8% eBay Bucks for Many, Some Gift Card Deals Now Make Sense

Old Deals Get Better

We wrote yesterday about two profitable gift card churns on eBay, one with Toys R Us gift cards and one with TGI Friday’s gift cards.

Just today, eBay released an offer to many of us of 8% back in eBay Bucks. This really would sweeten those two deals mentioned, the problem being that the Toys R Us deal is already sold out. If you haven’t jumped on the TGI deal yet, the added 6% in Bucks really makes it a great deal.

This is what we were referring to when we wrote about Timing Your Ebay Purchases.

• Buy $250 in TGI gift cards for $200. Resell them at break-even rates
• Get $16 in Bucks (8%)
• Get $2.20 back from the portal
• Get 2% or $4 from credit card points
• Total profit from TGI alone: $22.20

Not bad! The main issue here is that there are less than 2000 cards remaining and they may sell out soon.

New Deals to Consider

There are a number of other gift card deals going on eBay which weren’t profitable from a reselling standpoint yesterday, but have become considerable today.

The main idea now is the Sephora gift cards. Pay $50 for a $60 card (at least that’s how I interpret the deal based on the Terms), that’s around a 17% discount. These are e-gift cards and Paypal often makes it difficult for many to purchase those, but if it’s working for you, it may be possible to sell them to Saveya for 80% of its value. You will lose around 3% on the sale, but you’ll get back around 9% from the Bucks and portal.

• Pay $100 for $120 in gift cards. Resell them for $96.
• Get back $8  $6 in Bucks (since it’s under $150, it will only earn 3% back)
• $1.10 from the portal
• $2 from the credit card at 2%
• Total: $7.10  $5.10 profit

The total isn’t amazing but it’s all from your computer in a few minutes time.

Other Options

Other things which can now be considered for reselling purposes:

• $100 Babies R Us gift cards for $90. The 9.1% from Bucks and portal can bring it to about break-even levels and can be useful for meeting a minimum spend or liquidating eBay gift cards.
• $200 Hyatt gift card for $175. The 9.1% can make it slightly better than break-even.
• There’s also Aeropostale gift cards on sale, but not much resell potential there.

My Plan

So did I wait and time my eBay gift card purchases properly, since the 23-25th of the month historically gets Bucks offers as noted in that post?

No, I didn’t (though I wish I had). Why? Mostly, because I’m on a dysfunctional computer for the next week or two and each page loaded takes time and patience. I was also a little concerned over the low numbers of available TGI cards, although they ended up holding out just fine.

I would love to get in on the Sephora deal, but I’m out of state and Paypal sees my IP address as someplace far from my home and they aren’t happy about that….