Bitmo User Guide – How To Use The Bitmo App To Buy Discounted Gift Cards

One of the 25+ ways you can save money on gift cards is Bitmo. Bitmo is a smartphone app that sells first-hand gift cards you can buy for yourself or send to a friend.

They’ve made a number of changes since launching a few years ago, so here’s a guide for how it works.

If you’re thinking of signing up, here’s my referral link. You’ll receive some kind of referral reward, although that seems to vary depending on when you sign up.

Signing Up

The Bitmo app signup process is pretty straightforward, but I figured I’d provide screenshots to show the entire process. Note that these screenshots are from 2018 – there might have been changes since.

First up, you need to download Bitmo from Google Play or iTunes. It’s best to do this after using a referral link (here’s mine) as it’ll mean you get some kind of referral reward.

Once the app is installed, open the app and you’ll see the following screen. Assuming this is your first time using Bitmo, tap ‘Sign Up’ (or ‘Continue With Facebook/Google’).

Your account will be tied to your phone number, so that’s the first thing you need to enter.

Bitmo will text you a code to verify that you own that phone number, so enter that on the next screen.

The next piece of information they require is your cellphone billing zip code.

Next, you’ll need to enter your email address and a password. At the time of writing this guide, the password requirements weren’t stringent – you could use an 8+ letter word with no numbers, upper case letters, etc.

Finally (for now), enter your name and tap ‘Done’.

Account

Now that you’ve created your account, there are a couple more steps you need to take. There are four buttons at the bottom of the screen, so tap ‘Account’. This screen will show your name and username – I’ve blanked out some of my details in the screenshots for security purposes.

Next, tap ‘Profile’. You’ll see a red dot next to your email address with a link to verify your email, so tap ‘Verify’.

Bitmo will send you a verification email. There are two ways you can verify your account, the easiest of which is to click the link provided in the email. Alternatively, the email will also contain a five digit code you can enter in the app.

Payment Methods

Update 2/11/20: Bitmo now allows you to pay via PayPal. This option was added in 2019 but they charged a fee of ~3% which meant it wasn’t worth using. However, they’ve since removed the fee which makes it a much better option than paying using your checking account as it means you can earn credit card rewards. They also allow you to pay via Google Pay (and presumably Apple Pay if you have an iPhone).

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When you’re ready to check out, tap ‘Select Payment Method’ and choose whether you want to pay with your checking account or via PayPal or Google Pay.

If you choose PayPal, it’ll redirect you to PayPal where you can log in using your email and password, then you can choose which card to pay with.

If you’d rather pay with your checking account rather than credit card for some reason, the original steps can be found below.

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The next step is to add a payment method so that you can buy gift cards. To do that, go back to the main Account page and tap ‘Payment Methods’. From there, tap ‘Link Bank Account’.

That’ll take you to a screen advising that the linking process is taken care of by Plaid. If you’re happy with those terms, tap ‘Continue’.

You’ll then arrive on a screen listing all the major banks; scroll through that list and choose yours.

Let’s say your checking account is held with Wells Fargo. You’ll be taken to a Wells Fargo login screen where you need to enter your bank’s username and password (not your Bitmo username and password).

For additional security, your bank might require that you verify your identity by receiving a code by text or phone.

Once you’ve verified that, you’ll need to select which account you want Bitmo to take payment from.

A popup will then appear advising that Dwolla will process payments and so an account will be created with them. I’ve received payments via Dwolla many times and trust them, so that wasn’t a problem for me.

Once you’ve agreed to those terms, the linking process will be complete and you can buy your first gift card.

If your bank wasn’t one of the major banks displayed on the earlier screen, you’ll need to tap ‘My Bank Isn’t Listed’. This will take you to a screen where you’ll need to enter your routing number and account number.

Bitmo will subsequently send that account two micro-deposits (usually less than $0.10) that should arrive within one or two business days.

Once you see those deposited into your account, open the app and go to Account>Payment Methods. You’ll see the screen below, so tap ‘Verify’.

Enter the value of the two micro-deposits you received and voilà – you’re done.

Buying Gift Cards For Yourself

Now for the fun part – buying gift cards! When opening the Bitmo app, you’ll see the scrollable list of 100+ gift card brands you can buy. These are in alphabetical order, while there are also categories at the top of the screen you can scroll through such as Food & Drink, Entertainment, Apparel, Electronics and more.

If there are brands you buy all the time, you can tap the heart next to the brand and it’ll be saved under the heart tab at the top. Alternatively, you can search for the gift card brand you want to buy using the search bar at the top.

Once you know which brand you want to buy, tap it and Bitmo will ask if you want to buy it for yourself or send it to a friend.

If you’d like to buy a gift card for yourself, tap ‘Send To Me’. Most gift cards have a variety of denominations you can choose from, so select the value of the card you want to buy and then tap ‘Next’.

Next up will be the payment screen. Provided you’ve linked a bank account, the last four digits of the account number will be displayed (I’ve blanked out mine in the image below).

Bitmo sometimes provides coupon codes offering a 10-15% discount on gift cards purchased through the app. If you have one of those, tap the round blue button next to ‘Promo Code’, enter the code and press enter. For example, the code MERRY15 took 15% off any gift card leading up to Christmas 2018.

If you’re happy to proceed, tap ‘Complete Payment’. To ensure that you meant to press the button, a popup appears requiring that you slide a button to the right.

If you pay from your bank account, you might have to wait a day or two for the payment to clear before having access to the gift card. That’s another good reason to pay via an alternate method like PayPal as it means you can get the gift card number and PIN instantly.

Bitmo Wallet

Once your payment has been processed, the gift card can be found by pressing the ‘Wallet’ button at the bottom of the app. As you can see from the screenshots above, I like purchasing discounted Airbnb gift cards as my wife and I travel full time, so we spend quite a lot of time in Airbnbs.

You’ll have three options here – ‘Pay’, ‘Exchange’ and ‘Regift’. Here’s how each of those options work.

Pay – Use Gift Card Yourself

If you want to use the gift card, tap ‘Pay’. Bitmo will advise that if you pay now, you won’t be able to exchange or regift the card later. If you’re happy with that, tap ‘Next’.

You’ll then be shown the gift card details. In most cases, this will include both the card number and a PIN.

If you’ve bought a gift card for a retailer where it can be used in-store, it might also include a barcode. This makes it much easier to use when checking out as it means the cashier doesn’t have to type in the card number and PIN. (n.b. I’ve blanked out the barcode in the image below.)

Exchange – Swap Gift Card For A Different Brand

Bitmo allows you to exchange unclaimed gift cards which can be helpful in a few scenarios. Perhaps you changed your mind after buying it. Perhaps you’ve received a card from another Bitmo user but you’d prefer a different brand. Or maybe you used a coupon code that can only be used for certain brands, but you weren’t particularly interested in any of those brands and want to exchange it for a different card afterwards.

Provided you haven’t claimed the card yet (i.e. been able to view the card number and PIN), tap the ‘Exchange’ button. You’ll then be shown the main gift card brand page where you can swap it for a new card.

One of the nice features is that you don’t necessarily have to exchange the entire card value. For example, if I didn’t want a $100 Airbnb gift card, I would have three options:

• Use the full $100 value for another card.
• Swap $50 of it for another card and keep a $50 Airbnb gift card.
• Swap it for $50 of two different brands.

Note that when using a promo code for a specific gift card brand, Bitmo generally doesn’t let you exchange that brand for another one.

Regift – Give The Card To Another Bitmo User

If you’ve bought or received a gift card but haven’t claimed it yet by tapping the ‘Pay’ button, you’ll also have the option to regift it to another Bitmo user.

To do that, tap the ‘Regift’ button:

You’ll be taken to your contacts where you can select who you want to regift the card to. Once you’ve selected that person, you’ll have the opportunity to include a message when it’s sent to them.

The recipient will get a text notification that they’ve received a gift card. If they already have the Bitmo app downloaded, they’ll be able to view it straight away. Otherwise they’ll need to download the app and register (send them this guide to show them how it works!)

Buying Gift Card For Someone Else

We’ve already covered how to buy a gift card for yourself. Now it’s time to explain how to send one to someone else.

When choosing a gift card brand, select ‘Send To Friend’ rather than ‘Send To Me’.

That’ll take you to a list of your contacts (I’ve blanked mine out in the image below). Choose the person you want to send a gift to in order to continue.

That’ll take you to a screen where you select what value card to send. It also contains your contact’s name and phone number which I’ve blanked out below. Once you’ve selected the card value, tap ‘Next’.

On the following screen there’s a section to type a note to the recipient – a note is required in order to proceed. You can also change the emoji – for some reason, it defaulted to the crying emoji for me, so you might want to change it to a smiley face or one of the other options.

You might notice in the image above that the privacy setting is automatically set to ‘Public’. If you leave it like that, the gift card brand and message you send will be visible to other people when tapping the ‘Activity’ button at the bottom of the app.

I think it’s a little strange that Bitmo shares this information unless you change the settings and allows you to see gifts other people have sent. After all, I don’t need to know that @wanj sent @patriciav2 a Macy’s gift card!

If you don’t want your gifts to show up like this, it’s an easy fix. Tap the ‘Public’ button and three options will show at the bottom of the screen. You can leave it public, allow only friends to see your gifts or set it to private so no one else sees your gifts.

Once you’re satisfied with everything, tap ‘Send Gift’, swipe right on the resulting popup (like you do when buying a card for yourself) and your recipient will receive notification that they’ve received a gift.

The recipient will receive a text letting them know that they’ve received a gift card through Bitmo.

If they’re already a Bitmo user, they’ll also receive an email advising them of the gift.

Bitmo Perks

In 2020, Bitmo launched a new feature called Bitmo Perks. This is an opt-in feature in the app which offers additional discounts or free gift cards depending on the promotion. To join the Perks program, you might see a banner on the home screen which you can tap. Alternatively, tap on ‘Profile’ and you should see a link there to sign up.

In order to register for Bitmo Perks, you have to link a debit or credit card to your account using Plaid (the process is shown earlier in this guide). You’ll then be able to take advantage of Perks offers in the future. In the past they’ve offered free Chipotle or Lowe’s cards when paying for a transaction with your linked card, while other times they’ve offered promo codes giving a discount on any gift card in the app.

Perk Points

Bitmo enhanced the app in 2021 by launching the Perk Points feature for Bitmo Perks members. You earn points when buying gift cards and those points can be redeemed in the app for free gift cards.

In theory you earn one point per dollar, with 5,000 points being required for every $5 worth of gift cards. That’s a 0.1% rate which is pretty terrible, but it’s much better than that in many cases. That’s because Bitmo offers a multiplier for most brands, such as 25x or 50x. To work out how much that’s worth, insert a decimal point one space to the left. That means 25x is worth 2.5%, 50x is worth 5.0%, etc.

Card-Linked Program

Part of the Perk Points program includes a card-linked element. This rewards you with 1 Perk Point per dollar when shopping at any retailer for which they sell gift cards in the app and paying with a credit or debit card you’ve linked in the app. That’s not all though – they also offer 1x Perk Point at other retailers too including Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger and its affiliate stores, Albertsons/Safeway and its family of stores, Target and more.

1 Perk Point per dollar is worth 0.1% and so it’s not a huge return, but it’s better than nothing provided it doesn’t conflict with any other card-linked programs. To participate in the card-linked program, tap the ‘Profile’ tab at the bottom of the app, then tap ‘Linked Accounts.

This will take you to a screen where you can link debit and credit cards. This is done by signing in to your account with your bank(s); Bitmo uses Plaid as the third party service to link your cards which means Bitmo doesn’t ever get your actual card details.

In the past it was only possible to link one card per bank, but in June 2021 they made a change which meant you could link more than one card per bank.

Archiving Gift Cards

Once you’ve used the app several times, your Bitmo wallet will contain several gift cards. This could make it hard to keep track of which ones have been used and which still have a balance, but Bitmo offers a solution.

Once you’ve used the entire balance on a gift card, tap ‘More Options’ beneath it. One of the options that’ll appear will be ‘Archive’, so tap that.

Bitmo will ask if you definitely want to do that. If you do, tap ‘Yes’.

That gift card will be moved from your wallet to the ‘Archived Gifts’ section of your account.

If you realize you’ve made a mistake and archived the wrong card, don’t worry. Tap the card and you’ll see the option to restore the card.

Other Options

That covers all the basics for how to use the Bitmo app to buy and send gift cards. The app has a few other features that can be found in the ‘Account’ section:

Social Accounts

This is where you can link your Facebook and/or Google accounts.

Order History

This is self-explanatory enough. Tap ‘Order History’ and you’ll be able to see all the gift cards you’ve bought on Bitmo. Seeing as this relates to your orders, it doesn’t display gifts you’ve received from others, but it will show gifts you’ve sent other people.

Invite Friends

In the past, Bitmo only allowed you to refer people by referring them in the app using their phone number, so it was generally only available for people in your contacts list. They’ve thankfully now improved their referral program and so you can provide anyone with a referral link. If you’re considering signing up to Bitmo, I’d appreciate it if you use my referral link.

Their referral offers have changed over the past year or two. You used to get a $50 gift card when referring five new people, then it was increased to $100, then it went back down to $50.

In January 2021, it changed once again. You now earn 1,000 Perk Points (worth $1) for every person you refer. New users used to receive a $5 gift card, but that might have dropped to $2.

Promo Codes

Bitmo allows you to enter promo codes when buying gift cards, but you can also apply them when viewing your Profile.

FAQs

If this Bitmo user guide hasn’t explained things well enough, you can hopefully find answers to any questions you might have in their FAQs section.

My Views Of Bitmo

I have mixed feelings about Bitmo. There are several apps and sites which reward you for every gift card purchase you make (e.g. Fluz, Slide, MPX, Raise, CrayPay and more) and Bitmo finally joined their ranks in 2021 by adding Perk Points. That makes it worth considering when needing gift cards for instant use.

A negative feature is that you can only buy gift cards for set amounts like $5, $10, $25, $50 and $100. Other apps like Slide, MPX, Fluz, etc. let you buy gift cards for random amounts (e.g. $17.91) which can help ensure you don’t end up with gift cards with a small balance left over which you subsequently have to keep track of.

On the positive side, Bitmo sometimes provides promo codes for discounts on gift cards which can be a good way to save on whichever brand they’re offering a promotion on. Those deals can often be good for reselling in addition to being good for personal use.

Save Money On Gift Cards

Now that you know how to use Bitmo to buy gift cards, check out all the other ways you can obtain discounted gift cards to save money on the things you need to buy.