The Offer
Direct Link (next week’s ad page 9)
- Get 2x fuel points on the purchase of Mastercard gift cards at Giant, Stop&shop, and Martin’s
Gift cards generally don’t earn fuel points at all at Giant/S&S/Martin’s, but occasionally they release offers like this to get points on gift card purchases.
The Fine Print
- Valid 6/23 through 6/29 (starts Friday, 6/23)
- Must use store card to get and use the points
- Be sure to double check that your local store is running this offer before buying
- “We now accept credit cards for the purchase of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express gift cards”
Gas Points Details
Here are the gas points details:
Every 100 points gets you 10¢ off per gallon at Shell, up to 20 gallons. If you have 1000 points, you’ll get $1 off. If you have 1500 points, you’ll get $1.50 off per gallon.
- Max discount in some areas is $1.50. In other areas, there might not be any max.
- You have 30 days to use the points. The day of purchase is Day #1.
- Points can only be used at partner Shell stations. You can redeem the points in a different area from where you got the points, but only if that Shell station is a partner. Check out the gas locator for Stop & Shop and for Giant for exact listings of which Shell stations are included.
- See the FAQ for more details. Some of the details vary by area and store.
- Points usually are available immediately, but I’ve had on occasion where it took a day until they showed up and were usable.
- Pro tip: Use a Shell gift card and you’ll usually get the cash price; it’s especially worthwhile to get the lower cash price when using fuel points.
Our Verdict
For each tank of gas you’ll need over the next month, buy $750 of Mastercard gift cards to get $1.50 off the tank. I’ll probably do $4,500 for six tanks, plus some OBC cashback. The timing is perfect for me since the points from last month’s VGC deal are expiring soon.
Max of $5,000 can be purchased in a day. They’ll copy your driver license number for purchases of $2,000 or more. Time to pull out those grocery credit cards, including the Freedom which gets 5x this quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases.
Hat tip to reader Scott
How long after the qualifying purchase does it take for Gas Rewards to show up and be available?
In other words, can I buy a GC, then drive to the pump right after and the rewards will reflect in the gas purchase? thanks
Usually it shows up right away, but it’s not guaranteed until 24 hours as I recall
This is from the Giant website:
Easily stack your savings at the pump! Never pay full price for fuel again with Giant Gas Rewards and the Fuel Rewards® program
I thought Gas Rewards and Fuel Rewards meant the same thing. Can someone explain the difference between the two and how they work? thanks
Fuel Rewards is a separate program from Shell. Maybe I’ll do a post on this now that they stack.
The lady at the courtesy desk said that was “always” the rule with these gas deals. I’m not sure if the language is new, I just know that I was able to buy just the gift cards in March and April without the $25 additional order, and now at least one store in this area requires it. Since I got told it’s required at the one store I’ve just been getting things to go up to $25. It’s not hard. A gas points grocery deal here, 10 or so champagne mangoes there, some bananas, a loaf of bread. Little things add up…
I guess we’ll wait for more DPs. I’ve had once or twice the gas points didn’t hit properly, so it’s quite possible it had nothing to do with the $25, just a random glitch.
Still bad news cuz it means it’ll be harder to convince CSRs to manually credit points. We’ll see.
Mine posted without the $25 requirement
Minimum $25 purchase to get the gas points is being enforced in my area of CT now. When they started taking CCs to buy GCs back in March I was able to just buy the GCs in individual transactions.
I think the $25 minimum is for grocery deals, not for gift card deals.
There is a section below the grocery deals that shows the minimum spend amount. I never even paid attention to it. A few weeks ago when I bought a $500 VGC I didn’t get the points and customer service coded it in manually “just this time”. Now that you mention it, I see no asterisk in the section for the Mastercard Gift Card.Perhaps it was there a few weeks ago, or perhaps we’ve had a local S&S store go rogue.
Reading it again the language is clear. $25 purchase required for ALL gas rewards promotions.
The way I got around it after that “just one time” has been to get a few things I needed plus some of the gas rewards groceries. Some of those gas rewards deals on groceries are very good, especially if there’s a printable coupon out there.
What language are you referencing? The promo for this week Chuck posts above makes no reference to required grocery purchases ? At my Martins location, they even apparently prefer that large gift card purchases be made at the customer service counter — rather than at the normal register. ??
This is from the Stop & Shop flyer:
http://imgur.com/5r8LuLq
It says the requirement applies to ALL gas rewards promotions. My S&S wasn’t enforcing that until recently, so YMMV. Over in the 40 cent per gallon when you buy 5 items section the best deal I see is Classico pasta sauce @ $2.39 each. If you get the full 20 gallons of gas this comes out to 79 cents a jar for the sauce. Not a bad deal.
Wow, is that new, Joe? Or maybe that $25 requirement is only for grocery bonuses, not the gift card promo. I feel like they’d write that in the fine print of the gift card promo if it was necessary.
I guess we’ll have to wait for DPs. My Stopandshop didn’t need it as of 4 weeks ago on the last VGC promo.
@Chuck
I replied in the wrong place, down below
These are issued by USbank. Unload them asap or risk of them being emptied by fraudster.
FYI, Fuel Rewards and Gas Rewards now stack
https://giantfood.com/savings-and-rewards/rewards-program/gas-rewards/
dood, do you know if that can get us to higher than $1.50 discount or it just lets us combined discounts between the two programs to reach $1.50?
I’ll tell you when I fill up this weekend. My giant account currently shows a $1.55 discount (haven’t earned any FR for quite a while)
In my experience they will stack since I was able to get $1.50 from VGC Giant deal + $0.25 from T-Mobile Tuesday and $0.05 from switch to new Fuel Rewards program for $1.80 off on last fill up.
Thanks for the data point
Confirmed I got the $1.50 max for the giant gas rewards, plus a 5 cent bonus for the fuel rewards, so seem like a true stack (governed by whatever limit of each program).
The pump ui had changed, FR and Giant are the same option now. I was unable to manually enter either my giant rewards number, nor the FR access code (phone#+pin). Tried at two Baltimore locations. Each time said no rewards available. I managed to find my FR card in the sock drawer and worked fine. Hopefully they fix soon.
Aren’t you just supposed to enter the phone number associated with your Giant account? That’s what I do – have not signed up for FR yet.
very interesting…..
Have noticed some variations on the program between brands…. (Giant/Stop/Martins) With Martin’s, there’s no cap apparently. (Web site says, save $1, $2, $3 or more! —
though I personally haven’t tried it beyond 2,000 points yet — or $2.00 per gallon, and in any case, gas is now well below $2.00… )
I’m still learning the Martins ins & outs. There, we have gas pumps right at the Martin’s super center… Yet wondering if I can use the Martin’s version at Shell. (have a hunch there may be variation even among Martin’s outlets — as some around Richmond, VA are now owned by Publix — and in transition) Things to find out.
Yeah, I think Martin’s can get your completely free gas. Some Giant stores do that too, IIRC, but not others.