Five Back Visa Gift Cards

UPDATE 4/1/2017: ESSENTIALLY DEAD
'''As many of the most useful vendors have left the Five Back program - CVS, KMart, and Staples - the math just doesn't add up anymore. You're better off finding cheaper $200 load options. We recommend the Dining Everywhere VGC. We'll leave this article up for history's sake.'''

A potentially lucrative local form of Manufactured Spending
Starting in August 2016, a new form of Visa Gift card began to pop up in the racks at Office Max, Office Depot, Lowes, and Winn-Dixie that had a promise of 5% back when spent at certain merchants - the Five Back Visa Gift Card:

Why should I care about these versus other gift cards?
Because if you're willing to put in the work, these cards can always be profitable. That means manufactured spending not at a cost, but at a profit. The general consensus is that free money is best money!

Is there a catch?
Of course there is. The use of these cards profitably involves one more step than the typical VGC -> MO -> Bank loop. That and it may require you to call Blackhawk Network, a place notorious for having awful customer service, to get things straight. See below.

Where do I get this 5% back? Where is this useful for manufactured spending?
The list of available merchants is at FiveBackGift.com, but for manufactured spending CVS is most useful. You also get 5% back at Lowe's so could be useful if you're purchasing store gift cards for Gift Card Arbitrage there.

Okay, I'm willing to give it a shot. How do I use the Five Back Gift Card?

 * 1) Check eBates first - log onto eBates.com and go to “In-Store Cash Back” and see if there are any options for in-store cash back for Office Depot/Max. There's always the risk that they'll "claw back" your purchase but if you register and add the credit card you're going to use to buy the Five Backs there's a possibility of some extra cash in your pocket
 * 2) Purchase your Five Back visa gift cards at OfficeMax/OfficeDepot or Winn-Dixie with a card that preferably earns at 5x at Office Supply stores (Chase Ink Plus/Cash, American Express SimplyCash) or a store with a good grocery bonus for Winn-Dixie purchases (PenFed, American Express Everyday Preferred, American Express Hilton Honors Surpass). For the purpose of this demonstration we’re going to purchase 5 of them at a cost of $1034.75, netting us 5174 UR via the Chase Ink Plus card.
 * 3) Take your 5-$200 Five Back GC and go to CVS [EDIT: DEAD EARLY 2017]. Purchase 2x OneVanilla VGC for $500 and pay with your newly acquired 5 Five Back VGC. You'll have $9.90 left over to cover the fees - more about that later. On your first try just use any credit card you want. CVS will limit to 6 forms of tender per transaction, so don't try to get more than 2. Two other bits of note on this step: You have two options - paying with the Five Backs as Credit or as Debit.
 * 4) As Credit : Slower. Cashier will need to either see the card or manually enter the last 4 digits with each card purchase. Benefit is that the 5% cash back will be automatically added to the card within 48h.
 * 5) As Debit : Faster at the register but cash back is slower. You do not need to tell the cashier you want a split transaction as CVS will automatically drain the entire balance of your card. Simply swipe the Five Back card, select “Debit”, use the last 4 digits of your Five Back VGC as the pin, and it will subtract $200 from the total. Repeat 4 more times and now you have effectively drained all your Five Back VGCs initial value. You will need to call BHN (see below) and ask them to manually put your 5% on your cards, but they wont do this until after 48h following purchase.
 * 6) DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR FIVE BACK VGCS! Within 48h after purchase, each of these gift cards should credit back 5% of the money spent at CVS, meaning you’ll get $10 back on each of these cards!
 * 7) Take your OneVanilla to a grocery store or USPS (not Walmart) and buy your money orders.
 * 8) Deposit the MO back to whatever bank you choose

That seems like a lot of work, is it worth it? What does it net me?
Whether the work is worth it to you is the eternal struggle of time vs money. This takes more time.

Let's look at the total cost, again for our example of 5x $200 Five Back VGC: Now let's look at what we're getting back from our 5x $200 Five Back VGC from our example purchased with a Chase Ink Plus: Total Net: $101.74 - $45.83 = $55.91 per $1000 of VGC purchased at OfficeMax/Depot, or $11.18 profit per card ($15.37 if eBates used)
 * Cost of Initial Five Back VGC Purchases: $34.75 (5x at cost of $6.95 each)
 * Cost of Two OneVanilla VGC from CVS: $9.90 (2x at cost of $4.95 each)
 * Cost of Two Money Order from Winn-Dixie: $1.18 (2x at cost of $0.59 each)
 * Total Cost: $45.83
 * Credit Card points earned on Five Back VGC Purchase: 5174 UR (worth at bare minimum $51.74 assuming a ghastly 1cpp for UR)
 * “Cash Back” earned purchasing OneVanilla VGC from CVS: $50
 * Potential eBates 3% Cash Back: $31.04 [if available and not "clawed-back"]
 * Total Gain: $101.74 if redeeming UR at 1cpp; $132.78 if eBates 3% available

Wow, that's a good deal...but I don't have a 5x earning card. Still worth it?
Well then the math absolutely changes. Let’s look at 3 other options: a card earning 2% (such as Citi DoubleCash, Fidelity Visa), a card earning 1.5x (Chase Freedom Unlimited, AMEX Everyday Preferred with the transaction bonus), and cards earning 1% and see what the results show in the same example of buying $1000 in VGC (5x $200 Five Back VGC at $6.95 each): For all cards, the Cash Back you obtain from purchasing OneVanilla VGC from CVS remains the same, $50 Using a 2x earning card: Using a 1.5x earning card: Using a 1x earning card:
 * For all cards, the cost remains the same as the example above, $45.83
 * For all cards, if eBates is available with 3% cash-back the amount remains the same, $31.04
 * As this may disappear, we'll leave eBates cash-back out of the calculations below.
 * Cash back earned on $1034.75 VGC purchase: $20.69 (assuming 1cpp)
 * Total Net = 20.69 + 50 - 45.83 = $24.86 profit total or $4.97 profit per card purchased
 * Cash back earned on $1034.75 VGC purchase: $15.52 (assuming 1cpp)
 * Total Net = 15.52 + 50 - 45.83 = $19.69 profit total or $3.93 profit per card purchased
 * Cash back earned on $1034.75 VGC purchase: $10.34 (assuming 1cpp)
 * Total Net = 10.34 + 50 - 45.83 = $14.51 profit total or $2.90 profit per card purchased

So what does this mean for me?
It means that if you can be patient, and if you have a plan for further liquidating the 5% reward from the Five Back cards, despite the earning rate on your card you’ll always make a profit buying these cards if you liquidate them at CVS. This makes them an invaluable tool for MS and for meeting any minimum spend requirement.

So what do I do with a stack of cards with $10 on them?
Here are some ideas we've had for these "orphaned" Five Backs:
 * Keep them to pay fees on other future Vanilla VGC purchased at CVS. They auto-drain so can use as many as you need.
 * Buy Amazon or any other store GC - either online or at CVS (and get an additional 5% or 0.50 back per card). If you're going to spend money at a store anyway, it's free money.
 * Combine multiple GC to buy another OneVanilla VGC. CVS will limit you to 10 swipes so max is $95.05 (to account for the purchase fee of one VGC)
 * Purchase an MO with the leftover Five Backs to recoup some of your fees you originally paid.
 * Might be worth keeping a Sharpie in your car and keeping the balance left on each card

So this seems like a no-brainer. Why wouldn't I want to do this?
The obvious first answer is that this requires an extra step in the process, a plan for how to deal with your $10 orphaned cards, and a system of organization to keep track of your expenditures. Putting a big X on the back of a card with a Sharpie is an easy way to track whether it's a full $200 card or an orphaned $10 card.

The second answer is that sometimes the system is a bit janky - CC based Five Back purchases post cash back right away but Debit based Five Back purchases need to be called in. Per the terms at the website, funds should automatically be added to your card within 48 hours but after data points in our Slack channel and the flyertalk thread, this rarely ever happens. We have had success by calling BlackHawk Network's customer service at 1-844-201-8796 and they will open up a service ticket, take down the numbers of all your cards, and manually add the $10 per card. So if you're going to do this, do it with multiple cards at once - 5-10 at a minimum - and they will activate them all within 1 business day. So if you can't float this delay, don't do it.

Head back to Manufactured Spending Home or read about other VGC.