American Express Campus Edition – the prepaid product marketed to college students in conjunction with Barnes & Noble campus bookstores — allowed you to load at the bookstore cash register with a credit card or gift card.

The card allowed a maximum balance of $1000, and charged $3.95 to reload at register. You could then take the money off the card at an ATM machine (first withdrawal free each month, $2 thereafter, plus fees charged by the ATM owner).

The fees and need to be near a campus bookstore probably made it not useful for most people. But I long had a campus bookstore in the lobby of my office. (So a ‘weedkday’ errand, not a weekend mileage errand.)

Sadly the options for loading these cards are being limited soon.

So now more register loads effective March 1.

Again, this won’t effect very many of you (although some folks had cards that significantly bonused this type of spend who no doubt found it useful). But another door — that lasted a good couple of years — is slamming shut.

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