Today has been a crazy day with lots of reports flying around different blogs of people investigating what is happening to Target Redbird credit card loads, in a “post-memo” world
Some background on Target Red Card / Redbird credit card loads
Up until yesterday (May 5th, 2015), you were able to do Target Red Card / Redbird credit card loads of up to $1000 a swipe, $2500 a day and $5000 a month. Dans Deals and Frequent Miler both reported yesterday that credit card loads were not going to be allowed any more starting today.
Reports of Target Red Card / Redbird credit card loads today
I was the first person in Target this morning to try and check out what did and did not work. No, really, I literally walked into my Target this morning as they were unlocking the doors to open up for the morning 😀
Over the course of the day, several people have reported their results trying to do Target Red Card / Redbird credit card loads. Here is a list of some of the ones that I’ve seen
- Points With a Crew – Here’s how I loaded my #Redbird today
- Frequent Miler – Redbird PM (Post-memo) answers
- Travel with Grant – Redbird Credit Card Reloads Dead: “Able to Load $0.00 with this Payment Method”
- Dans Deals – Redcard testing, post Cinco de Mayo Memo
- Miles to Memories – The Good News About REDcard & A Strategy Going Forward
There’s also some forums / social media where folks are sharing experiences with Target Red Card
- Flyertalk thread
- Saverocity forums (requires registration and login)
Target Red Card / Redbird credit card loads: What we know
- No credit cards seem to work. I haven’t seen a single report of anyone being able to do Target Red Card / Redbird credit card loads today with any type of credit card. It’s hard coded by the register and even though reports are that most cashiers are willing to try and do Redbird credit card loads, the POS system comes up with a message saying “Able to Load $0.00 with this Payment Method”
- Amex for Target will not load either.
- Vanilla Visas (like from Office Depot) and Metabank Visas (like from Office Max) seem to work as debit cards. This matches my experiences from earlier this morning. US Bank Mastercards also work. If you haven’t seen it yet, this week (and next!) Office Depot and Office Max are essentially giving away free money.
Mmmmmm…. free money
- It does not appear to “drain” the card. If you want to load $1000, you have to ask the cashier to do a split tender and only charge $200 at a time.
- Amex gift cards work as credit cards, and as such, do not work for Redbird credit card loads either. Staples Visa rebate cards (that don’t have PINs) also do not work.
- The limits are still the same – $1,000 per swipe, $2,500 per day and $5,000 per month
I will continue to update things as details become more concrete. If you want to make sure to stay informed, you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or sign up for my once-daily email with travel news and tricks.
If you have any data points to share, leave a note in the comments.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
If I use my Sunburst Delta debit card, I assume I have to use my PIN. If so, does that earn miles?
I believe that should earn miles – try it out and report back with your findings!
Can you use a target gift card to load the prepaid Redcard?
I don’t believe that’s ever worked.
I tried to load $200 MC that i got from OD as debit, enter pin, no cash back, at the end, it says “Wrong pin”. I then went to next day and able to use the same card as debit same pin and paid my bill of $20.xx. Went back to Target, same card, same pin to load $100. Still says wrong pin. Any clue ?
That’s weird and I don’t know why it might do that (other than the obvious of you put the wrong PIN in 😀 )
Can you elaborate on this:
It does not appear to “drain” the card. If you want to load $1000, you have to ask the cashier to do a split tender and only charge $200 at a time.
If you are trying to load $1000 but your card is a gift card with only $200 on it, ideally you could just swipe the card and it would automatically recognize there’s only $200 on it, take that off, and show up with a balance of $800, without any further cashier intervention. This is called “draining” and is ideal, for MS purposes.
The other scenario is you’re trying to load $1000 and swipe a $200 gift card but the system tries to authorize the full $1000 amount and declines the transaction because there isn’t $1000 on it.
Make sense?
I cant seem to get a gift card with a CC. Tried few Staples,CVS , office depot stores they all say these cards are cash only.
Any pointers?
It depends on your location. Might be that where you’re at, all those cards are cash only. I know NYC for example is cash only almost everywhere
You can load $500 at a time from Vanilla GC to Redbird. I just did $2000 in 4 transactions yesterday.
Yes – that’s what I have been doing as well, though with lower denominations because that’s what I have on hand to burn through.
Hi this may be a dumb question, but do the vanilla reloads have a pin? I have a few cards left from Staples, the prepaid mastercard and visa, but I don’t believe I have a pin for them. Trying to find out if I could still liquidate them through redbird. Thanks very much!!
I am not sure but I think so? Depends on what you actually have. You might try calling the toll free number on the back of your card.
Do we have to first set up a pin for vanilla visa gc before trying to load on redbird? I bought a vanilla visa gc which says set up your pin on first use. Can redbird be the first use directly?
Yes – I believe the PIN on a Vanilla GC is the last 4.
Hi there, just wanted to let people know that for those who can’t get the temporary activated card at their local stores, I can provide them with the info of one via email for a small fee, I’ve done it for hundreds, see some of their reviews here: https://bit.ly/1DMVZSS
I’ve also written a guide on how to load Redbird with gift cards, which I will update in the next couple of days to include step by step instructions for registers with the new software upgrade: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+NoonRadar/posts/QZ1eCSFrdCG
Thanks! It’s unfortunate that it’s not quite as easy as it once was to load the Target red card…
Hi all, I wrote a step by step guide on how to load Redbird with the newly upgraded registers (K8): https://plus.google.com/u/0/+NoonRadar/posts/82eSPgNCGi5
If you’ve already loaded with the new POS, please take a look at my post and if you see something that I missed, or if you had a different experience, let me know via a comment there so I can update the guide. Thank you.