Comments please good or bad idea?
I've done this transaction (sold bitcoins, withdrew Dwolla and used the funds to buy a gift card through Lyoness.us), and it worked
fantastically.
The shipping and handling (S&H) for the card(s) is a $5 per order unless purchasing $300 or more of gift cards in which case the S&H is waived.
The order is sent FedEx.
So this is a 1:1 cash-out method. You send $300 Dwolla USD you get $300 worth of gift cards in the mail. The only cost in that instance is the $0.25 Dwolla per-transaction fee
*.
In the U.S., the Gift Cards (physical cards mailed to you) available are:
- Chevron
- Exxon
- BP (British Petroleum)
- CVS Pharmacy
- WalMart
- Home Depot
- Lowes
- Sears
- Footlocker
- American Airlines
- HotelGiftCard.com
- Outback Steakhouse
- Rotelli Pizza and Pasta
[Edit: New brands include:
- California Pizza Kitchen
- Peet's Coffee & Tea
- Priceline
- Southwest Airlines Vacations
- WorldMarket.com
- Sears
- KMart
- Dollar General
- Linen's N Things
- Guitar Center
- New Balance
- Golfsmith
- Zumba fitness
- Best Buy
- Straight Talk Wireless (11%!!) ]
Additionally, with Dwolla funds sent to your Lyoness.us account you can purchase "mobile gift cards" to certain local merchants. So even if the merchant has no idea what Bitcoin is, there is a path from Bitcoin to these local merchants.
The reason Lyoness offers this is that it is part of its merchant loyalty program which offers cash-back credited to its members. So this can actually provide a better than 1:1 cash-out method for Bitcoin since with the "cash back reward" you get more than $1 purchase power when including the cash-back reward received for purchases.
But remember, because this is using Dwolla to fund you can cash out at an exchange that uses Dwolla and this method does not require any withdrawal to a bank account.
Anyone in the U.S. can sign up for Dwolla. You
do not need to link a bank account to Dwolla to use this.
In addition to this being a method to use Dwolla funds to buy gift cards to national brands or to fund mobile gift cards to other merchants, there are cash-back benefits available at other merchants as well if you happen to be interested as well.
Full disclosure, forum user EndTheFed321 gets a residual commission for all subsequent purchases made through Lyoness.us by any members who are signed up by him. That same ability to earn residuals is available to anyone else as well.
* If you don't already have a Dwolla account, you can
sign up (referral link) and get a credit towards $10 of your Dwolla fees.