gochoo

I was able to sign up for both Bluebird and Serve under 1 social security #. I see that in the fine print that it says you can have all 3 AMEX prepaid product's: Bluebird, Serve, Red Card.

"Can I have additional American Express Reloadable Prepaid Products?

Yes, if you already have a Bluebird by American Express Account, you are still eligible to register for:

American Express Serve Account
Target Prepaid REDcard by American Express® Account."

Is this a new change?

bullfrog23414

I'm not sure why you would want a RedCard, it's dead for MS.

Others may disagree or have some way that they think they've been able to keep their accounts opened, but my advice would be to max out your loads for 2 months ($5k/account) and then wait patiently for your shut down email. Also, I'm not sure when the change went into effect, but I signed up for Serve and BB in February when I was belatedly getting into the game. I didn't even realize that there was, at one time, a restriction on having only 1 account until I started reading the archives.

gochoo

I don't want a Target Red Card. Like you said, its dead for MS. Just stating that it looks like they lifted the restriction on only being able to have 1 of the 3 cards.

I've had a Serve for many years now and have yet to be shutdown. Glad that I can grab a bluebird as well now.

NoonRadar

Yeah, recently Amex lifted the one prepaid per SSN restriction, not sure when but a couple of people told me a few weeks ago, I waited until they got their permanent cards to have complete data points. I also tested it myself later and wrote a few details about it. Basically if you want to get more than one prepaid Amex card, register for the new account with the same email & phone nr as your current prepaid Amex account. Also keep in mind that once you get more than one prepaid card, you can't send or receive money from other prepaid accounts even if they are on other people's name. Amex says this restriction is temporary.

A few people asked if this changes anything for people that were blacklisted by Amex after their acct was closed by Amex: It does not.

missing_link

Would have loved this a year ago. Given how few KATEs there are around now, I think Serve/BB is more of a hassle than other methods.

benny08

Of course they lifted this restriction after they shut everyone down. There is no point of having more than 1 of AMEX prepaid card unless you really want to manage your money with these cards.

cdog999

My serve got shutdown but wife's bluebird didn't. Does this mean I apply for a serve card for her so can load 5000 a month to both her serve and bluebird?

gochoo

That's basically what these changes mean. You can load $5000 on the serve and $5000 on the bluebird.

danhouston

wow, still have the serve for yrs. have u done all to the acct (i.e. amex cc load, ACH transfer & bill pay, regular use in spending), and at what volume/amt? or have u excluded any?

cdog999

Sweet, this will be helpful now that all the Walmarts by me are enforcing a 1 transaction limit per person for MOs, which means only 4 swipes

EDIT: Just tried to sign wife up. Used same info that is on her Bluebird account. Hmmm...

gochoo

I buy fixed amount visa gift cards from office supply stores. I've been buying them on staples.com ever since they introduced the $300 ones that have an $8.95 fee. I buy 16 a month using my Chase Ink, which comes out to $4943.20 in spend a month at the 5X category and amounts to $4800 that I can load at walmart. I use to load via Kate, but all 4 walmarts in my area just switched to normal style ATM's in the last 3 weeks. I now just go to cashier's.

Once money is loaded onto my serve, I use it as my primary card. I use it for all spend. Only when my Chase Ink Statement is due, is when I will make a payment to the card with whatever is left over in my Serve account.

I know people say the way I'm doing my MF is not that great because i'm losing out on the opportunity to earn points using a credit card instead of using the Serve card. But my mentality has always been make AMEX some money so I that I look like a good customer to them. Cashing out the money without intending to use the Serve card as originally intended by AMEX didn't seem right to me. To each his own.

That's literally all i do. I've never done non-AMEX CC loads when it use to be allowed, and I never do AMEX loads now. I never pay off any of my other AMEX products with Serve. Only my Chase or Citi cards that i have.

Making a payment to my credit card is the only thing that I do with my Serve card that doesn't make AMEX money.

Lately i've decided that Ultimate Rewards points are the most valuable to me due to my travel patterns and I have no intentions of doing MF with any other product besides the Chase Ink.

I max at the $50K spend limit on office supply categories in about 10 months. I'm content with getting 250K UR Points a year. That gives me at least 2 business class international round trips a year (depending on where you go and the transfer partner you choose) for me and my lady to travel. I've never had a problem securing seats because I always book almost a year in advance.

My strategy has me spending about $1450 in gift card fees a year (use to be a lot less when Vanilla reloads were readily available). $1450 for 2 business class seats for international travel is a steal. I just think of it as setting aside $120 a month for a vacation savings fund.

I know this strategy isn't for everyone, but it's worked for me for years and I have yet to be shut down. Knock on wood.

Just need to figure out what additional non AMEX product I want to MF now that I can have a bluebird too.

gochoo

Here's a data point.

I signed up for bluebird using different credentials than my Serve and was approved. Using same address and social, but different email and username.