit card with a credit card  (Read 2264339 times)

Offline HelpMe

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Unfortunately this leaves us (the community) a problem - we can't openly discuss ideas and collectively formulate strategies to take advantage of such ideas because the ideas get too public too quickly and thus die. Yet without the open discussion, many ideas either never come to fruition or are not managed as lucratively as possible.
Going to have to disagree with this. Private forums is where you want to exploit these deals. They do a better job than all the forums/blogs combined out there. I know that is a bold statement but it is what it is.
"Elvis Has Left The Building"

Offline HelpMe

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"we" make no difference. The bloggers do it much louder than we ever could on these deals.
I think "we" have proven this is not always true.  ;)
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Offline PETERP

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Agreed. Its not only all the publicity the blogs get (google vanilla reload and they come up before the company does), its also the general lack of understanding of the blog's viewers. They are the people who call in 5 times to confirm things, draw extra attention to everything detail of the process (asking managers for example if their card still earns points even though they are buying a prepaid reload), etc.

Anybody who wants to follow a thread, actually learn whats going on, and carefully take advantage is not doing any harm. Those who run around trying to get free miles as quickly and easily as possible without really doing any research first are the ones who get these deals killed so quickly.

Unfortunately this leaves us (the community) a problem - we can't openly discuss ideas and collectively formulate strategies to take advantage of such ideas because the ideas get too public too quickly and thus die. Yet without the open discussion, many ideas either never come to fruition or are not managed as lucratively as possible.

Not quite sure what we can do about that though. This is why alot of FT has turned to discussing deals in Private Message, but that's just inefficient and going against the whole purpose of a forum.

Plus lazy bloggers can just pick off info and strategies from forums , and sometimes we make their
job easier. No one said it was going to be easy , but we have to make it as difficult as possible for the
spoon feeding newbie bloggers . 
Sometimes the purpose of a forum may remain the same , but adjustments to accessibility be made.

A la IRC  day traders etc which are I believe more controlled or at least they used to be
« Last Edit: November 11, 2012, 10:16:41 AM by PETERP »

Offline HelpMe

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Plus lazy bloggers can just pick off info and strategies from forums , and sometimes we make their
job easier. No one said it was going to be easy , but we have to make it as difficult as possible for the
spoon feeding newbie bloggers . 
Sometimes the purpose of a forum may remain the same , but adjustments to accessibility be made.

A la IRC  day traders etc which are I believe more controlled or at least they used to be
You also want to look for deals that carry some risk and need some capital to do. These deals the bloggers can't sell to their readers.
"Elvis Has Left The Building"

Offline A3

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Bluebird: Now you can pay bills that don`t take credit card with a credit card
« Reply #264 on: November 11, 2012, 10:24:35 AM »
I went to an OD last night they were out of stock. This morn they had 8 on the shelf. I bought 4 no problem and left another 4 for the population.

The check out lady asked what I do with them. I told them my kids have ore paid cards and that's how I distribute funds to them

Offline HelpMe

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I went to an OD last night they were out of stock. This morn they had 8 on the shelf. I bought 4 no problem and left another 4 for the population.

The check out lady asked what I do with them. I told them my kids have ore paid cards and that's how I distribute funds to them
I have a store about 25 miles away that someone hid about 15 of them behind other GC's. ;D  Now I might take a ride.
"Elvis Has Left The Building"

Offline A3

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Bluebird: Now you can pay bills that don`t take credit card with a credit card
« Reply #266 on: November 11, 2012, 10:41:12 AM »
I have a store about 25 miles away that someone hid about 15 of them behind other GC's. ;D  Now I might take a ride.

Good luck. Post back.
I guess it is NOT officially dead

Offline compddd

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Million Mile Secrets loves killing deals

Offline A3

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Bluebird: Now you can pay bills that don`t take credit card with a credit card
« Reply #268 on: November 11, 2012, 11:42:03 AM »
Million Mile Secrets loves killing deals


Is it dead? My experience it worked this morn. And the OD even restocked their shelves over last night.

Offline Yitz

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I went to an OD last night they were out of stock. This morn they had 8 on the shelf. I bought 4 no problem and left another 4 for the population.

The check out lady asked what I do with them. I told them my kids have ore paid cards and that's how I distribute funds to them
What City

Offline A3

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Offline aussiebochur

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Memo to remove VR, http://i.imgur.com/lIuZZ.jpg

Offline ADanFan

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Memo to remove VR, http://i.imgur.com/lIuZZ.jpg

That directive originated from Chase?
From Office Depot?

If we buy Amex Premium Reloadables from OD, can we get some cash from an ATM?

Offline Yehoshua

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VR may be dead, but what about buying a regular visa or MC GC from OD and then using that at CVS or wherever VR cards are still sold?  Might not be 5x on Ink cards, but still better than 1x.

Offline eis517

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I found VR cards at my local CVS today in NYC!!!! bought 4 of them on 2 diff cards....  first time I found them in nyc!!!!

Offline Yitz

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I found VR cards at my local CVS today in NYC!!!! bought 4 of them on 2 diff cards....  first time I found them in nyc!!!!
what are the benefit of getting it at CVS if you only get 1 point

Offline Yehoshua

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At least they're available to be purchased with CC.

Offline Dan

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what are the benefit of getting it at CVS if you only get 1 point
1. Buying miles/points at 0.79 cents each is darn good.
2. If you can use the purchase to meet a spend threshold it's even better.
Save your time, I don't answer PM. Post it in the forum and a dedicated DDF'er will get back to you as soon as possible.

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1. Buying miles/points at 0.79 cents each is darn good.
2. If you can use the purchase to meet a spend threshold it's even better.
+1

Offline yare

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I found VR cards at my local CVS today in NYC!!!! bought 4 of them on 2 diff cards....  first time I found them in nyc!!!!
if you want them to last the day you prob shouldn't announce where that is