Simon Visa Gift Card online bulk ordering. Everything you need to know.

Earlier today, we reported that Simon Malls is now offering a Bulk Customer program where you can register to buy Visa Gift Cards online that can be loaded with up to $1K per card. Just like those approved to buy in bulk on-property, those who are approved for this program can order up to $25K per day in Visa Gift Cards. While Simon has long offered a corporate program for customers with a legitimate business, Frequent Miler helped Simon test the process as the first couple of customers for the online process for personal users. Here is everything you need to know.

Registration

Registration to bulk order Simon Visa Gift Cards online is easy. You’ll first go here:

https://www.simon.com/volume/Register.aspx?reg_type=lpg

That will take you to a page that requires information like your social security number, driver’s license number, and billing & shipping addresses. Simon requires the same type of information from customers who purchase in-person at their malls. Some readers may not be comfortable with providing that much information to register, but those are Simon’s requirements to get approved for large orders. Essentially, they need to verify that you are who you say you are before they agree to sell you $25K per day in gift cards, and that seems fair enough to me.

After registration, you will receive an email confirming that your registration has been received and you will need to click a link within it to verify your email address. When you click to verify, you’re taking back to the login page, but you’ll notice a small note above the login box that thanks you for verifying your account and saying that someone will be in touch shortly. I don’t think most people will be contacted unless they have difficulty verifying information — you’ll receive an email when your account has been approved.

At that point, you’ll need to be patient and wait for Simon to verify your information and approve you for bulk ordering. Once approved, you’ll receive an email letting you know that registration has been approved.

Note that the email states the maximum dollar amount approved per order and that limit is per day inclusive of fees. You can place multiple orders so long as your total orders for the day do not exceed the limit. I don’t recommend trying to get around that limit by placing more than $25K in separate orders as I expect that Simon will lock you out of the bulk ordering program for doing so.

Simon Visa Gift Card bulk ordering online process

Once your account has been confirmed, you will need to log in to your account at https://www.simon.com/volume/. You’ll initially be prompted to authorize the computer you’re using for placing orders by entering an email authentication code sent to your email address.

Then I was promoted to set security questions.

Once you have registered and set your security questions, you’ll need to be logged in and click “order now” on the left side menu to place an order.

When moving forward to order, you’ll see the basic card options and be able to choose whether you’d like all cards to have the same message (i.e. your name; some corporate customers may order with different names or gift messages, but I imagine most readers will be customizing all of the cards in their order the same way).

You’ll then have several designs from which to choose and you can enter how you would like to customize the cards, the quantity, and the amount per card. I just put my name on Message Line 1.

From there, the order process is more or less what you’d expect. Your shipping and billing information is already saved, so you’ll just have to select one of your saved payment methods from a drop-down menu.

Remember that if you want to add an additional payment method, your account will go back into a manual approval process which could take a couple of days — so be sure to add new payment methods a few days before you’d like to use them.

Simon Visa Gift card bulk ordering fees and costs

The Simon Visa Gift Card volume program for bulk customers adds additional fees that you would not ordinarily pay if you were to buy in-mall:

1. Just as it is on-mall, the activation fee is $3.95 per card. Each card can be loaded with $10-$1,000 for the same $3.95 fee.
2. There is a $10 processing fee per order. If you place multiple orders in the same day, you will need to pay the fee for each order.
3. There is a shipping & handling charge that will vary by location.

In my case, when I took the screen shots above, the shipping was $10 for any order size (1 card to 25 cards). Greg’s shipping cost was $11.28. Rates have since increased as have been as high as $16 to my home address. YMMV in terms of whether your shipping cost is more or less..

These fees will obviously add to your MS cost and might not make this method worthwhile if you are placing a small order of just a few cards. Note also that you can not split tender online — so if you want to use multiple credit cards, you’ll incur the $10 processing fee for each separate order as well as the shipping fees.

How does the order code?

In my case, I used a Chase card and the order coded as SIMON GC VOLUME. I do not know whether or not it would trigger any category bonuses.

Shipping process and shipping speed

Simon Mall was relatively quick shipping my order:

1. Monday: I placed my order on Monday.
2. Tuesday: My order shipped (although I received the shipping confirmation email on Wednesday morning, the tracking showed it shipped on Tuesday).
3. Wednesday: I received a shipping confirmation early on Wednesday morning
4. Thursday: My cards arrived on Thursday via UPS ground.

That speed is a function of my location in relation to the fulfillment center where the order shipped — it was a few states away, but within a region where I know from previous experience that UPS ground shipping time takes about 2 days. UPS ground ought to arrive within about a week for most of the US. The good news is that the email had an easy tracking link and I am familiar with UPS shipping times in my area. Note that you could choose to pay more for faster delivery options, though it wouldn’t be worth it for me given the quick process.

The cards arrived each within its own white envelope inside a UPS envelope as shown below. My name was printed on the card, but this is the printed numbers and name rather than raised-numbers style.

Simon Visa Gift card online activation

Note that these Simon Mall Visa Gift Cards do not ship activated and activation is not instant. You will need to manually activate. The paperwork on which my cards arrived said that the cards were active, but that was not accurate. I knew that they wouldn’t ship activated as each of the emails in the ordering process noted this at the bottom:

Thankfully, the activation process is very easy. As that note in the email says, simply log in to your Simon Volume account and go to your “order history page”. From there. you’ll need to click the small grey arrow to the right of where it says “Complete: Ready to activate”.

Then you’ll want to click the button that says “Activate Cards”.

Once you click to activate cards, you’ll be promoted to enter card information from one of the cards in your order (including the card number and CVV). Once I did that, I received a message telling me that activation was successful — but note that it said my cards would be active by the end of the next day. It was not instant. However, I checked back later the same day and the cards were active (it shows a message saying they are “Active” rather than “Ready for activation”).

Note that the other button shown above, “view cards”, gives you a list of the cards in the order and a selection of the card number of each. It also has a link to export that information in an excel spreadsheet, which could be useful for record keeping.

Bottom line

This new method of MS is not the cheapest form of manufactured spending available. However, it offers a very easy MS-friendly method to buy in bulk from the comfort of your couch. If you live near a Simon Mall, you’ll be better off going to buy at the mall since you’ll save yourself from the additional shipping and processing fees. However, if you do not live near a mall, this process is a super easy way to spend from the couch. Just keep in mind the Mistakes to avoid on $1K Simon Visa Gift Cards. If you haven’t read that post, I highly recommend reading it before getting into this.

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