Debit card rewards?
 

My favorite (discount) supermarket has closed its doors :td: . The other discount store here only takes cash or ATM/debit cards.

Whenever possible, I charge everything to my Visa card (or Costco Amex) to earn cash back every year. Now that I can't do that at this other grocery store, I have to 1) switch most of my shopping to the higher priced store so I can use my Visa, or 2) write a check (eeww) or use a ATM/debit card and earn nothing.

Any thoughts on how I can earn a little something for all these grocery purchases? I prefer to earn $ but miles would be okay. I don't have a B of A account and don't really want to open one just for the sake of the rounding-up promotion discussed in S.P.A.M.

Thanks for any advice or pointing me to other threads discussing this (didn't find any). :)

So let me make sure I understand you correctly. You are a member of FT, miles are only "okay"? Are you the spawn of satan? You should banned from FT for making such a statement! :D ;) (Oh, and in case it is not evident, I am kidding. I do not seriously mean it.)

There are some banks that allow you to earn miles from a debit card. With Chase you can earn miles on CO and UA with a debit card. With Citi you can earn AA miles with a debit card. With Bank of America you can earn US miles.
What is your airline/FF program of choice?

The problem with most of the debit miles/points earning cards mentioned above is that they only give you the miles/points if you put the purchase through as "credit". You need to make sure that the supermarket near you allows that, or only allows pin based transactions. Pin based = no miles or points.

This is not universally true - the Bank of America debit cards still allow mile earning on PIN-based transactions, except for ATM withdrawals, cash-back amounts on purchases, and the purchase of cash instruments (such as money orders, gaming chips, and traveler's checks).

In addition to the US card mentioned in the post by 777-DCA, BofA also has an AS debit card. Each of these earn 1 mile per $2 spent.

Mike

Most supermarkets will let you get "cash back" if you use a pin-based debit card to check out (e.g., you buy $50 worth of stuff, but they run it as a $90 charge and give you $40 cash). And most places that sell money orders will let you buy it as part of the same transaction as non-money-order transactions. For example, at the post office, you could buy a money order and a book of stamps all on one pin-based transaction.

How in the world does BofA know what portion of your transaction is for cash instruments and what portion is for other stuff?

I'm going to venture that it has something to do with how the transaction is coded by the merchant, but I really don't know. What I do know is that the restrictions I noted are straight from BofA's terms, so apparently they have a way to distinguish some types of transactions from others.

Mike

If the merchant and/or its processor do it correctly, the bank will know if there is any cash back involved, however, the bank would have no clue if the purchase is part goods, part money order.

US bank offers NWA miles with their debit card. I don't know if it works with PIN transactions, but it would be easy to check.

Yep, very easy:

Never mind, duplicate post.

Miles producing debit cards are listed in the Banking section of the Finance page of my website below.

Bank of America Debit Cards also have an annual fee, but in some states, this gets yours and your wifes cards taken care of.

Another option is if you have a Citibank checking account with ThankYou rewards. Debit card purchases each 1 TY point for every $3 for PIN transactions, 1 TY point for every $2 for signature.

Thats why I said "most". :D

Try Paypal
 

If you have a paypal premium account (it's still free), get the Paypal debit card and use that. Not only does it pay you back 1 percent for all signature purchases, but they post the credit amount at the same time they post the transaction amount instead of waiting and sending you a check once or twice a year.

BofA also has the Alaska Airlines debit card (in addition to US Airways). (all these cards are listed in the finance section of RewardsDB.com ).

One other thing to consider - many debit cards have a daily / weekly maximum limit of how much you can charge. I used to have the Citibank Premium AAdvantage Debit Card which as it turns out has a $2500 daily limit, the BofA Alaska Debit Card either has a higher limit or none at all (I can't remember).

Chase offers a continental debit card, you can get a gold one for $65/year and get 1/1 in points. The regular one is 1/$2. They also have a United one, 1/$2 $25/year. I used to have that one, now i have leisure rewards, It gives you 4/$1 and you can redeem the points for gift certs for travel company websites.

Citibank has their thank you network, you can get points for pin based trans with no annual fee (i believe).

Mitch

Thank you all so much for your responses. :) pgary, I've been to your site many times but not recently, so I will take a look there.

:D 777-DCA! I hope I'm not banned for making such a bold statement. It was hard enough to get up the nerve to post a question :o.

I stated earlier I would prefer just a cash back rebate each year, but if I had to choose, hotel points seem more valuable than miles to me these days. The main reason I would want miles is for free tickets for our family to either Europe or Hawaii in the summer (kindly contain your laughter).

First of all, I agree 100% with your sentiments. Given the continuing devaluation in all air and hotel programs, you are generally better off with real cash than funny money miles and points. And this is especially true for grocery purchases, as there are several credit cards that provide a 5% cash rebate on groceries, gas and drugstore purchases (see the other recent thread in this forum). Most people value miles at 1-2 cents each, so it is a no brainer to take 5 cents v. 1 mile.

Second, I would never recommend a debit card to anyone. If your # is stolen the money comes directly out of your bank account and you have to wait for the bank to replace it, which can take some time depending on the investigation. If you have a credit card, you simply dispute the fraudulent charges and don't pay them. Unless you have a mediocre credit score, you are better off with a credit card.

In your case I understand why you might still want a card, but be sure to factor the annual fee when considering the cost of your miles, particularly as you would only use this card in places that won't take CCs.

Hey gailmjohnson, welcome to FlyerTalk :D

Thank you I will use this.

Thanks
 

Thanks for the welcome. I've actually been lurking and learning for a while.

I used my Paypal debit when I went to Florida last month and got about $30 cash back with it. I paid for the hotel and car with it and got the cash back plus the hotel points so it seems worth it.

Once you are verified with them I believe the daily limits are $300 for ATM withdrawals and $4000 for purchases. And it will take 3-4 days for a transfer to be complete when adding cash from your back account to Paypal account.

Gail

Since there is a no-annual-fee credit card that gets you about 4.77 UA miles or 2.5 CO or BA miles per dollar spent at grocery stores, gas stations, and drug stores -- the Chase Rewards Plus card -- I'd say if you have a use for UA miles and value them at more than 1.1 cents each, that's a BETTER value than cashback by your standards! (Search in the UA forum for "Rewards Plus" for more on that card.)

(The best value in miles is using them for overseas flights in classes ABOVE coach, which start cost at only double what coach overseas flights cost in miles, but which are UNAFFORDABLY expensive -- WAY WAY more than double coach -- in cash $$$$ terms for most people. There it's not hard to find values well above 2 cents per mile. But yes, if all you're going to use miles for is cheap domestic coach flights, then miles may not be any better than cashback.)

As stated in other threads, it's 4.1666667 UA miles per dollar spent--not 4.77. And that's only in certain categories of spending (grocery stores/gas stations/drugstores). And there's a limit of either 25,000 UA miles or 15,000 CO/BA miles per year per card. You can also opt to get $300 cash back, which is almost certainly worth more than 15,000 CO miles (less clear regarding the 25,000 UA miles or 15,000 BA miles).

And, of course, you need to shop at a supermarket that takes credit cards (not debit cards), which negates the whole point of this thread.

I agree with Nako. I don't know how, but with my Keybank debit card, I only get the CO miles for a purchase not the cash back. The problem is that I get one mile for every two dollars I spend, and there is an annual fee, so at renewal time, I canceled and will use my credit card if I want the miles.

You are wasting your time with any card that gets CO miles. I am laundering my CO miles thru Amtrak as fast as possible. CO nonepass miles are almost worthless for redemption on CO. :td: