This another good reason not to let a cashier toss your zero balance GGF Visa prepaid gift card. Hold on to your gift cards until at least a month has passed since last use.

Today, I was checking the balance on some older Visas before I shredded them, when I discovered one with a 50¢ balance. There was a $0.50 credit entry called a Promotional Load that had occurred a couple days after a family member zeroed out the Visa at Panera Bread. With a little research I discovered that Panera Bread is one of the 50 merchant partners of FiveBackGift.com. If you use your GGF Visa at one of these merchants you earn a 5% reward that is credited back to your Visa as a Promotional Load. Other area merchants on that 5% reward list are AMC, Bath & Body Works, Famous Footwear, Old Navy, and Village Inn. So, if you ever use a GGF Visa at those stores, you’ll need to check your transaction history for Promotional Loads.

Of course, you’ll always want to first try and use a store’s gift card purchased through the Gene Grawe Fund office or on the RaiseRight.com website. They pay the Gene Grawe Fund and our students much better. For instance, Bath & Body Works sometimes rebates up to 19% while the Visa only rebates 1.5%.

I recently discovered a promotional load credit of $6.93 on one of my Gene Grawe Fund Visas. Because of a central A/C problem one hot summer evening, we didn’t want to add heat to the home by cooking, so we ordered a $138 family take-out meal to be delivered and had no GGF options other than by paying with a GGF Visa. A few days later the $6.93 showed up on the card. Yeah!