Originally Posted by
gatorboy
So it looks like this is an Incomm deal and not Ahold.
I was out and about and ran into a merchandiser restocking the gift card rack at a Food Lion.
He said that he was removing all existing stock of Visa MasterCard and I think American Express and switching them out. He did allow me to purchase several of the $5.95 Visa cards. - he said he had just removed about 300 of them - but now it will be $7.95 as far as the eye can see.
He said he was responsible for Giant, Food Lion and Dollar General (or Family Dollar - not sure) supermarkets, but said that it was because of Incomm, and of course had a big Incomm box filled with gift cards.
He said he couldn’t speak for Harris Teeter and when I visited one today they had $6.95 cards. Although they are Pathward, they are the Canary yellow kind, similar to what is sold at Staples. When I tried to use one though, I couldn’t redeem for more than a couple hundred dollars. So I probably won’t be buying those.
7-11 around me appears to be holding strong at $4.95 but a little harder to scale.
Two days ago, I ran into a different merchandiser (if that's the correct term). As suspected, she's employed directly by Incomm. As in my prior encounter she was switching out all the variable load gift cards. I was able to secure a few $5.95 cards before the switch. And I readily acknowledge how crazy it is that I'm praising the ability to buy GCs at $5.95 a pop.
This was at a Food Lion (a different region than my first encounter with an Incomm employee). As it happens, Chase Offers currently has a promo for up to $5 off at Food Lion and I had that offer on 8 different Chase cards. So not a huge deal but Chase Aeroplan is 3x grocery, Chase United Mileage Plus Select (I'm grandfathered) is 2x grocery and Chase IHG has a spend bonus ($20k spend in a year for 10 k points plus $100 statement credit). Not to mention PQPs for United Mileage Plus Select and United Club cards.
It's all at the margins but $5.95 vs. $7.95 still much better even with no gas points promo.