@winstars wrote:
@steve23111 wrote:
@improvingmycredit wrote:
Hey winstars! From everything I've read, you will get the 6% on the gift card purchase when you get your statement as long as you bought the gift card at a grocery store. I think it's funny because I was actually going to do the same thing with regards to a gas gift card purchase just to test this for myself.
You are correct.
I do a lot of shopping at Kroger and if I know I'll be eating dinner at TGI Friday's or something like that, I'll grab a gift card for $25 or so to lock in the 6% rate vs. the 1% using my AMEX directly at a restaurant.
From what I've seen, most grocery stores have separate merchant accounts for their on-site fueling stations (if any), and those will be coded as fuel purchases and points would be earned at the lower rate. My local Kroger is set up like that. Purchases made at any register in the store (including Pharmacy and Cafe) will count as a grocery purchase as it's all under the main merchant account for the store, so 6% back. However, at the gas pump, it's a different merchant account, coded as a gas station, so only 3% back. My workaround is to buy a Kroger gift card while I'm in the store and then use that at the pump, securing a 6% cash back rate.
I don't go out of my way to accomplish any of this (if I don't need anything from the store, I'll just use my AMEX at the pump). Time is money, after all.
But if 6% of $25.00 is $1.50, is buying the $25.00 gift card cheaper than $1.50??? New at this, I have not bought many gift cards EVER... the other day I bought a $400.00 AMEX gift card for $5.95, but the $100.00 AMEX gift cards were $5.95 also, had I bought 4 $100.00 cards ,I make a grand total of $00.20. Are the $25.00 gift carfs cheaper than the cards I saw??? Like I said, I haven't bought many gift cards, the sheer number of them was amazing when I finally looked carefully at the display, which was all three sides of the end of an aisle at the supermarket!!!!
The reply from stan_the_man is correct. It seldom makes sense to buy a Visa/Mastercard/AMEX Gift Card because of the purchase fee, unless you're dealing with a very high dollar amount and don't mind giving up the routine protections given by your credit card (return protection, extended warranty, etc). What I'm talking about is purchasing a Kroger gift card for use at a Kroger gas pump or buying third party gift cards (McDonald's, Subway, Target, Lowe's, etc), all of which would be with no purchase fee, and all of which would count as grocery purchases.
