6% Groceries - BCP bummer

[Adkins]

Interesting, thank you!

[Kree]

Grocery savings is a completely different ball game from other types of savings. On a good trip I can save 70% off of the list price. But that requires coupons, apps, and a willingness to shop at different stores for different products.

for example my coffee always comes from safeway, and my milk from giant.  6% sounds nice, but it could be losing money if you can't get the real deals.

Of course couponing has its downsides too, so its a preference thing.

[Anonymous]

I have sock drawered my BCE. 

I still have some 9$ rewards in it as i could only redeem 25$ incremental amount. Like op i also shop at walmart and price chopper a lot. 

Bce gives 3% on price chopper but 1% only on walmart. So i got myself the right cards to earn the maximum bonus i can get by shopping in walmart.

I have walmart mc which gives me 3% on walmart.com and combined with NFCU member mall i get 5% total cash back on walmart.com purchases plus i always via online chat convert purchases over 150 to promotional financing even its now available only instore. But chatting with synch reps online results in converting walmart.com purchases also as promotional purchases. So its convenient.

Now for instore walmart purchases i use varieties of cards depending upon statement closing date etc. I use Consumers Cu visa sig which codes walmart super center as grocies and gives me straight 3% cash back  as statement credit every month without any minimum or incremental redemption limitations. 

I also use NFCU more amex since i think it codes it as grocieries but i need to check properply , im not sure.

I also use usbank cash + since it gives 2.5% on groceries in the first year bonus category.

I have not tried using PPDB master card with paypal 2% cash back as backup funding for walmart purchases instore but i have confirmed that if any paypal business debit card purchase codes as  signature purchase then with paypal cash back 2% as the back up funding method we are looking at straight 3% cash back for any and all signature purchases made using PPDB. There if no category restrictions here.

I still dont understand whats all the hype about amex bce or bcp . I am not ok with their incremental redemption and but i am happy with their generous credit limit increases 

[Anonymous]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

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Amex will likely not let you PC the card in the first year.

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Incorrect. I downgraded my BCP to BCE a few months after opening the card. 

AMEX doesn't have an issue with you downgrading because your AF is lowered, not raised, which is not against the CARD Act.

Citi on the other hand, has such a policy in place because you're lucky to find a CSR that is able to read the terms and conditions properly, yet alone how to understand the CARD Act.  

[Anonymous]

I was hesitant to get the BCE/BCP for fear that my usual spend stores wouldn't code for the full % but with some research before applying & perhaps some luck ALL stores I hoped or expected to code properly do. In some cases contrary to what you find online in "properly coded" grocery store lists. All the stores that don't code seem pretty common sense to me: warehouse stores, target, Walmart. Fred Meyer is kinda surprising to hear but I can kinda understand why - after visiting one when in WA to visit my dad I remember they have all sorts of clothing, fishing gear and home goods so I can see it being considered beyond the scope of normal grocery.

My regular stores that code properly for grocery include: Harris Teeter (this is the biggest - they offer a flat 5% off for students so we got my wife setup for that once she started grad school. With her membership and either of our BCE/BCP we're getting 8-11% before coupons and sales) Trader Joe's, kroger, food lion, whole foods, vons, Ralph's & a larger than expected number of local independent specialty stores.

In a side note I wonder if Amex had changed their coding requirements, I feel like stores come up under "supermarkets & grocery stores" for me instead of separate "supermarket" and "grocery stores" categories but maybe I'm confused. I'll dig into how my rewards code and check.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I was hesitant to get the BCE/BCP for fear that my usual spend stores wouldn't code for the full % but with some research before applying & perhaps some luck ALL stores I hoped or expected to code properly do. In some cases contrary to what you find online in "properly coded" grocery store lists. All the stores that don't code seem pretty common sense to me: warehouse stores, target, Walmart. Fred Meyer is kinda surprising to hear but I can kinda understand why - after visiting one when in WA to visit my dad I remember they have all sorts of clothing, fishing gear and home goods so I can see it being considered beyond the scope of normal grocery.

My regular stores that code properly for grocery include: Harris Teeter (this is the biggest - they offer a flat 5% off for students so we got my wife setup for that once she started grad school. With her membership and either of our BCE/BCP we're getting 8-11% before coupons and sales) Trader Joe's, kroger, food lion, whole foods, vons, Ralph's & a larger than expected number of local independent specialty stores.

In a side note I wonder if Amex had changed their coding requirements, I feel like stores come up under "supermarkets & grocery stores" for me instead of separate "supermarket" and "grocery stores" categories but maybe I'm confused. I'll dig into how my rewards code and check.

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Vons doesn't code as supermarket either, it codes as grocery store just like Safeway. Now I'm pretty curious as to what little bit of my spend actually landed in the 'supermarket' category because it wasn't much at all...but fwiw I already linked the AMEX supermarket merchant example list earlier in the thread. Also, lol@me because I just looked at it and Von's is clearly listed there.

Edit: So I just went back through my statements and even though Safeway is showing as 'grocery store', it's giving the 6% cash back. That gives me some hope for Von's, but nothing else that gave me 6% was anything other than a hole-in-the-wall supermarket in some of the towns I was in.

[simplynoir]

In my experience I've never had anything code as "supermarket" but "groceries" on AMEX and get the bonus spend on the purchase as such.

[Anonymous]

AMEX's coding means nothing apparently.  I purchased gas at Vons and it coded it properly as fuel, but they still only gave me the 1% cashback.  I know they say in the fine print that fuel purchases at grocery stores don't count for 2%, but they also don't count for 3%, so what gives.  Lol.  It's properly coded as fuel, so why can't they just give me my 2% (aka pennies, lol)?

They did give me the signup bonus only 3 days after I hit spend, so they get kudos for that. 

[Anonymous]

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@simplynoir wrote:

In my experience I've never had anything code as "supermarket" but "groceries" on AMEX and get the bonus spend on the purchase as such.

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I see a lot of people saying that they're getting the bonus spend on all of the places, and I hope that people are, but I've been hitting up everything in all of the towns that I've visited that I would think could code as supermarket and they're either too expensive to make it worth the savings or they code as grocery and only pay out 1% return. I'll take my Limitless to Walmart next year and just PC this card because it's definitely not doing what I need it to do or even part of what I thought it would do.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

AMEX's coding means nothing apparently.  I purchased gas at Vons and it coded it properly as fuel, but they still only gave me the 1% cashback.  I know they say in the fine print that fuel purchases at grocery stores don't count for 2%, but they also don't count for 3%, so what gives.  Lol.  It's properly coded as fuel, so why can't they just give me my 2% (aka pennies, lol)?

They did give me the signup bonus only 3 days after I hit spend, so they get kudos for that. 

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I typically fuel up at Fred Meyer and even though that codes as fuel it also only pays 1%. Those gas stations don't count, just the big box places that already charge far more to begin with. On the bright side, any purchases that I've made inside a Chevron has coded as fuel and given me 3% back.