Bad news for Walmart MSers as American Express changes the Bluebird fee structure

American Express has changed the fee structure for its popular prepaid debit card, Bluebird.

Starting on March 30, 2023, Bluebird will no longer charge a fee for loading money onto the card at Family Dollar stores. This is great news for customers who frequently use Family Dollar to load their Bluebird cards.

But for a lot of customers who load the card at Walmart, the fee structure may be bad news as free Walmart loads are no longer possible. Bluebird customers loading their card at Walmart will now be charged a fee of $3.74 per load.

The introduction of fees at Walmart may cause some customers to reevaluate their use of Bluebird, especially if there were primarily using Bluebird for MS (manufactured spending).

While MSers can always use Family Dollar to load for free, there are undoubtedly many more Walmart locations than there are Family Dollar locations. Mixing things up by going to various locations or at least loading your card during hours so that you don’t encounter the same employees is important because you don’t want employees to grow suspicious about your frequent Bluebird loads. With a small store like Family Dollar, you lose the ability to do this.

While MSing is not illegal, it’s frowned upon by some employees. In most cases, if they discover that you’re attempting to use a prepaid card to load another prepaid card, they will refuse to complete the transaction.