(Update: $50 Swipe Limit) Simon Mall Visa Gift Cards Being Rejected At Walmart & Kroger

Update 11/12/20: There are now numerous data points of swipes being limited to $49.99 or $50 at Walmart. In addition to FlyerTalk, there’s now a good discussion going on in the comments on my post about this on Frequent Miler, so check that out too for other people’s experiences.

Update 11/9/20: There have been data points on FlyerTalk and elsewhere that there’s a limit of $400 per swipe at Walmart. That doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone, but it does appear that this restriction is in place for many around the country.

Update 11/1/20: I’d held off a little while before publishing this post a couple of days ago as I wasn’t sure if there was a temporary glitch or if it was a more widespread problem. More data points poured in over the course of 24 hours though which suggests it was specifically Simon Mall gift cards having issues at Walmart and Kroger.

Since then, data points have been all over the place. Some people have had issues with other MetaBank gift cards at Kroger and Walmart, as well as at Albertsons/Safeway family of stores. Sometimes people are able to get a card to work on the 3rd or 4th swipe, other times not at all.

It’s therefore not entirely clear what’s going on, although it does seem like the issue might be on the MetaBank end. If so, that’s a pain in the backside but is actually good news as it means stores haven’t hardcoded against Visa gift cards purchased from Simon Mall. While things are still unclear though, it might still be worth exercising some caution when placing large orders of Simon gift cards.

There have been reports over the past 24-48 hours that Visa gift cards purchased from Simon Mall have been getting rejected at Walmart and Kroger.

At Walmart, Money Services transactions have been getting declined, while Kroger has been declining transactions at the Customer Service desk and when purchasing products at self checkout.

With Walmart and Kroger being two of the most common places where people use Simon Mall Visa gift cards, if these issues continue (and they’ve presumably been implemented deliberately by the retailers) this will greatly limit the appeal of Simon Mall being a source for these cards.

My understanding is that this is an issue with Visa gift cards bought both in-mall and online. That had the potential to make a difference seeing as the cards you buy from Simon Mall online have your name on them, but apparently both kinds are proving to be an issue.

This is another good reminder that it’s always good to have more than one way to liquidate Visa gift cards to ensure you’re not sitting on a large number of them if your usual outlet(s) go away.