Using CIC -> Gift Card -> Gift of College -> Student Loan Servicer

Using the Chase Ink Cash in this way nets 10k points for every $2,000 spent, resulting in $59.50 in fees. That’s in addition to the sign-up bonus.

For comparison, if the CIC was used directly through GoC, it would net 2k points for every $2,000 (515×3 + 455) spent, resulting in about $55 in fees. So it’s an extra 24k UR points.

Documenting here how this worked out for me.

As a test, I bought 3x $200 MasterCard Gift Cards from Staples during their no fee period. I haven’t systematically used Gift Cards to pay for things in the past.

I activated them at https://mcgift.giftcardmall.com/. I tried using them without activation and that didn’t work. (Eeek first time trying this)

On Gift of College’s website, there are three ways in which I can make a payment:

  1. Under the My Profile tab, after selecting the loan to pay for. “Please select the plan you want to make a contribution to:”. Here, I can make payments to a credit card for up to $500 with a $15 fee (3%). However, the fee doesn’t scale for smaller amounts, and for a $200 payment I’m looking at more than $10 in fees (5%). And it doesn’t let me split a $515 payment over multiple cards. So this option is not optimal for using $200 MasterCard gift cards.
  2. Under the “Gift Cards” tab, it lets me buy an online gift card. I buy $194.05, and $5.95 is charged in fees, and it delivers via email. The first one took a minute to deliver, but the second one is taking much longer. Maybe they are manually reviewed. Once they are delivered via email, I get the Gift Code and PIN, which I enter at the GoC website under Profile -> Select Loan -> Redeem Gift Card.
  3. The Gift Cards can also be purchased in physical form, to be mailed. Which is unnecessary. It costs the same as #2.

Using the Chase Ink Cash in this way nets 10k points for every $2,000 spent, resulting in $59.50 in fees. That’s in addition to the sign-up bonus.

For comparison, if the CIC was used directly through GoC, it would net 2k points for every $2,000 (515×3 + 455) spent, resulting in about $55 in fees. Or a CIU card would net 3k points. So it’s an extra 24k UR points if the entirety of a $6,000 Chase Ink Cash card minimum spend is met solely through student loan payments. The difference in fees is negligible.

There’s the looming risk of picking up a tampered Visa/MC gift card.. but beyond that risk, this method of payment (instead of option 1 and charging directly to the Ink card) seems worth it.

Lastly, Gift of College takes a few days to pass on transactions to Sallie Mae, which is my private loan servicer. I just hope they don’t mess up and lose transactions because I may have a hard time following with all the amounts being the same.

  • $200 on 10/22 -> $200 on 10/23
  • $200 and $200 on 11/11 -> shows up as $400 on 11/13
  • $200 and $200 on 11/24 -> shows up as $400 on 11/27
  • $500+$200+$200 on 11/24 -> $900 on 12/1
  • $200 on 12/6 -> $200 on 12/8
  • $500 on 12/19 -> $500 on 12/26
  • $499 on 12/22 -> $499 on 12/26
  • $500 on 12/25 -> on 1/3
  • $194 on 1/2 -> on 1/3
  • $194.05+$194.05 on 1/2 -> $388.10 on 1/3