Replying to Avatar Leo Wandersleb

At BTCPrague I noticed https://thebitcoincompany.com/ and tried it out. It's slightly cumbersome as the app has no idea of the giftcard credit card balances but it works sort of. Already paid all kind of stuff with these virtual gift CCs, including ChatGPT, Mercadolibre and DigitalOcean.

A bad thing about these cards is that you always end up with some residual amount that you won't spend ever and after 6 months they expire, leaving you nothing.

The good thing about DO accepting these - in theory - is that I can top up my balance by arbitrary amounts there so I thought I could collect such residues in my DO balance but all attempts to spend close to the card's balance somehow fail.

What do others do to not lose some dollars on each card?

Glad to hear you tried us out, and we appreciate the feedback!

The way our card provider's API functions doesn't allow us to present info like card balances within the app unfortunately. Although this is something we'd prefer to have too, when possible.

In terms of dealing with small balances - ideally you use it in a way that doesn't leave dust. Eg, buy the exact card value needed for your purchase (while keeping in mind the 2.5% + $2 forex fee if spending outside USD/USA).

Alternatively, if you use one card multiple times and end up with a small balance, you can ask a merchant to split the transaction over two payment methods (works well at gas stations, based on user reports).

We'll have a Mastercard launched soon with different currencies (USD, EUR, CAD, GBP) and better forex fees (2% flat when spending outside the card native currency).

Overall there are always trade-offs with these kind of products though. If they fit your use-case it seems awesome; if not, they'll be very clunky. That's why we keep expanding our range to cover as much as we can.

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