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OK, the first thing I want to ask you to do is to read this morning’s rookie post before you try to follow these steps. If you don’t understand the rookie post you should not attempt any of this.
Now on to the ongoing amazing deal that I posted about here on Sunday. Many are having some issues attempting to load the funds to their Bluebird cards. Lisa will next take over and walk you through the steps of how we have loaded 18 of them so far! Take it away Lisa:
Here’s how to successfully load your OM gift/debit cards into your Bluebird account. First you have to assign a PIN to all of your new OM gift/debit cards by calling the toll-free 866 number listed on the back of the packaging cardboard. Then head down to your local Walmart. If your Walmart has a banking/finance center go to the clerk there as they are more accustomed to handling these kinds of transactions. Otherwise you can go to the Customer Service desk, but my experience with this is that there is usually a line of people there waiting already. They say that you can process these transactions at any checkout clerk’s lane, but I have never tried that option.
Whatever clerk you go to, hand them the Bluebird card first and say you would like to add funds to the account. They will ask you how much, so you reply $200. The POS terminal will then display a message asking you to confirm the amount. Now you are ready to swipe your debit card. The clerk may inform you that you cannot use a credit card, and if that happens you can simply say it’s OK since you have a debit card. The screen should then display mostly blank but with 2 yellow button options for either Espanol or Change Payment, you should select change payment. The next screen gives you several payment options, select Debit, then it will ask for your PIN. After entering your PIN it will ask you how much cash you want back, you select no cash back. Then it should obtain authorization and show Approval and print a receipt. Sometimes after entering the PIN the machine rejects the transaction for some reason and shows a white screen with red error text. This will clear and you just swipe the card again and select change payment, debit, enter PIN, and no cash back. I have never had it not work the second time.
Now, you still have 2 or 5 more OM gift/debit cards in your hands though, right? So now you tell the clerk you have 2 more just like that one you would also like to add to the Bluebird account. You then follow the same process again for each of your remaining cards. Keep in mind that you can only load $1000 a day into any single Bluebird account. Once you finish loading one Bluebird account, if you have another account for say your spouse, you can then hand the second Bluebird card to the clerk and tell them you now want to do the same thing again with this account.
I have successfully loaded all of my OM gift/debit cards this way so far. It’s important to not walk in and tell them you have $1200 worth of gift cards you want to transfer to your Bluebird accounts, they will likely refuse to do this for you. I have found that the best results come from giving the clerk just one piece of information at a time, and if a line develops I offered to let them help the other customers and then finish my second Bluebird account. All of this helps the clerk to not become flustered or irritated and refuse to do any more. – Lisa
Thanks Lisa for those tips. Readers have also shared similar tips as Toni commented this:
“To everyone asking about loading these onto BB: it’s worked 100% for the hubs and I on both the ATM and having a cashier do the transaction. We’ve gone pretty crazy with this deal and it’s worked golden.”
And then from Jacob we have this equally helpful comment:
“Data Point, loading these at WM for BlueBird does indeed work. One callout I experienced, when you swipe the gift card the machine will try and process it as “credit” then immediately giving you an error “tender not accepted”. Its not new or anything, just be sure to press the “CHANGE PAYMENT” button, right in the middle of the screen after you swipe your gift card. You have about 1 second to hit it. This happened at two WM’s last night for me, before I remembered to hit that button. Just FYI, and maybe a reminder for some!”
Other things to think about and not just for this deal. If you do not have a BlueBird card yet, get one. There is NO credit pull and everyone should have one. If your wife does not have one, she should get one too. If any of your kids are over 18 they should get one too. You are missing out on too many point opportunities that this great card gets you! – René
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Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Essentially the same process for MO at WM when using the customer service/money center desk. Just remember to account for the $0.70 MO fee.
Also, to add to this post(and the rookie post)…be good to your retail employees. In the same way an incorrct phone call can ruin things, treating the people on the front lines poorly makes it difficult/impossible for all others to purchase and process deals like this.
You’ll find that store employees will frequently go out of their way to help you if you respect them and their efforts.
@Brian – GREAT point and thank you for that comment. Words to live by!
I took advantage of this deal at OM twice yesterday but ran into a snag trying to load them on to Bluebird. For some reason when the Walmart employee tried to scan my Bluebird card, it was getting a “Card read error” message. They tried several terminals and weren’t able to figure it out.
Might be something with my specific card though – I’m going to call Bluebird to see
I read your blog today and took advantage of this deal.. However, when I tried loading them on my BB, for some reason, it only allowed $400 on my account and $600 on my wife’s account.. just wouldn’t take anymore.. dunno why.. will try again tomorrow.. if it doesn’t take more tomorrow, it would seriously dampen my spirits..
Thank you Lisa! I tried this today and it worked at the registers but not at Customer Service (they had a different machine for me to swipe my card, and it never gave me a Change Payment option).
I find at ny local wally where there express atm is indefinitely out of order that the change payment option never comes up. I was able to achieve the select payment screen only by pressing cancel. Much like back in the past with debit cards in order to get them to be run as credit. Seems now the opposite is true swipes run as credit on the registers unless changed. Express machine is the way to go. Never have to explain to her how to do her job. She’s a bit over zealous announcing to the world each of my 200$ deposits though.
But of each of the times and multiple locations here never see a change payment button only cancelling bring me back to a payment selection screen. So if you steps don’t jive with the blog instructions. Try cancelling to get back to the payment selection screen OR find the four ft lady box dressed in blue in the corner.
I have loaded my BB at the checkout lines several times and it has always worked. My local WM opens at 7am, so I go in before work and load my BB. Never anyone shopping in the store and they are always happy to help.
@ Points with a crew, I have also had WM cashiers do this to me, they can’t scan the BlueBird card, they must swipe it(in my experience).
All, I also asked the WM cashiers what transaction they key to start a BlueBird load, and was told that they key “transaction 70” or “#70”, might be helpful if anyone runs into a cashier that has never loaded a BlueBird at WM before.
I’m definitely not a rookie at this, I have been using Vanilla reloads and Bluebird for over a year, $10,000 per month (between two of us), so 120,000 miles last year alone. But your entire article makes no sense today (at least for some of us), because you don’t even say what an “OM card” is?? Something different from Vanilla cards? Better? The same? Or? Thank you! Keep the info coming, love your blog.
@Jim A. – See the linked post and it will be clear. – Rene
I am wondering, can these not be offloaded into your checking account ?? do we need to offload them into BB only ??
Sorry…… I tried the link it is still unclear. But thanks for asking me to go on a hunting expedition! 🙂 No idea what an OM card is versus Vanilla. I do think anytime you are using an acronym, stating it one time at the beginning of the article would make it more helpful! 🙂
@Jim – “Office Max” as talked about in linked post 😉
What’s the fee on the OM MCs? I can do VRs, which are much easier. Does MC at OM do better than 0.79%, or only when you do it with a category bonus?
@Journey4Happy – until today they are a better deal as you get $600 for spending $581 and 5x points so you can see what a deal this was!
Ohhhh.. OM was running a special!! dang, I slept on that one. Next time…