{"id":5167,"date":"2013-07-31T23:56:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T06:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/pointssummary\/?p=5167"},"modified":"2013-08-01T00:00:06","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T07:00:06","slug":"the-pitfalls-and-dangers-of-the-home-improvement-gift-card-higc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/pointssummary\/2013\/07\/31\/the-pitfalls-and-dangers-of-the-home-improvement-gift-card-higc\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pitfalls and Dangers of the Home Improvement Gift Card (HIGC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the four letter acronym HIGC popped up throughout the blog-o-sphere and Twitter-sphere. The Home Improvement Gift Card can be a great way to accumulate a lot of points and miles. For example, buying a $500 HIGC at Office Depot using your Chase Ink Bold or Ink Plus credit card will net you 2,500 Ultimate Rewards points because of the 5x multiplier on Gift Cards at Office Supply stores.<\/p>\n

\"higc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Million Mile Secrets highlights on his latest blog post<\/a> that \u201cThe Home Improvement card is supposed to be used only at Home Improvement stores.<\/b> It is VERY possible that at some point you will NOT<\/b> be able to use the Home Improvement card elsewhere.\u201d He also advises readers to \u201cbuy a small amount first and test to make sure you can load it at your Wal-Mart BEFORE buying larger amounts.\u00a0 You do NOT want to be stuck with large amounts of Home Improvement cards which you can\u2019t use.\u201d<\/p>\n

This can be a very addicting hobby and I warn those of you who are doing this to do so in moderation. I read through all the comments in Million Mile Secret\u2019s latest blog post<\/a> and have highlighted some interesting comments left by his readers.<\/p>\n

AZTravelGuy writes,<\/p>\n

I love that people play this game in high dollar values but fear getting stuck with $500 or $1000, unable to float that until liquidated some other way when things inevitably go pear shaped. If you have low risk tolerance why would you ever play a high risk game? I\u2019ll tell you why: greed. Too many people see this is a way to get something for nothing \u2013 many of whom shouldn\u2019t even be doing this if they\u2019re that averse to the risk.<\/p>\n

Arlan writes,<\/p>\n

Hi, I called the home improvement card number and spoke to a customer service rep to see if this was ok to do. He said it probably was not and he would let his manager know.<\/p>\n

Gary writes,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably the people who will go to OD and purchase 10K of these things that will get this deal killed quicker than those of us going and buying $500-1K at a time.<\/p>\n

John writes,<\/p>\n

Spot on Gary. It\u2019s the single transaction stack of gift cards purchased that sets off the bells and whistles, not the casual miler looking to get miles for a car payment. Apparently if you read a forum and you figure out what HIGC (tough one) you \u2018did the work\u2019 and deserve to steal the riches.<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This deal will not last long and will be killed fast, just like Vanilla Reloads and the $500 VISA Gift Cards at Office Depot. I\u2019m not sure how they will implement this, but most likely they will take the PIN functionality away from the Home Improvement Gift Card. If that\u2019s not possible, there will probably be a memo out to Office Depot to pull all the cards from the gift card rack as a temporary solution. You don\u2019t want to be stuck with the Home Improvement Gift Cards that you won\u2019t be able to liquidate. Of course there are alternatives to liquidating such as eBay or even using the HIGC themselves. Buyer Beware.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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