The Offer
Numerous grocery stores are running a promotion on select Visa gift cards to get $10 off. We’ve seen this offer mentioned for Safeway, ACME, and Shaw’s (heard from a friend).
- Get a $10 instant discount when loading $100 or more to the following types of Visa gift cards: (1) Five Back Visa Gift cards, or (2) any of the new Visa Gift Category Cards – Style Everywhere, Dining Everywhere, Fuel Everywhere and Fashion & Dining cards
The offer is apparently coming from Meta/Blackhawk to promote these new types of Visa gift cards, and it’s thus being offered across many stores. There are likely more stores too with this deal.
The Fine Print
- Offer Valid 10/07/16 – 10/20/16 (these dates might vary by the store chain, but it’s around that)
- One offer per transaction (again, these details might vary my store chain)
Our Verdict
The Five Back Visa gift cards earn 5% back at select retailers, but more importantly, they function as ordinary Visa gift cards, and can be used anywhere Visa is accepted. You can even use these cards as PIN-based debit cards (although that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll work for loading prepaid cards or purchasing money orders).
The other options like Dining, etc., might not function as ordinary Visa gift cards, and might only be usable at select locations. For example, the Dining card might only work at restaurants.
Should be a $4.05 profit per Visa gift card. Hopefully, these stores will allow buying the $100 cards with a credit card, and you’ll be able to pay for these with a credit card for extra rewards. And it sounds like you can do multiple of these deals in separate transactions.
I can only find dining everywhere card in the grocery store. Do anyone know if I can use it at stores other than restaurants? Thanks.
no one is buying these Fiveback vgc’s in my area of Chicago, racks of them at Jewel stores.
no one cares 🙁
The Limit 1 on Itune gc’s instore at Staples sucks, or it would be an easy way for me to recycle these and get that ‘bonus’ 5% back. I just tried it, have to check the account to see if the bonus 5% showed up yet.
I am hoping that if I buy the itune gc’s on sale at staples.com, that I will see the bonus 5% show up as well.
Given how low the valuation of iTunes GC is, I’m not sure why you’re converting any VGC to iTunes GC, even with 5% CB…?
Found a Five Back at Office Depot, but max is $200 , and full $6.95 fee – no promo. Still 5% with Ink Plus, and I have minimum spend to meet on that card.
Looks like CVS is one of the 5 back merchants. One could probably buy VGC with the 5 back.
Does anyone know how quickly the 5% goes back on the card ? Is it instant ?
And does CVS allow split tender for VGC purchase ?
Available at jewel Osco in chicago
That is correct, about the 5 Back cards being difficult to source. They did have the $10 back when you load $100 promo here at a Vons (Safeway) in Southern California but they did not stock any of the 5 Back Visa Cards which I was looking for. The “style” and “gas” Visa cards that were under the promo were all depleted. Only the “dining” ones were left.
That’s spend “$1000” for the AMEX promo.
The Five Back cards aren’t easy to find (and will probably be impossible to find in a couple of days), but they did ring up at Acme with $10 off (one per order). They do cost $6.95, though, compared to $4.95 for the apparently risky “dining” and “style” (or whatever) cards also on promo. I took them next door to CVS and, somewhat to my surprise, the clerk let me buy a $500 Visa gift card with split tender. So if you have a credit card that pays a decent grocery store bonus and are willing to keep track of the Five Back dregs, this is worthwhile promo. I was particularly lucky because my wife was targeted for the Hilton AMEX free weekend night promo, so I kind of needed to spend $100 at a grocery store anyway. That said, I don’t think anyone is going to find enough Five Back cards to make this more than modest entertainment (and with all the hoops, it’s definitely not uber efficient).
How soon did the 5% go back on your Five back card ?
If it’s instant, you could just ring the Five Back card twice, for different amounts .
Any DP’s regarding loading to serve or using for MO?
In theory it should work, but all MO/prepaid details became YMMV based on the store of late. I don’t know if it works at Walmart, in particular.
No promo at OD. Rings up with full 6.95 fee. Luckily there’s a couple ways left to offset that
No Five back in my Safeway in Santa Clara . No promotion on the Dining everywhere, either.