THE POWER OF THE BLUEBIRD BY AMERICAN EXPRESS
The Bluebird has landed! The American Express Bluebird Prepaid Card is all the rage in the mile and point world since it’s launch last week. I wanted to be sure all my readers know about the power of the American Express Bluebird Prepaid Card. This card looks to be the answer to earn almost unlimited points and miles. With the American Express Bluebird virtually any bill or expense you have can be paid even the untouchable mortgage. If this interests you, keep on reading!
Bluebird Benefits
There are many benefits for the American Express Bluebird Prepaid Card but for mile and point collectors it’s the ability use their great free features to pay for expenses that in the past collectors have not been able to earn miles or points for. There are many features of the American Express Bluebird but I will only feature those that apply to the earning of miles & points.
EARNING MILES/POINTS LOADING THE BLUEBIRD
The key to earning miles and points with the American Express Bluebird is in loading of the card using a miles or point earning credit card or debit card. This is where the earning of the miles and points happens. American Express gives the option to load it’s card in ways you can use either rewards credit cards or rewards debit cards. Once the card is loaded you’ve earned your miles or points. But now the best part is American Express makes it easy for you to use that money you’ve loaded to pay your bills, buy groceries, gas or take cash out at a ATM. The ability to use prepaid cards to earning miles and points is not a new concept but the flexibility of the features to use the money on the prepaid card is what has got everyone all excited. These features have not been available for free in the past with a prepaid card.
Highest Earning Potential
- Load the Bluebird with a Vanilla Reload card.
Purchase this card from Office Depot using your Chase Ink Bold or Chase Ink PlusYou earn 5x points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent annually at office supply store.
*Note: Office Depot allows you to purchase the Vanilla Reload with a credit card.
COST: 3.95 per Vanilla reload card.
- Earning Example: 5x points per dollar
Buy 1 ($500) Vanilla Reload card with your Chase Ink Plus or Chase Ink Bold
You will earn:
$500 x 5 = 2,500 Ultimate Rewards points
Cost: $3.95
The highest earning power is with the Chase Ink Plus or Chase Ink Bold. You can still earn and profit using the Chase Sapphire Preferred and other credit cards but the real score is with Ink Plus and Ink Bold.
Note: You can load up to $1,000 per day and up to $5,000 per month using a Vanilla reload. You are allow though to store up to $10,000 on your Bluebird card.
Other earning options
- Load the Bluebird with a Vanilla Reload card.
Purchase this card from Office Depot using any miles or point earning card. - Load the Bluebird with a miles earning debit card (Example: (Delta, Alaska Air, or American Airlines) at Wal-Mart! Cost: Free (no fees).
Note: There is a $1,000 daily limit & $5,000 monthly limit for loading your Bluebird card with a debit card at Wal-Mart stores. This $1,000 limit is shared with the $1,000 daily limit for Vanilla Network reloads.
Bluebird Features
DEBIT CARD SPENDING
- You can use your card for any purchase wherever a debit card purchase is allowed.
BILL PAY
- You can pay anyone in the American Express bill pay system. If the payee is not in their system you can your own and they will mail them a check. This option allows you to pay your rent or pay anyone your wish (i.e. Contractors, House Cleaners, Maids, Nannies, etc.) Imagine earning miles/points paying your house cleaner?
- Bluebird includes most major lenders, utilities company and many more.
NOTE: There is a limit of $10,000 in payments per month for payments to businesses already listed in the Bluebird Pay Bills system.
BANK TRANSFERS
- You can also transfer money to any linked bank account from your Bluebird account.
ATM WITHDRAWLS
- Withdraw up to $500 per day (up to 3 daily withdrawals)
Maximum $2,000 per month
Service is free only if you set up Direct Deposit to your Bluebird and use a MoneyPass ATM. Otherwise there is a $2 fee per ATM withdrawal. Not bad though as many banks charge ATM fees anyways. If you use an ATM outside the MoneyPass ATM network, you will be charged an ATM fee which varies depending on the ATM machine.
WHERE TO GET A BLUEBIRD
Best way to get a Bluebird is from their website bluebird.com. Simply click “register now” and complete any easy application. Remember this card requires no credit check and has no effect on your credit. So this is a huge plus for those struggling to earning big miles and points because of less than stellar credit. Remember for those in that situation, you can use your debit earning card to load the Bluebird each month earning miles and points for all your expenses. Note: If you have an Amex Serve account, you are required to cancel that account before you can get a Bluebird account.
BLUEBIRD EARNING POWER
The American Express Bluebird has the potential to meet all your mile and point earning needs. If you really want to maximize your earning though you need to have a Chase Ink Bold or Chase Ink Plus which will give you 5X Chase Ultimate Rewards points for every dollar that goes out of your pocket. Imagine that!
I’m very excited about this new program and I’ll be loading up my American Express Bluebird this week and paying my first mortgage payment through the Bill Pay system. I’ll blog about the process to help show you the ease of the process.
This is my short and sweet summary of the program. There is obviously much more details on American Express site, www.bluebird.com. This is a very complex program and I just wanted to highlight the areas in which the program highly benefits the mile and point world. You can also find more lengthy discussions from other great sources like the Frequent Miler (guru of gift cards/prepaid card earning). I believe he was the first mile and point blogger to break the news of the Bluebird launch. He has a wealth of knowledge on this subject and I highly respect his opinions.
i wouldnt say BB is an unlimited source to earn miles. combine with Ink and max is just $50k x 5. everything else is just a 1:1 ratio. however 250k points potential is still very lucrative.
@choi – I think most people agree it’s the most powerful earning tool available right now. Things change every day though!!
Is Office Depot the only place allow you to load the BB card via Vanilla Network using a credit card? Does every reload at OD cost $3.95 fee even after the Vanilla Network card was purchased?
@wong – You can no longer buy Vanilla Reloads at Office Depot with a credit card. You can load Bluebird now with a debit card/gift card with PIN# at Walmart Money Center.
So earning points for a credit card via BB amex no longer works? I was actually going to try this at Walmart tomorrow. Can you go to a Walmart store and purchase a BB amex using a credit card and load the BB amex with a credit currently??
@Mike. Do you can not load BB with a credit card at Walmart. You can load BB with various gift cards at Walmart as BB can be loaded in Walmart with a debit card and gift cards can have a pin # set up and function like a debit card.