Be sure to check the fine print on the coupon. In prior years, it has been $10 off $10+ purchase. This year, I've seen a lot of $10 off $25+ purchase coupons (when they do similar deals for buying gift cards to certain merchants). If they continue that trend with the Visa promotion, we'll have to get more groceries to cash out the coupons.

Other thing to check is the fee on a $100 Visa. The variable load $20-500 cards have a $5.95 fee, but I know the set value cards have lower fees. Can't recall if the $100 is $4.95 or 5.95. Changes the math on comparing $100 vs. $500 cards.

Pick which one you prefer--would you rather maximize % return by using $500 cards and have fewer coupons to redeem; or maximize total return compared to how much manu spend you generate (BB limit you use, etc).

Another issue I've run into is Safeway locations that refuse to allow prepaid GCs to be bought with credit cards. The closest locations to me have all stopped taking CC (I could keep trying with other cashiers, but a King Soopers across the street only wants to see my DL and gives fuel points).

What I will probably do is get use prepaids from elsewhere as debit cards to buy $100 Visas at Safeway. Still a money maker with the $10 off coupon. I can always try to use CC first, but if I have a prepaid along, easy to just switch to that instead.

Variable load card has same fee as $100 card.

If it's advertised as '$10 off your next shopping trip', then It will be $10 off $10.

You do maximize this by buying the $100 cards, but, cashing them out is more of a pain, and, of course you're likely now using the $10 coupons to buy 'anything' instead of what you need. Find someone in the checkout line who will buy the coupon for $8 from you or something :)


Depends what you buy. They have some loss leaders out there, especially if you check your 'just4u'.

Stack these coupons and you can do really well.

I like checking out the 'clearance sale' on ranchers reserve. Once when I had the '$5 off of $20 purchase of Ranchers Reserve beef' on my Just4U, and found nearly 6.5 LBS of porterhouse steak that had been marked down to $4.97 per pound AND was in the clearance at 50% off.

The Just4U kicked in because the 'non clearance price' was over $20, but, the $5 got deducted AFTER the 50% discount.

So, 6.5 LBS of porterhouse ended up being $11.15 ($4.97*6.5/2 - $5).

Applied the coupon, and, then I'm required to pay $1.15. And, as luck would have it, Chase Freedom was on supermarkets that month, so, ended up earning 16 UR points...

At any rate, just an example of extreme stacking that 'is' possible. Not always of course will you find this.

Ended up being so happy with the score of beef I ended up inviting a few buddies over for steaks and beer. Since I already took care of the steaks, they brought the beer :)

Not necessarily. Last week the Sunday ad said buy $50 in select gift cards and get $10 off next shopping trip. Got a $50 Lowe's card and the coupon printed as $10 off next shopping trip of $25 or more.

We will find out tomorrow when the offer goes live.

Ad came in the mail today. T&C's are:

I'd say the only thing worth noting in there is that the variable load cards are excluded. And that it goes all the way to 7/16.

When they did this for the MC GCs recently the coupon was for 10 off 10 IIRC

Ah well...$500 at a time is easier to cash out, but that's fine...it just means a few more minutes at the WM machine ;) And a whole month to spread out the spend...I think I will have quite an easy time hitting minimum spend on a few ccs from my last AoR. :D

Don't understand why you would buy a card without the store-printed coupon in the first place. If you had the coupon, you would have seen the dates. Without the coupon, how could you buy a GC to "test it out?"

OP was expecting to get the $10 off coupon after purchasing a gift card based on the fact that you had a coupon pop out of the machine. OP didn't need anything in hand to take advantage of the deal if it was already live. However, deal wasn't live yet, so now I'm confused how you got a coupon to pop out? Or did you not get a coupon but rather an "ad" that popped out instead informing you of an upcoming deal?

I'll emphasis the part you glazed over, which is funny since it was in your quote...

Still a worthy 'test', no? Earn $19 anyway, and 'testing' to see if a $10 coupon would spit out. Or put it another way, I was going to do this anyway with the only difference is I would have bought at Ralphs to get the 'fuel rewards' instead (of which I have so many, and they're kind of hard to use too)... so not a big loss.

So, why the condensending attitude?


I kind of figured that he meant he saw an ad and didn't get a coupon, but, I agree wasn't 100% sure the way he phrased it... so a 'test' that would still earn $19 seemed worth it, and I was on my way to WM anyway and needed some extra GC's to take along.

I called it a "store-printed coupon" because it's what I received after a purchase, and it still looks like a coupon when I looked at it again just now. And I posted it that day here. What was the date? Just go back and look. (I do feel a bit irritated right now. I posted what I received to this thread because I've been finding it interesting, but people are somehow doubting what I posted.) As I said before, I have no idea what triggered that coupon since I only purchased simple food items. I didn't even check the effective date until I was asked, and yes, it's interesting that I got it before it was effective.

Well, it's live now:

http://weeklyspecials.vons.com/Safew...b967439_42.jpg

We're not doubting, we're trying to understand. From the sounds of it a piece of paper popped out the Catalina machine announcing $10 off the next trip when buying $100 in Visa GCs. You graciously posted that so people knew to look for it. One person thought the deal was already live and tried to use it, most likely because we believed that what you received was the $10 coupon. Unfortunately, it wasn't live and he didn't get his $10 coupon.

More than likely what popped out of the machine for you was simply an announcement about the future deal and somewhere in the fine print there was a date range. I get those all the time telling me about something coming up next week like the "mix 'n match" specials, or $5 off instantly when I buy $15 in selected dairy items. Unfortunately, the are not coupons, but rather announcements. This particular deal doesn't even require a coupon.

Just to confirm that I did receive the usual $10 coupon today with $100 visa GC purchase. Thanks ChaseTheMiles for the heads-up.

Did we determine that the variable cards don't apply?

it was not a coupon; it was an advertisement of a prospective promotion