Whole Foods Market and supermarket category bonuses.
 

I have the Amex Gold Premiere card which gives you 2 points for groceries. Has anyone used this successfully at Whole Foods? Just checking b/c there is some gobbledegood in the fine print about the store having to enter a particular code, and wondering if Whole Foods does that so people have been getting their points using that store. Thanks!

aren't merchants classified by the cc people....like warehouse/walmart often getting less/no pts....whole foods [the donut store] isn't a discount merchant, imho....go for it & let us know the result....is there a card that you would use instead?.....good luck...

The store doesn't need to enter a code, they need to be coded as a grocery store, and not a warehouse store/retail sales/etc. You'll be fine at Whole foods. Sams, Costco, WalMart, Target, etc all receive the reduced rates, as they're coded differently.

Amex has whole foods coded correctly: Merchandise & Supplies - Groceries

You should get bonus points as expected.

Chase codes them as "other", sadly.

I have always had whole paycheck code as grocery and get double points. you would be supprised of others that code a grocery like one of my local gas stations with a minimart, and two of the wine shops i order from also code as grocery even thou they just sell wine

The categories shown when you view your account activity on chase.com are not the categories used for reward calculations. Chase (and Citi) recognize that Whole Foods is a supermarket.

What stores are supermarkets for AmEx Blue Cash Preferred?
 

Sorry if this is a wrong forum, but I cannot find anything meaningful going by a Search function and I though this forum will have the most knowledgeable audience as far as the question:

Blue Cash PreferredSM from American Express provides 6% for purchases at "supermarkets" with only definition in Terms and Conditions "6% for eligible purchases at supermarkets (excluding superstores and warehouse clubs)". So in reality what major stores are supermarkets but not superstores?

What about Walmart, Target and Kohl's for example? Are any of these supermarkets but not superstores?

Supermarkets are firms which primarily sell groceries such as:

Kroger, Safeway, SuperValu, Publix, A&P, Albertsons, Whole Foods, etc. The stores you mentioned do sell groceries, but that is not their primary business, and they are not classified as supermarkets for credit card transaction processing purposes.

I'm now even more confused. Some American Express cards (e.g American Express Premier Rewards Gold) have a bonus spending category called "groceries" while others (e.g. American Express Blue Cash) have a bonus spending category called "supermarkets" but based on your answer it seems like that "groceries"="supermarkets".

Why don't just make things simpler and call same things universally? Is that a marketing trick of some kind? Making people think that cards have somewhat different bonus categories when in fact they don't?

Or am I just missing something?

Groceries is a category of merchandise. A supermarket is a type of store. The bonus is determined by where you shop, not by what you buy.

This can be a bit tricky and it depends on the each individual store. Some stores, it can even depend on how each register is programmed.

I know for my local Raley's, it did not count as 'supermarket'.

I understand that and the generic idea that it only matters how a particular store was coded in the application to the payment processing network (AmEx in this case). What I'm pointing out is an apparent inconsistency in marketing between different AmEx cards:

Premier Rewards Gold Card: X2 on groceries, where "groceries" purchases are described as follows "charges at U.S. stand alone ... supermarkets are eligible for bonus points."

Blue Cash Preferred: 6% cash back at supermarkets where "supermarkets" purchases are described as "eligible purchases at supermarkets (excluding superstores and warehouse clubs)"

So at the end of the day X2 on PRG and 6% for Blue Cash Preferred is earned at the exactly same stores even though in one case it's marketed as "groceries" and in other case as "supermarkets". Confusing...

It's probably just a semantical difference, I don't know if AMEX has the ability to group merchants in the way to differentiate "grocery" from "supermarket." They probably are just using the merchant category code which would show up as "groceries;" stores like Costco, etc. show up as a different code, which is how they're able to be excluded from the PR Gold's bonus. I've recieved bonus points for shopping at liquor stores who bill under the "groceries" category.

Your best bet would probably be to inquire using a secured message.

Correct. There's nothing devious here. All of the other major rewards card issuers employ copywriters who sometimes use "groceries" or "supermarkets" as shorthand for "transactions at merchants who primarily sell groceries".

What is (or not) included in the U.S. Supermarket category?
 

Sorry if this has already been posted. I did a search but couldn't find the answer.

I'm trying to get the most out of our Amex Blue Cash Preferred card. It gives 6% back on groceries.

On the rewards page it says:
So I'm wondering if Sprouts, Trader Joe's, Fresh and Easy... do they count as grocery stores or natural food/ specialty stores?

I know Whole Foods is accepted but what about the others?

TJ's counts.

Is Amazon FRESH coded as a supermarket?
 

Does anybody know if Amazon Fresh counts?

The website says:
Examples of merchants* that accept the Card and where you can earn additional rewards include:
• Online supermarkets such as FreshDirect

And also says:
Examples of merchants where you will NOT earn additional rewards include:
• Superstores (e.g. Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart)

Amazon Fresh operates like FreshDirect. The question is, how is it coded on the Amex end? Do they see Amazon and think "no" or do they realize that Amazon Fresh is a different product?

Sprouts counts.

The coding is not done by American Express, but by Amazon's "acquirer", the entity which processes their card transactions. The simplest way to find out is to use an American Express card to place an Amazon Fresh order and look at the transaction details when it appears online.

Yes I know but I was wondering if anyone else had done it.

Moderator action
 

I have broken this question out as a separate thread to maximize finding an answer, because Amazon Fresh has only a few delivery areas.

I can confirm that Trader Joe's definitely counts.

Fresh & Easy also counts.

Basically anywhere you buy groceries from counts, except what's noted like Walmart, Target (usually), Costco, that one liquor store down the street that for some reason accepts Amex and you don't know why.

Thank you

We use InstaCart for food delivery. They are not coded as a supermarket, and have no plans to - according to their support staff.

For us, the convenience outweighs the points, so we might be looking for a new card with 3X+ points on something else we buy frequently

Virtually ever natural food store in which I have ever bought groceries qualified. The only exceptions were a couple of food co-ops which didn't take AMEX at all. Also, purchases at a local, small grocery store qualify.

I checked our charges and on the AMEX site it says:

Doing business as:
AMAZON FRESH
Additional Information: GROCERY
Category: Merchandise & Supplies - Internet Purchase

Looks like we have a separate charge for the tip and it says:

Doing business as:
AMAZON FRESH TIPS
Additional Information: SUPERMARKET
Category: Merchandise & Supplies - Internet Purchase

Amex BCE and Smith's Supermarket Question
 

Hi Guys,

Tried to look for this but no luck so far, in my search on internet (google) i can see that Kroger/Smith's both qualified for 3% ( read in some forums), i called Amex and the assured me that none of them are included on their list, even Vons is in their list but the CSR just told me that Vons is not included, what ????

Here my confusion, i did get 2% on gas from Smith's but not 3% on groceries in my last statement and my question is, is Smith's on the 3% reward supermarket list?

Thank you so much for your help guys ^

Most King Soopers (a Kroger chain) credit as supermarkets, but I had one that didn't; the Amex rep told me that it was set up as a general merchandise store in their system. The logic escaped me, but it was only the one store.

Some gas stations don't register as gas stations.

I tried to go through and check for a couple of months, but the points post well in arrears, and I got lazy and gave up.

The merchant category is not assigned by American Express, it's selected by the store's acquirer, the firm which processes their credit card transactions. If a store is franchised the owner may already have another merchant account for another business, and that coding may be carried over. It's a mistake, but no one is really motivated to fix.

You can see how a specific merchant is categorized by expanding the details of a transaction when it posts on your online account.

The typical Whole Foods and equivalents count (large natural food grocery stores).

But some small natural food stores are half grocery store and half restuarant, and may code as a restaurant. In fact, any store (whether it's natural food or not) that's half one thing and half another may code either way.

And for the ultimate confusing example: Some 7-11's have gas pumps, they tend to code as gas (but no guarantees). But some 7-11's that have never had gas pumps also code as gas, yet other 7-11's code as grocery, and yet other 7-11's code as general merchandise or whatever. Unless you have experience with a particular 7-11, I'd say all bets are off.

I wonder if the Citi AT&T Access More would code InstaCart as online shopping and earn 3x TYP?

Raley's groceries?
 

Let me know if it's impolite to resurrect or hijack this thread. But..
the reason I just got this card was obviously for my 6% cash back on groceries. The majority of my grocery shopping is done at Raley's and I can't find Raley's on the list of grocery stores. Anyone know if Raley's gets the 6%?

It did last time I shopped there.

How have your other purchases coded on previous card statements?

A big grocery store is a supermarket.

A tiny grocery store is not a supermarket.

Ie, a supermarket is a grocery store above a certain size.

That is the colloquial distinction.

Now, how Amex counts that, I dunno.

On my Everyday card, where I get 2x to 2.4x MR on groceries, I don't worry about whether a tiny grocer is a supermarket or not, as long as they code as groceries. Which, btw, some 7-11s do but other 7-11s don't (some 7-11s code as gas instead, whether or not they have gas pumps attached).

On my Everyday card, Ralphs (a Kroger supermarket brand), Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and certain 7-11s all code identically as:
If you have another card, and are not sure whether supermarkets code differently on it than other groceries, I suggest you make a small purchase at a supermarket, a small purchase at a small grocery, and see if there's any difference in the coding after each purchase posts.

I don't see what else it could be. Raley's is pretty much the stereotypical American supermarket. In my experience, chain stores are usually classified properly. It's the mom and pop merchants that sometimes are misclassified for whatever reasons.

In my mind, a supermarket is a grocery store that also sells some general merchandise, such as health and beauty products, magazines, party supplies, etc. A supercenter combines a supermarket with a discount store that sells clothes, housewares, and so on.

For example, Trader Joe's would be a grocery store but not a supermarket.

But recently, the lines are blurring and the best advice is to make a small test purchase to determine how a particular location codes.

It might depend on the card network too. I know that my local Target is classified as a grocery store according to Mastercard, for instance.

I just chatted with an Amex rep stating that Instacart now codes as groceries. Has anyone else heard of this change?