I left out the name of the 'store' on purpose. There's always the chance when retail deals are verified, that the retailer stops accepting their own gift cards for other gift cards (UpgradeGC). One could always be left stuck with gift cards for a store where you could only buy (for example) "trains, planes and video games" if they stop doing gift card upgrades.
My method:1) From home, go to Staples.com and buy $500-$1000 of 'store' gift cards with e-mail delivery with Chase Ink Plus Visa card - 5x points at Office Supply stores. (you receive 1 email per gift card.)
2) Follow each email to the online gift-card in your smart-phone browser.
4) Go to 'store' with your smartphone and buy 2x $500 Vanilla Visa Gift Cards. Scan each GC from the phone at the register + $4.95 fee.
5) Go to Target, and deposit Visa Gift cards into prepaid REDcard in $1000 increments (up to $2.5K daily / $5K monthly limits).
6) From home, use REDcard website bill-pay option to pay the mortgage.
7) From home, use REDcard website bill-pay to send any excess to investment / savings account.
Complex... I know.
I'm going trying a new method: buy Sears cards via "Ultimate Rewards" portal (8x bonus), and use the Sears cards to buy Vanilla Visa Gift cards... but I haven't personally run that experiment. I'm assured it will work.
To find retailers that accept their own gift cards to purchase other gift cards, see:
http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/laboratory/ and search "UpgradeGC SUCCESS"