How to earn gift cards

[A Bad Example]

So, you need to collect at least 30,000 gift cards by January 7. Which really means you want to be finished by January 6, as EA can end the event at any time after midnight GMT on 1/7/2014; and you will be done.

First, get yourself some neighbors. 100 neighbors means you can visit 101 towns (Other Springfield counts) and collect 3030 cards a day this way.

Next, clean up the presents in your town regularly. There is an upper limit on how many you can accumulate, after which you stop getting them. And these supply gift cards.

Leave gift bags with your neighbors. Good ones will reciprocate.

If they are not needed for a quest line, keep the following characters performing one of their gift card earning tasks. Cletus and Apu don't get this task until their quest runs.

Homer- Pretend to Ski 8h (27/70)
Homer: Make Snowman (16 hours)
Lisa: Make Snow Angels (6 hours)
Lisa: Pretend to Ski (8 Hours)
Bart: Act like Toy Soldier (10 Hours)
Ned: Go Snowmobiling (10 Hours, need to have Rod and Todd Free as well)
Cletus - Count up Family Members 24h (60/150)
Apu - Set up Gift Card Promotion 8h (27/70)
Santa Flanders - All tasks

The following tasks in the quest line will let you get extra gift cards. First, although they specify a certain number of characters can do it, this is the minimum. You can snd almost all of them on these quests. Do so.

Also, you can get extra gift cards from these tasks. As most of the characters do no go to one building, you can resend them and earn even more. For instance, until you collect gift cards from 12 characters in task 10, you can resend 11 of them. Which is another 238 cards.

tasks 10 (11), 12 (11), 14 (14), 15 (9), 16 (11), 18 (you can repeat everyone so long as you don't free Homer or Lisa from Treehouse, which means you could keep doing this until after New Years so you can keep collecting the coins)

Tasks 11 and 15 send everyone you can.

[fspj]

Dec 16, 2013 0:22:50 GMT -5 A Bad Example said:

18 (you can repeat everyone so long as you don't free Homer or Lisa from Treehouse, which means you could keep doing this until after New Years so you can keep collecting the coins)

I was wondering about this when I read that in the guide. Very cool.

So, basically, as long as my fat fingers don't ruin it by tapping the treehouse (note to self: remember the Squidport tile glitch!), there's probably not much need to do anything else aside from that one task over and over, and we can get enough gift cards for all the prizes, right?

Thanks for the tip!

[A Bad Example]

Dec 16, 2013 13:23:28 GMT -5 fspj said:

Dec 16, 2013 0:22:50 GMT -5 A Bad Example said:

18 (you can repeat everyone so long as you don't free Homer or Lisa from Treehouse, which means you could keep doing this until after New Years so you can keep collecting the coins)

I was wondering about this when I read that in the guide. Very cool.

So, basically, as long as my fat fingers don't ruin it by tapping the treehouse (note to self: remember the Squidport tile glitch!), there's probably not much need to do anything else aside from that one task over and over, and we can get enough gift cards for all the prizes, right?

Thanks for the tip!

So it should work. At least until we get an update requiring Homer or Lisa. Brett says this works, and I've gotten the extra cards on other tasks.

[brettolmsted]

Dec 16, 2013 15:32:23 GMT -5 A Bad Example said:

Dec 16, 2013 13:23:28 GMT -5 fspj said:

I was wondering about this when I read that in the guide. Very cool.

So, basically, as long as my fat fingers don't ruin it by tapping the treehouse (note to self: remember the Squidport tile glitch!), there's probably not much need to do anything else aside from that one task over and over, and we can get enough gift cards for all the prizes, right?

Thanks for the tip!

So it should work. At least until we get an update requiring Homer or Lisa. Brett says this works, and I've gotten the extra cards on other tasks.

Yeah, I have already repeated the 8 hour "Search for the Simpsons" task 5-6 times past the Homer/Lisa 24H task at the Treehouse. I moved my treehouse to a more remote area so as not to be tempted to tap it.

I will keep doing it until I get that last Wheel Prize - darn snow god - why do you torment me so?

[cmnplanet]

You could also store the treehouse into inventory, breaking the Homer/Lisa part of task (it will also break Bart's active task, FWIW), replace the treehouse and resend them back on task to reset the 24hr portion.

I'm currently doing it after I send everyone on the 8 hour portion. No worries about accidental tapping.

[tom7363]

Dec 17, 2013 7:15:29 GMT -5 cmnplanet said:

You could also store the treehouse into inventory, breaking the Homer/Lisa part of task (it will also break Bart's active task, FWIW), replace the treehouse and resend them back on task to reset the 24hr portion.

I'm currently doing it after I send everyone on the 8 hour portion. No worries about accidental tapping.

Is it also possible to simply not start the Homer/Lisa task?
Or is this automatically started by starting the task of the others?

[brettolmsted]

Dec 17, 2013 11:25:18 GMT -5 tom7363 said:

Dec 17, 2013 7:15:29 GMT -5 cmnplanet said:

You could also store the treehouse into inventory, breaking the Homer/Lisa part of task (it will also break Bart's active task, FWIW), replace the treehouse and resend them back on task to reset the 24hr portion.

I'm currently doing it after I send everyone on the 8 hour portion. No worries about accidental tapping.

Is it also possible to simply not start the Homer/Lisa task?
Or is this automatically started by starting the task of the others?

No, you don't have to start their part of the task and could just send them on their other 8 hour gift earning tasks

[A Bad Example]

Here is a warning if you are using the outdoor tasks to generate cards.

It can cause problems with your town. Issues reported are:

Characters frozen
Extreme lag
Inability to store or place items
Crashing friends game when they visit

Possible inability to get into the town.

[Chuck]

Dec 20, 2013 19:09:44 GMT -5 A Bad Example said:

Here is a warning if you are using the outdoor tasks to generate cards.

It can cause problems with your town. Issues reported are:

Characters frozen
Extreme lag
Inability to store or place items
Crashing friends game when they visit

Possible inability to get into the town.

I experienced massive lag in my town when playing in Bluestacks especially. Of course then I accidentally clicked on the tree house and now it's not an issue. Sigh. Got two days out of it tho!