This episode of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, hosted by Justin Vacula, features a detailed discussion with guest Darren Remsburg on maximizing savings through the Giant Pennsylvania Fuel and Grocery Rewards Program.
Justin shares upcoming speaking events and meetups, provides tips on using credit card points, and emphasizes the benefits of the Giant program, highlighting strategies to get free gas and discounts on groceries. The episode also covers the effective use of various reward credit cards and the nuances of managing multiple giant accounts for optimal benefits.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Low-Cost Travel with Points and Miles
00:32 Host Introduction and Episode Overview
01:01 Upcoming Events and Announcements
02:06 Welcoming Back Darren Remsburg
02:50 Maximizing Pennsylvania’s Giant Fuel and Grocery Rewards
03:22 Earning and Redeeming Points for Gas
08:29 Credit Card Strategies for Maximizing Rewards
30:03 Managing Multiple Giant Accounts and Transactions
33:20 Navigating Store Policies and Friendly Interactions
34:27 Strategies for Smooth Transactions and Avoiding Fraud Alerts
36:02 Maximizing Rewards with Gift Cards and Promotions
37:31 Exploring Rewards Earning Debit Cards
39:35 Leveraging Giant’s 5X Promotions and Holiday Rewards
45:35 Understanding Giant’s Choice Points System
52:58 Visa and MasterCard Gift Cards: Flexibility and Use Cases
01:03:47 Concluding Thoughts and Upcoming Events
Show notes:
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Rough Transcript:
[00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness. Pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula. Here to help you travel the world and next to no cost. With credit card points, miles, benefits, and rewards. Make money, save money, and take advantage of great deals.
Thanks for joining me for today’s episode with returning guest Darren Remsburg. We talk about how to maximize the Giant Pennsylvania Fuel and Grocery Rewards Program so you can save money on gas [00:01:00] and groceries. Before today’s episode, some quick announcements. I’ll be speaking at multiple events in 2024, including the September Chicago Seminars event at Hyatt Regency, the October Chicago Seminars event at Holiday Inn, Elk Grove Village, and the Miles Points and Gambling event.
Zork Fest, November, 2024 in Las Vegas, visit meetup. com slash Philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetup is October 20th, 2024. The website, UDIO, UDIO. com created new podcast, intro music for more content between podcast episodes.
Follow Hurdy Gurdy travel podcast on Facebook and X formerly known as Twitter. Follow Justin Vukula on Instagram. Search Hurdy Gurdy travel on subscribestar. com. Do financially [00:02:00] support my efforts, starting at the 5 a month tip jar level. On with today’s episode. Welcome back to the show, Darren Remsburg.
Thank you, Justin. After five year hiatus, I’m back and it feels like less than five weeks. Really thrilling our listeners for, or your listeners for a loop here.
And your audio quality improved partially thanks to Dell Credits, as I use Dell Credits for my microphone, and now you’re using my old microphone, so thanks for that and coming back on.
And thanks for Amex Platinum for all those Dell Credits. But, Expiring at the end of 2024. So use them while you got them. Absolutely.
And I’m going to have three more business platinum cards coming in the mail shortly, thanks to upgrade offers that showed on my account. So even more Dell in our future. It is absolutely America’s funnest bank.
All right. And we’re here to talk about Pennsylvania’s funnest fuel rewards and grocery program at giant. Pennsylvania, we have a different program compared to [00:03:00] other states. So we’re going to focus on the Giant PA
program. Definitely not to be confused with Giant Maryland, which will not offer you anywhere near the same value.
So if you’re living in Maryland, come on over the Mason Dixon line and visit with us in Pennsylvania. And Stop
and Shop is related, but yet still a different program. Indeed. Primary use of these points is for gas. So let’s talk about the gas redemption and we’ll talk about how we earn points.
Yeah, I think what’s unique about the Pennsylvania Giant program is you can redeem points to the point where you don’t have to pay anything for gas.
So there are some other programs that you can get a dollar off or the good old Costco car that you can get 35 or 25 cents off. But what we’re talking about here is rolling up with your car, truck, or minivan, as the case may be, putting in your, uh, giant rewards number. And then if you have enough [00:04:00] points, the gas pump goes to zero for the price and you can pump up to 25 gallons at no charge.
We always remember to bring our gas cans, Justin. That’s the take home message here. Unless your
tank holds 25 gallons and you’re approaching close to empty. But I would think most listeners would have a 10 gallon tank or maybe up to 20.
Yeah, the good old minivan that my family drives is a 15 gallon tank.
And yeah, I always have those two 5 gallon tanks in the trunk when we go to fill up.
Yes, and here, no matter how many gallons you pump, you still use the same amount of points.
So if you fill up 9 gallons, it costs the same as if you fill up 15 gallons, 20 gallons, or 25 gallons. So. The, of course, the sweet spot really is that 25 gallon fill.
So if the price
of gas is 3. 20, you need 3, 200 points to get the price of gas down to zero at the pump.
So how, 3, 200 points, Justin, that sounds like a bunch of points. How would you accumulate so many [00:05:00] points?
I think a clear example is coming up, we’re recording on September 16th on Monday Night Football happening at the same time.
But this upcoming Friday the 20th is going to be a 10x promotion on Home Depot, Boscov’s, and some other gift card brands. So if you were to buy a 320 Home Depot gift card, for example, maybe you’ll buy some gas containers at Home Depot and other items for personal use for just one example. You’d buy a 320 Home Depot gift card, and with the 10x you would get 3, 200 points.
That sounds like a pretty good deal. Yes, and the points earning is you simply buy the gift cards and the cards are added to your giant account. You’ll use your barcode, phone number, whatever that’s attached to the account at customer service or a regular register. And the points are added to your account after the gift card purchase.
What if I’m, uh, what if I’m in home construction, Justin? Can I, and I have a [00:06:00] project coming up where I’m going to be shopping at the Home Depot. Can I, can I buy, I think those cards come in denominations up to 500. Can I buy 10 of those cards on my account, get 5, 000, 5, 000 gas points, and then go in and redeem
those?
Unfortunately, the program terms changed for the most part as the fine print usually restricts each account to earning on 2, 000 worth of spend. So if you got 2, 000 worth of Home Depot gift cards, your next purchase of Home Depot would add zero to the account. Yeah, you may be able to buy 1, 500 and then do a transaction for 000, but it’s at this point where I’m personally not risking it and getting zero points on a transaction.
So I’m usually buying 1, 500 or 2, 000 of the cards on one account per promotional period. But if you have some friends who may have giant accounts and they let you use your, their giant accounts, then you [00:07:00] can operate multiple giant accounts and get more gift cards.
Yeah,
I
like the sound of that. Or maybe if you’ve been wondering what your kids are going to do to pay you back for all the food and clothes and whatnot, maybe they could open giant accounts.
Yes, but they also changed the program to similar addresses combining in the same account. So for people who have multiple accounts, they manage for these fuel rewards and grocery dollars, we’ll talk about a little bit later, each account has to have a different address. So I found this out the hard way because there was a father and son.
Who thought that they were going to earn points? Why aren’t the points showing up? What happened? And they were merged into the same household because they had the same address. How about that? That sounds like a world happiness to me. . Yeah, that’s a weird one. Why isn’t it working? What’s going on? Why aren’t the cards scanning?
Yep. So every week or so, these promos change. Sometimes the gift card promotion goes on for two weeks. I think we’ve seen three weeks of [00:08:00] the same promotion in the past. This week, as we’re recording, it’s 2x points on Vanilla Visa gift cards, so for a 500 Vanilla Visa card, you get 1, 000 points.
That sounds like a pretty good deal.
Yes. Although the Vanilla Visas have been a bit trickier to use, and you’re also paying a 5. 95 activation fee on these cards, I would think that listeners would be purchasing these cards with various credit cards, so which credit cards are you using? To buy gift cards, a giant,
of course, I’m always looking for a credit card that has some sort of multiplier.
I think for a long time, the American express gold card, personal gold card has been the best in the business for X membership rewards for grocery purchases at giant. Other grocery stores, of course, also things that are not groceries purchased at Giant, like gift cards. There was a brief period of time where it seemed as if some points got called back on the membership reward side, not the Giant side.
But essentially what we’re doing here, of course, is stacking these points [00:09:00] together. So you’re earning points in two systems. One, the giant reward system for gas. And then two, the membership rewards points. Other points that I like a recent addition to my card portfolio is the Venmo card that earns 3 percent at grocery stores, including Costco.
Now, so there’s some interesting plays there. I think those are the two. Oh, and of course an oldie, but a goodie, the old blue cash is straight 5 percent cash back at grocery stores and drugstores. After you spend, I think 6, 500 is the number, then you get 5 percent cash back on the next 50, 000.
Unfortunately, that is not a card that you can get anymore, and I don’t think you can product change it to any. I don’t think you can product change to it either, so that’s a dinosaur. An archaeological dig is
required to Yeah, you could find it in the forums and maybe some old posts on Doctor of Credit and other places, but I don’t think you can change into it or get the card anymore.
You also have my second favorite credit card that you use at Giant. [00:10:00] Here, I don’t have the Plum card, Justin. I don’t have the Plum card. Oh, no, not the Plum. That might be one of my least favorite cards. Oh, okay. It’s just a joke card, but the Altitude Reserve with U. S. Oh,
of course. Yes, the Altitude Reserve.
Yeah, that’s not only a great grocery card, that’s a card anywhere that mobile pay is accepted. 3X, anywhere mobile pay is accepted, Google or Apple Pay. And then when you redeem it for travel, like I just did, I paid the fees associated with five business tickets to Greece for next summer for my family. So a few fees there was able to pay that using the card and redeemed the points for 1.
5 cents each. So you’re effectively getting four and a half percent cash back on all transactions where mobile pay is accepted. So really one of the best cards out there. And for those that are listening and have a P2. And they’ve gone through the process of making stickers and labels and there’s fights about using the wrong card.
Two things. One, [00:11:00] organic spend doesn’t move the needle. Stop arguing about that. And then two, just give them a, give them an altitude reserve card, put it in their phone, whatever kind of phone they have and tell them to use it for everything. That is by far the best way. And it’s also a great way to. Ensure that the occasional large expenditure at grocery stores or big box stores doesn’t raise any alarm bells because you’re using that card for organic spend everywhere else.
Yes. Altitude reserve very easy 4. 5%. And yeah, there’s no need, I think, to switch between cards of, Oh, Hey player to use this card because we’re working on this signup bonus. Because. With all of the tools of the trade, we can hit our signup bonuses very easily. And with mobile pay, we don’t want to give up that 4.
5%, especially on the smaller purchases, but for the larger purchases, I’ve been splitting tender at giant where I would usually put amounts around 300 on the altitude reserve because the larger transactions. [00:12:00] I’ve seen fraud alerts and people have gotten shut down for a lot of the larger purchases, particularly at grocery stores, because the U.
S. Bank doesn’t seem to like that.
There certainly were some early shutdowns when the card first came out. Um, some pretty heavy manufactured spending and some direct, pretty obvious manufactured spending. And that got cut out pretty quickly. So it has a bit of a reputation for that. I think certainly if I were to get a new card, I wouldn’t go out and buy.
A bunch of, a bunch of 505. 95 Visa gift cards, right? And load those on. I think that’s pretty obvious. But if you’re splitting tender, like what you’re doing, if you’re doing a fair bit of organic spending to keep, keep it going and get it going. I’ve been able to use that card pretty extensively in a variety of situations and have not had any issues.
Knock on wood.
Yeah. And Giant is nice because when you purchase a gift card, There’ll be a prompt on the screen that says, The total, and is this amount correct, you could hit the no button on the screen and change the amount by yourself, so you [00:13:00] don’t even need to tell the cashier, oh, I’d like to change the amount or put this on this card or that card, so you have power over the transaction.
Although I’ve noticed an interesting thing that when you use mobile payer to contactless a giant. It takes the entire amount, so on the split tender with the mobile pay at giant, I use the altitude reserve at the end of the transaction, so it’s an America loves math moment where, okay, you’re in there for 1, 500 of cards, and maybe you put about 500 on another card, and then you have to subtract, and then I make the amount around 300 on the altitude reserve.
That’s a good tip on using that at the end. What you said, that was your second favorite card. What’s your favorite card for grocery spend? Just the
MGM MasterCard is my favorite credit card overall, because I’m getting the MGM platinum status through that. So every year I get the annual cruise, the 600 flight rebate, the 200 dining comp.
And room upgrades with MGM, waived resort fees, and much more. So that comes with a gold status. So I’ve [00:14:00] reached the platinum goal for the year. My last credit card statement closed. I have the 200 K tier credits. So in order to get to that 200 K tier credits, I have to spend at grocery and gas stations. So on the road to the 200 K tier credits for the platinum status.
I’m using that for the 2x grocery, but then once I hit that goal, then I stop using the card for most of the rest of the year. In December, my statement will close around the 4th or the 5th. After the December statement closes, then I can put spend on the card, and then January 4th or 5th, the statement closes again and I have a big head start.
In the year. So that’s been an interesting card there. The two X doesn’t seem that great because many other cards are giving the four X or the 4. 5 with the altitude reserve. But when I’m getting all the status benefits and at some point, since I’m doing so much spend at grocery stores and using so many cards.
It helps as a volume play to have multiple cards rather than ramming and jamming the same card. And then you run up against credit limits or you get [00:15:00] adverse action for just being too aggressive, I think.
What did you say the, the threshold was to, for gold and platinum status for MGM and spend?
Yeah, so it’s 200k tier.
So at 2x grocery, you need 100k grocery. But with some online blackjack play, in person poker play, And some other incentives that you might get or actual gambling or actual dining spend at MGM properties. It’s a little bit less of spend. So platinum is a very high goal that I think most people won’t do unless they’re MGM regulars and high spenders, but the gold status is 75 K tier.
So I think that’s more achievable for people, 500 grocery spend. So with a lot of giant deals, and we also have Weiss, Acme, Redners, and other stores in Pennsylvania. I think it’s pretty easy to get that 37k in, only
37k for a whole year. I know some people that have three or four teenage boys in the house and they might hit that organically, Justin, as much food as they [00:16:00] eat.
Yeah,
possibly, possibly. So that’s the acquisition side of the giant. So for getting the 10x points on the Home Depot or getting the credit card rewards. It ends up being a really lucrative play. And I think we’ve been filling gas a giant with this program for several years now, maybe 2018, 2019 for me, as I got started in the hobby around September of 2018.
And it wasn’t too long after that until I discovered the Giant Fuel Rewards Program.
Yeah, those were the days, right? You could buy almost as much as you want per sale. You really could max out some of the credit cards. And some of the cards that bonused at higher spend were particularly helpful and lucrative.
Uh, that’s okay. The things change. We continue to adapt and evolve and find ways to still make it work. Yeah. And
a little bit of the math, if you’re getting the tax points on the Home Depot, it appears to be something like a 25 percent rebate. So if you’re thinking, okay, was there some opportunity cost of actually using the Home Depot gift cards because, Oh, maybe I can go to Home Depot and.[00:17:00]
I can get discounted Home Depot gift cards elsewhere. So there, there’s some opportunity cost there. But if you’re using the gas rebate, you’re using those 25 gallons. I think it’s very hard to beat that for personal use versus other deals where you might be able to buy Home Depot to discount elsewhere.
Yeah, I agree. So walk us through that 25 percent America loves Mexico and stuff. I got my calculator out here. Let’s see, what do we need to do to, to work with folks on this and, and make it
clear? Yeah, it’s interesting because it’s, uh, an audio podcast and it might be more of a visual helpful thing, but I’m scrolling through here on some of the math that I did.
I went to Giant and Willow Grove where I host the Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and Points group, and they had a Chinese menu now instead of plain fried rice. This is plan fried rice. So, scrolling through here looking at the math. So, let’s see, if you were to buy a 320 Home Depot gift card, It would get you 25 gallons of gas [00:18:00] at 0 per gallon.
If the gas price is 3 and 20 cents. So 25 gallons times 320 is 80, according to the quick math right here, which would be a 25 percent rebate.
I just double checked your math with the good old calculator and that is exactly right. So when you start talking about 25 percent rebates, that, that’s a very appealing thing for a lot of folks, right?
Almost everybody is using gas to, to go to work, to take kids around to go on a road trip and go on vacation. Sometimes you even have to go out of the giant space and use your Speedway gift cards, Justin.
It’s going to
be scary out there when we, when we escaped giant land.
Yeah. So it’s a really good deal here.
And the points that you earn are called choice points. And if you earn points in the month of September, even if it’s at the end of the month. Those choice points as choice points last through the end of the next month. So if you go get the Home Depot on [00:19:00] Friday during September, the points will be good until the end of October, but.
You can convert your points also to grocery rewards at the end of October and that essentially extends the life of the points for another month as grocery rewards.
So the grocery rewards, do I also get a 25 percent discount on my groceries or how does that work?
Unfortunately, the conversion of groceries isn’t as good because the 10x points Would be worth one cent per point.
So if you had 3, 200 points, you would have 32 in grocery rewards. I’m just doing some math here. That seems like a lot less than 80. Is that, is that? Yeah, it’s a lot less than the 25 percent rebate. So the 10x would give you a 10 percent rebate. So you would get the 10x plus the credit card rewards. So even at a kind of break even level, it’s probably better to use the grocery points for groceries rather than just outright buying groceries.
at Giant, assuming that the prices at [00:20:00] Giant are fair or competitive.
That’s a good point. It’s always good to look at the competition. What, how did Giant prices compare to other grocery stores in the area? I’ve certainly heard that some folks find them to be more expensive, um, for us around where I live in Southern Chester County in Pennsylvania, the Giant is probably one of the cheaper options for where we are and of course made even cheaper when we’re using uh, gas points and, and credit cards to, you know, multiply those gas points and grocery points.
Yes, in America’s favorite Chinese restaurant in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, Super Hong Kong Chef, you could use those grocery rewards to buy Chinese food. So that’s been one of my favorite redemptions for a very large portion of fresh food. They have a case and you could order items out of the case that are already ready, but you can ask them to make something off of the menu and it’s super, super fresh and you could eat it in the cafe there.
Yeah, I think you can use it for anything in the grocery store or at giant except for alcohol, right?
Yeah, there are some exclusions like alcohol money orders, unfortunately [00:21:00] gift cards and some other things milk may or may not be excluded to some extent Although I have used it for almond milk before but some other milk varieties may or may not be excluded
Yeah, that’s a good point about the gift cards.
Otherwise, we could potentially just keep rolling the cards. Oh, it’s like, uh,
the Undertaker, former Undertaker theme song for those, uh, wrestling fans in the audience. That’s right. Yeah. You can do that at Redner’s though, which is very interesting. And hopefully Redner’s isn’t listening and shuts it down, right?
Right. Yeah. Really good at Redner’s to just roll it in. Yeah, of course. Yeah. They’re listening in on the competition and what’s going on at Giant. And the Giant gas points, you know, also is, Giant has their own fuel pumps, so there’s no partnership that I know of with Shell, Chevron, Speedway, or other gas companies.
Yeah, I think that’s a good point, that when you’re, the, the Giant that you go to doesn’t have to have a pump in order for you to, or, uh, earn points. However, if you want to use those points, you absolutely have to [00:22:00] find a giant gas station and that’s fairly easy to do in my experience, at least using Google Maps and giant gas station near me, right, is a pretty straightforward and an easy way to do that, whether you’re close to home or are traveling up to Willow Grove for the
meetup.
Yes, the Willow Grove gas station is pretty close to the grocery store. Sometimes they’re in the same parking lot, but this one’s a little bit down the street. And lots of points, lots of promotions. Recently, we’ve seen some good ones. There was the Zillions gift cards, which is this online convertible gift card that converts to Lowe’s, Home Depot, other 12x points on Zillions.
Then we saw Vanilla Visa for 2x points, 10x for Home Depot and Boscov’s coming up, so we have a very first world problem now of too many good deals next to one another because we’ve seen times a giant where we’ve seen garbage brands like Topgolf, Fanatics, that we can easily find 20 percent off elsewhere, so what good is 5x or 8x or 10x a giant on those [00:23:00] brands, but with the high value brands like Home Depot, The vanilla visas that we can use.
Those are really valuable.
Yeah. Like you said, it’s always good to take into account other options and your opportunity costs, right? You don’t want to do Adidas for five X there. If you can do it on, uh, my gift card choice or what’s the
My gift cards plus. My gift cards plus, ah, sorry. Yeah. Swag books.
Yeah.
Earning those swaggy swag books for 20 percent off right down the road. Or sometimes Adidas themselves has the same cards at 15, 20 percent off. So always good to keep that in mind. Justin, how do you use all these Home Depot cards? Or are you building an addition to your abode there in Philadelphia? It would be interesting to build some
sort of garage to store all the gas, but it’s something like it, some problem with the local authorities, as we’ve seen in other jurisdictions, let’s say, I think the Las Vegas, some guy was storing too much gas in his basement, so that was a problem.
Our, our past podcast guests from [00:24:00] Card Center dot C and QC gc, we have Dan from Card Center on, and Taylor Thomas from QCGC. They are gift card buyers, gift card resellers. So instead of using the Home Depot for personal use, because, okay, how much stuff are you going to buy at Home Depot? They’re often buying these high value gift cards.
The zillions gift cards were going for around 89%, 90 percent face. So it gets into more of an America loves math moment where, okay, if I’m going to buy a Home Depot gift card, sell it for 90 percent face value, but I’m getting a 25 percent rebate in the form of gas. Then that becomes profitable to resell.
It seems like this is going to be another math problem for us, Justin. So let’s see, let’s say gas has gone up to 3. 60. How about that? And you’re going to Then it gets a little thornier. And you’re going to get 12x on those zillions cards, right? Because they make [00:25:00] me happy. They’re not happy cards, right?
That’s different. But they’re like happy cards. They’re zillions cards. No more happy moments or happy lady. No. No happy dad, but, uh, at 3 and 60 cents and you’re getting 12 X, right? So that means you’d have to buy, you’d have to buy for 360. You’d have to buy a 300 gift card,
right? If the price of gas was 3 and 60 cents and it was 10 X, you’d have to buy a 360 gift card, 12 X.
Oh, at 12 X. Okay. Yeah. That math is a little bit more complicated. Oh, I just wanted to use the 10 X to make the math easy. Oh, I’m sorry. All
right. Start again. Do you want to cut it back? All right. Yeah. What
example do you want to use?
300? Do 10x on Home Depot as an example. 10x on Home Depot. Okay. Okay. On the upcoming deal.
All right, Justin, at this new 10x deal, say I live somewhere where gas has gone up to the astronomical price. Of 4 a gallon. It could happen. So at 10 X and 4 a gallon. And it turns out that Justin, you have [00:26:00] just lost a bet and have to now drive an electric vehicle for the next two months. So there’s no way you’re going to use this gas and you’re going to sell this gift card.
To Dan or to Taylor or to someone else. So let’s, should we redo the math? Okay, go ahead. So if you have 4 a gallon, that means you need 4, 000 points, right? Giant choice points. And at 10 X you would buy a 400 gift card. Is that, are you with me so far?
All right. We’re with you.
Okay.
The word is in the audience’s mind.
Yeah. Picture that orange Home Depot card. The Home Depot. The Home Depot. And uh, so 400. So you’re buying that and you’re getting one free gallon of gas or excuse me, 25 free gallons of gas, right? And so we’ll value that at four times 25, easy math here, a hundred dollars. Now, you’re not going to be able to use that whole 400 gift [00:27:00] card for yourself.
So you’re going to sell that gift card to someone else. So 400 times, say we’re going to break even on that gift card, or we’re going to sell it for 90 percent of face value. So we’re going to get 360 for that gift card. So we’re going to pay 400. We’re going to get 100 in free gas. That’s 500. And then we’re going to sell it for 360.
I feel like I’ve messed up the math here, Justin.
If we’re not going to use the gas, then we would have to convert it to grocery dollars. So that might’ve been a trick question there. Oh, I know. If we were to get 10 X and we were to sell it at 90%, then it would be breakeven on groceries. And then we’re up on the credit card rewards.
So at that point, it could make sense. Assuming the giant prices are fair, competitive, and you’re going there for some reason. Rather than another store, because, oh, I always shop at Aldi, oh, I always shop at Costco. Okay, maybe in [00:28:00] this case it can be more profitable to shop at Giant, but if it were 12x and selling the card at 90, that’d be a little bit more interesting.
But even at 10x and getting 10 percent back in grocery, it can still make sense. Especially if you’re working on a credit card sign up bonus, a high spend goal, a retention offer. Of course, we’re not using cash or debit to buy these gift cards. We’re using the credit cards. So that’s making a big difference in this.
So if we go back to the scenario where you are using gas, but are not, uh, building a garage, that’s where we start to, uh, add some additional benefits. So you, you at the 4 per gallon gas point, and you of course fill up all 25 gallons, your benefit is 100 and. Then you take that 400 gift card and you sell it for 360.
So you lose 40 in that scenario, you’re still up 60. Did I do the math correctly there? Yeah, that sounds right. Okay. So really members will let us know. So [00:29:00] really the big benefit of the giant choice program is gas. And you want to try to maximize or plan or target that first. And then later, if you have leftovers.
It’s a plan B in order to accumulate grocery points to use for day to day groceries.
Yeah, that’s right. So if the promo is giving enough points where it makes sense, then we would do it. Now, if we were to get, say, 10x on Adidas, and Adidas were selling at 85 percent face value, then that wouldn’t make as much sense for grocery rewards, and we’d probably be operating on a slight loss at that point.
You’re going to have to adjust the math each promo and then calculate based on the price of gas. To see whether it still makes sense to do the deals. Cause if the price of gas goes up to 4 a gallon, then you’re not getting as much sense per point wise, you
need more point. So what else do folks need to know about the giant?
Choice rewards program, or as [00:30:00] we like to call it, the gas, the giant gas program.
Yeah. So again, it’s the 2000 spend per promo per giant account. So if you’re operating with multiple giant accounts, you have to do what works for you organizational wise. So what I like to do is I have different barcodes stored in Google drive.
So when I go in the store, instead of carrying 10 physical giant cards with me and rotating between them. Like I’m a rogue picking locks here. You thieves tools. I’ll just have the digital images in Google drive and I could just pull them off on my phone. And then I have a spreadsheet that keeps track of how much I spent on each card per promo period.
So I don’t accidentally overspend. And not get points for the gift card purpose. I heard someone say that sometimes you have to do paperwork. Yes, so usually the rule at Giant is if you buy 2, 000 or more gift cards in one visit or one transaction, and that can vary depending on what you’re doing and who the cashier [00:31:00] is and which rules are enforced.
Some cashiers may have you fill out paperwork if you do one transaction of 2, 000. Sometimes not if you do two separate transactions, maybe not. So not guaranteeing it, but it seems like a pretty safe route is getting 1500 in gift cards per visit. And not filling out paperwork, because the paperwork’s a bit tedious, as they have to track your driver’s license, they take all this information, they ask you some questions, and it can add about five minutes to the experience, and possibly more if they don’t know how to fill out the paperwork, and then they have to call in someone else.
Yeah, I’ve even had situations where they ask for my social security number. It’s not a big deal to me, but I know some people are really private about that information. And I had concerns, so I think if that’s the case, as you indicated, to, if, to avoid buying 2, 000 or more and staying at 1, 500 range usually results in no paperwork required and a smoother transaction, especially if you’re just starting out.
Yeah, in the past, there would be thresholds of you could [00:32:00] do 2, 000 in trigger paperwork and you could do up to 5, 000. So we were thinking that, okay, if we’re going to do two, we might as well do five, right? We’re still fill out the paperwork. Absolutely. For the larger transactions. Yeah, past podcast guest Heidi was in store and they were having her fill out paperwork and they said something like, Oh, you have to fill out paperwork at 1500.
So she said, okay, if I’m going to have to fill out paperwork. I’m going to come back and get some more cards. So she made the power play there and then did the 5k transaction rather than the 1500. Yeah, so that was a good one. But now the system appears to be hard coding. So you can only buy 2000 in a transaction.
And that’s independent of what the rewards program allows earnings for.
Yeah. And there’s some cards even that are have lower limits, right? Apple cards, uh, Best Buy cards you may have to do. 1, 000 per transaction.
Yeah. When the Apple are bonus, you can only do 1000 per transaction on the Apple. Best Buy is another one.
I think the target [00:33:00] gift cards are also capped at a thousand per transaction. So if you have a friendly cashier. They’ll let you do two separate transactions on the same visit at the same register, and that should work just fine.
That’s been my experience as well. I don’t know about you, Justin, I, I go to the same two or three stores pretty much all the time.
You get to know the folks there. They see you walk up with a handful of gift cards. They’re like, Oh, back again, picking up more points, huh? So I think, um, like a lot of things in life, being friendly sometimes to your point and Heidi’s experience, right? Concerned about what’s happening and concerned that, that you’re doing something illegal.
And of course that’s not at all the case. We’re utilizing a program, we’re leveraging it to reduce the cost of our daily lives and also maybe earning a few credit card rewards along the way so that we can enjoy traveling and spending time with friends and family. I think the thing there is the roadhouse rules, right?
Always be nice. And if it doesn’t work, You just walk away. It’s not worth the, the fight. [00:34:00] Usually you’re not going to convince them to do something that they’re not going to want to do or don’t feel comfortable doing. And sometimes you can, I know this is one of your suggestions. Sometimes you can say, would you mind if we just tried, right?
And if they say yes, then great. You can move ahead. And if they say no, then it’s maybe time to pack up and just. Chalk this one up to one that’s, that’s not going to go as well as intended and find a different store that maybe you can purchase those gift cards from that is going to be more lenient and less concerned.
Yeah, overall, I’ve had good experiences at Giant. Sometimes people would say, Oh, I’m not sure if you’re allowed to do this much, or I’m not sure if you can use a credit card to buy gift cards. And I would say, Oh, can we try, let’s see if it goes through, or sometimes they’ll say you’re not allowed to split tender, you can only use one card for a transaction.
So they’re just making up rules, even though it’s not a real rule. And it’s like, why is it that in a corporate chain, I can go to one store and split tender and not the other? So I usually just let it go, and I’ll have a backup card, an older [00:35:00] card that’s more seasoned, particularly an American Express card that I’m not going to get a fraud alert on.
Some people, if there are larger transactions on Citi, Bank of America, you might see the fraud alerts there, maybe. So, SplitTender really helps avoid those fraud alerts and make for a smoother transaction. So, if they tell me, oh, you can’t SplitTender, then I’ll just use a card and swipe the 1500 on. The one swipe with the one card,
I think it’s good to have a backup plan, right?
And, and American Express is great for that, especially the membership, uh, rewards earning cards, many of those cards, if you have your phone with you. And of course you do, because you’re going to use altitude reserve along the way somewhere. You can actually log into the Amex app and make sure that if you’re going to spend a thousand dollars or 000, whatever it might be, you can ask Amex, Hey, can I spend this right now?
And, and so that you don’t get those fraud alerts. Back in the day when we were able to increase the amount of spend at, at grocery stores and Giants, that was, uh, something I would do commonly [00:36:00] and always, uh, made the transaction smooth.
Yeah, the glory days of the 5, 000 on the business platinum card, getting the 1.
5 X membership rewards. We were buying the game on gift cards at the time. So that was amazing when that was a thing. They really need to get back to the game on cards, but game on now, they’re just carrying the FanDuel gift cards. They are sorry, the draft. They might add FanDuel in the future, but the, the draft Kings gift cards, unfortunately seem to be.
Debit only. You cannot use credit. The system hard codes against the use of credit for the DraftKings gift cards. But we have seen previous promotions where we were giant bonus, most gift cards. So you’re getting five X choice points on the DraftKings gift cards. So that was really fantastic using the points for gas and maybe even grocery in some circumstances.
But getting the 5X back on the DraftKings gift cards and possibly using a, I’m sorry, a rewards earning debit [00:37:00] card. The Discover Cashback debit card gives 1 percent up to a certain point. And now PayPal is issuing a debit card that gives 5 percent cash back at grocery up to 1000 spend in a month. If you choose grocery as your selected category is my understanding.
I’m still waiting on it to come in the mails. This is a recent card that just came out.
Another 50 a
month basically in cash back. On something that you would just buy anyway and would have to use cash or like an actual Bank debit card that doesn’t give you anything back.
You said rewards earning debit cards Is there any virtual cards that you could use that start with f and rhyme with lose?
Unfortunately, the FLUZ multi use cards have not worked for me at Giant as it prompts a pin. And I don’t think there’s any way to enter a correct pin when FLUZ multi use debit card. That’s been my experience as well.
Worth a shot there, right? FLUZ does so many things well. Give us a shot. Give us a shot.
Yes, and I’m [00:38:00] hoping to enter into a partnership with them in the future. And they said they might be rolling out a different type of card. That can be used at multiple merchants, whereas the current multi use cards are brand locked. Where once you use it first time with a merchant, it’s stuck to that merchant.
And with Giant, it’s been interesting because some come up as the Giant Company, Giant, I’ve seen different stores come up as some different things. So you have to use different multi use cards.
Yeah, for each store
I’ve heard in some instances. Wawa, that’s been a case, I’ve seen that at
Lowe’s. Interesting.
I think the other thing to keep an eye out for, and I’m, this is not a breadcrumb, but there are certainly local credit unions and other local banks that may have rewards earning debit cards that you can utilize here. Generally speaking, I’m not a fan, and Justin, I know you’re not either, of debit cards, but rewards earning debit cards do have a, an interesting spot here.
Not only can you use them for things like DraftKings at Giant, but there’s also perhaps the [00:39:00] opportunity to pay credit cards with debit. In order to double stack your points. So if you have your 1 percent debit card that you’re using and you have your 3 percent Venmo card and I can pay off my Venmo card.
With my debit card. So now all of a sudden I’ve turned my 3 percent card into a 4 percent card, which can be quite lucrative.
He’s taking us to victory. Let’s say.
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Please take us.
And we’re floozing to the finish line as well. And yeah, we’re looking forward to a partnership there.
And another thing to look out for is when Giant does those 5x most gift cards. Promotion is you could buy some high value gift cards like Amazon for personal use. Best buy is usually included in that. So if the pepper app goes further downhill, we think that the giant deals will be more interesting. As I know people have been buying 500 Best Buy and other cards [00:40:00] from the pepper app, but that’s the P for the pop filter that I also gave you at the.
The microphone, this is a 400 Shure SHURE microphone from Dell, allegedly doesn’t need a pop filter, so the Dell credits may be coming in for that too. So with the 5X on most cards, usually comes around quarter four, and they usually run it about halfway through the year as well. So I think in a few weeks, we’re going to see that around Thanksgiving, Christmastime, 5X choice points on most cards.
So Amazon for personal use is usually popular. Google play can be a good option. Any others that you would think would be good for personal use under the 5X promo?
I personally like to gamble. So does that count? I would love to buy some DraftKings at 5X.
Oh yes. Yeah. DraftKings we mentioned. Any other brands?
Probably not. I, at 5X, I’m probably not going to do a lot. I don’t. Oftentimes give gift cards as presents for the holidays. Oh
no, personal use, personal use. That’s,
that’s personal use. I probably, I [00:41:00] know, I probably won’t. It’s probably just, for me, it’s probably just as good to, to go ahead and just use my credit cards that I’m gonna, that I’m gonna use anyway.
So, um, trying to capture that extra 5 percent is sometimes challenging and gift cards don’t get used or gift cards get lost. So, I don’t know, do you have plans, you’re going to pick up some more Red Robin for your 2025 birthday
celebration? The birthday celebration is on a month wide. I did go to Red Robin, but Amazon had Red Robin for 20 percent off or possibly more.
I think there was also the no rush shipping that you get an additional 3 percent and then I used the Amazon Prime store card. That I have for 5 percent back. So I got that from Amazon some time ago. So the restaurant gift cards, usually not good because they’re usually 20, 25 percent off or better. There are multiple spaces, but maybe Dunkin Donuts.
I know the Amex gold card is now rewarding Dunkin Donuts 10 a month. And you could use that to buy gift cards as well. But if you were running [00:42:00] volume at Dunkin Donuts and you wanted to get some Dunkin Donuts gift cards, a giant. That might make sense. eBay is another high value brand that we usually don’t see discounted.
So that can be another one with a five X promo.
Yeah. I think back to some of the, when best buy cards were resailing for 98, 99, 99 and a half percent face value for a variety of reasons, but no longer, at least to my knowledge, but yes, like you said, those are the high value ones with Amazon, with eBay, Google play.
Apple actually usually has pretty good resale value. And especially around releases of new, new products. So the iPhone 16, is that correct? The new iPhone has just been announced. I know there’s some pre orders that went in and some folks use some Apple gift cards to try to reduce the cost there. So
that’s another option.
Yeah. So we’ll see once it comes around for reselling, probably nothing will work at 5X. But maybe some brands are at Giant that we [00:43:00] normally don’t see. Target’s one I mentioned that it might make sense to buy Target gift cards at Giant. Although around Christmas time, usually you can get Target gift cards 10 percent off.
And Discover It is going to be giving an additional 5 percent on the Discover It credit card. So it’ll be a combined Somewhere around 15%. America loves math on that too. It’s, oh, it’s 10% off and then you get five back. So maybe it’s not really 15, it’s like 14.7. I don’t have that quick calculator up, but yeah, you, you get my idea.
So yeah, there’s some opportunity cost in buying gift cards at Giant versus other places. But there can definitely be some winners.
And, and like you said, if people have personal use, they’re gonna spend a lot of money here. The zillions cards, the choice cards do offer you the opportunity to use those cards in a variety of different stores and settings and 5 percent off works for you, then go for it.
Unfortunately, most cards does not include VESA or MasterCard or a variety of other prepaid, green dot, that sort of things. The serve,
[00:44:00] pay as you go.
Nope, not in that situation.
And the fanatics gift cards do not work on the fanatics casino site.
Oh, that, that would have been a sweet, that would have been a sweet.
Well, one could hope as new brands are added and in time, maybe. And also let’s not forget the holiday rewards as usually Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas. You’re allowed to redeem 400 choice points. For a free holiday food item, including everyone’s favorite tofurkey, the vegan ham, and some other items like turkey, ham, and lasagna.
So 400 choice points would normally cash out for 4 in grocery rewards, but in this case there’s uplift because that tofurkey usually retails for about 15. So your 4 in grocery rewards gets you about 15 in value there.
Yeah, it’s a great example. I’d forgotten about that. And it’s, yeah, I don’t forget the tofurkey.
Yeah, Justin, I know you’re vegetarian. That’s [00:45:00] the vegan ham and the tofurkey, but it also would work for those that are not interested in vegetarian options. And you can use it for an actual turkey or an actual ham. If that has value for folks, that’s actually a call out. We don’t do it much. We, we rarely are at home for those holidays.
And so don’t usually bring those with us, but for those folks that cook at home, I think it’s a great value and really a good deal.
Yeah. Past podcast guests, Heidi also likes using the grocery rewards and gifting them to other people. So maybe you’re going to eat somewhere and say, Oh, here’s a lasagna you can pop in the oven and they appreciate that.
Yeah. And we really get into the weeds with the Weiss rewards is Weiss is a program maybe for another episode where you get specific things. So Giant, you can use the choice points and get almost anything you want in the grocery store, but Weiss, you must get particular items. Like, okay, now you can get shredded cheese for free with a hundred points.
So you can get, like, 20 different transactions of shredded cheese, go with your [00:46:00] 99 cent eggs. But at Giant, you can just use the choice points for whatever, but there’s usually not uplift in using the choice points. Except for those holiday items, or maybe you would consider something like Sushi Wednesday, where the rolls are discounted by a few dollars.
Sushi Wednesday is a nice thing. When I was working in the office most days, that Sushi Wednesday was nice. And, as you indicated, you could pay for it with grocery dollars. Not only is it discounted, but it’s further discounted by however you were able to stack that deal.
And there have been some maybe glitches in the GIANT program before, where at the end of the month, we usually wait for the end of the month to convert points from the choice points to the grocery dollars.
That when you convert points, sometimes the converted points, And then you add extra points to your giant account. So what’s been your experience with that?
You’re giving away all our secrets now, Justin. Yeah, that’s been my experience. Let the, what I think happens is when you redeem a lot of points consecutively, either for gas or for grocery, the [00:47:00] app can’t keep up.
And so what you end up with is the same number of points that you’ve converted either to gas or to grocery. Um, but you still have those remaining points left. So. Uh, to take a step back, you essentially have three buckets with your giant choice, uh, points. You have the transferable points to start with that are ga that you can use for gas.
And then you can redeem those. I guess there’s two buckets. Sorry. There’s two buckets. Take a bucket away. There’s two buckets. One bucket is your initial points that you earn. You don’t have to do anything with them. You can redeem them for gas without changing anything. Then, like you said, if you’re gonna redeem a bunch of them, you’re gonna go grocery shopping, you figure, ah, I’m not gonna use gas this month, or it’s towards the end of the month, and you need to redeem them all.
If you redeem them, All at once, say 20, 000 points all at once. It doesn’t seem like the app can keep up. So you could redeem those 20, 000 points for 200 in groceries. And then when [00:48:00] you check back at checkout, you’re like, Oh, there’s still 5, 000 points left. Like where did that come from? And it’s in my experience, because you can’t get it.
If you want to go one glitchy step. Further, I was, I’ve been able to pretty repeatably, if you’re about to buy a gift card or gift cards for a lot of grocery points, or gas points as the case may be, if you redeem those points right before you buy it, again, the app can’t keep up. The scenario would be something like this.
You go into a giant, you grab your. Let’s use Home Depot, right? You grab your four 500 The Home Depot cards, right? You take them to the register. That’s going to give you 20, 000 points, right? It’s 2, 000, 10x, 10x times 2, 000 is 20, 000. I have 20, 000, say, for example, in my giant account right now. So as I’m walking up to the counter, [00:49:00] Redeem, redeem.
So I redeem all 2, 000 choice points, gas points, into grocery dollars, and I should have zero. And then I purchase those 2, 000, should give me 20, 000. And my experience has been, after I do that, I will have something like 30, 000 gas points and still have 20, 000 or 200 in grocery dollars. So if you really want to play the system, and of course.
The more you have to start with, the more room there is to glitch. If you only start with 2000 and you only redeem it once, well, you’re probably not going to get a glitch, but if you can only redeem 2000 at a time. So if you start with 20, 000 and redeem, redeem, redeem, redeem while you’re going up to the store or to the thing, and then you keep redeeming while they’re ringing up your cards, the app can’t keep up and so you’ll end up.
Being able to get your [00:50:00] purchase in. While it’s still trying to transfer those things, those points over. It’s been a good way to the giant glitch is it’s been a good way to leverage that program even further.
It was more dramatic in the past. We were able to do the 5, 000 transactions. For sure. We had a lot of points and we were heavy on the game on.
We had a lot more points. So it’d be the end of the month. And okay, now I have to convert to a thousand in grocery dollars and Oh, what’s this? There’s still another 200 or 300. So that was, uh, funny. It’s okay. Make sure to convert your points at 7pm and then look back at 8pm because other points might be there.
Yep.
And procrastination is usually, uh, a very bad thing. And especially with this, because instead of waiting for the final day of the month, I would convert a few days before because there might be extra points that were added on from the conversions. Another idea I have is that maybe the app thinks that converted points are earned, so then you’re gaining earnings on the conversions is what possibly might be going on.
I hadn’t thought about that angle. Yeah, that’s certainly [00:51:00] possible. Yeah, so you could check the app multiple times. And these conversions are a little tedious because I think the app designers didn’t think that anyone would have lots of points. So you can only convert to groceries at 20 increments. So if you have 20, 000 points, it’s a lot of clicking to do 20 at a time.
Yeah, I think all of these are around sort of blue sky opportunities around the larger goal or larger opportunity or the core value of gas points, right? That’s really where this program shines. And, uh, because they directly market gas point or gas points to their own gas stations. They’re able to take that number to zero, whereas other stores are not.
Uh, I know a lot of people really like the Kroger Few Points program, and that’s been very lucrative for those folks that have Krogers, mostly in the South, but I tell you, the PA Giant program is, is strong as well.
Yes, and we’re able to convert to groceries where many others are not.
[00:52:00] Correct.
So the overflow is nice where it’s applicable.
And here, also, the price of gas goes down to zero compared to other programs like Acme and Weiss where it only takes off a dollar or a dollar fifty per gallon, so it’s not as lucrative to buy the gift cards. But with Giant, you’re getting the full value, you’re getting the twenty five gallons and the price of the pump is going down to zero rather than just a dollar off or a dollar fifty off.
Yeah, I think that’s a huge advantage of the Giant program that it takes it to zero.
Yeah, if it were only a dollar off, I probably wouldn’t buy gift cards from Giant. Instead, I’d go to Weiss and buy the sports betting or gaming gift cards at Weiss, get the points, and then get a dollar off per gallon at Weiss.
Rather than doing the flipping and having to be locked into particular brands here.
And wait for Speedway to come back with their deals, right?
Yeah, that deal’s there as well, unfortunately. So yeah, good overview of the program. Any other elements of the program that you’d like to mention?
I guess the only other thing we [00:53:00] didn’t talk about was the visas and MasterCards.
It’s probably self explanatory, but for many folks, maybe it’s not. I think the, For people that are wondering if I buy the gift cards, the Visa MasterCards, what do I do with them next? I think those are most, the most flexible, right? You can use them to any place Visa or MasterCard is accepted. And what you’re doing essentially is taking those cards that bonus at the grocery store, 3X, 4X, 5X, whatever they may be, and using them someplace where you couldn’t get any bonus, right?
So maybe it’s the doctor’s office, maybe it’s the dentist, maybe it’s, Tractor supply, right? Maybe a place that doesn’t accept mobile pay like the grocery store does. And so you can use, you can use mobile pay here, you pay 1 percent more or less for The activation fee, you get some gas points, and then you can transfer that to a place where you normally wouldn’t get any bonus from.
So it’s a nice way of accumulating extra points, [00:54:00] both in the credit card space and in the giant grocery space, and be able to spread out that bonus earning, or bonus spending rather, across your spending elsewhere.
Yeah, people do that with the Staples gift cards as well. They use the chasing cash at Staples, getting the 5X ultimate rewards, and then we’ll use the Visa and MasterCard for everyday spending.
I’m generally not a fan of this approach because then there’s opportunity costs. You’re giving up credit card rewards. The cards can be a little bit tedious to use. There could be some breakage in that. You have 4 left and you forget about it or throw away the wrong card or you’re not as organized with it.
So that’s a sticker situation of putting physical stickers on the cards if you’re using them. And past podcast guest and group member Tammy also shared that she was using them for travel related expenses, but then one of the legs or elements of the trip got cancelled, so then they had to issue a refund back to the prepaid card, and that was a little bit of a mess because she had to call in.
About it. And then the funds were available. [00:55:00] So yeah, I love that. Yeah. Maybe not so good using the visas and the master cards for smaller everyday purchases in that case, if we could just use them for online gambling, or maybe that you can use them to buy other gift cards in other places.
Yeah. I, I think maybe, uh, yeah, no, I think it all depends on basically how deep down this rabbit hole of travel hacking you are, right?
And if you’re, if you just starting out and want to dip your toe in, and I think that’s a reasonable way to do it because again, maybe you have a credit card that gives you three X or maybe you just got the American express personal gold card at four X and you can use that. And now I can. Is my visa gift card at the automotive place or someplace again, that wouldn’t normally take or bonus that spend.
I agree with you. I wouldn’t want to do it for any sort of merchandise where there’s going to be credit card protection if the merchandise fails, there’s some sort of warranty. Certainly wouldn’t want to do it for travel. I wouldn’t want to do it for travel where there’s [00:56:00] definitely the chance of it being canceled.
Whether you’re canceling it or the airline or train or whatever cancels it. And definitely not rental cars, but yeah, there, I think there is an organic use case there for some folks. And one of my friends used to do that. I would tell her about the Visa MasterCard and Visa and MasterCard deals. And she would buy and then use that for other places where they didn’t accept credit cards or sometimes they charge 3 percent if you want to use a credit card, but they don’t charge anything for a PIN enabled debit card, Justin, have you heard those before?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe a bank issued and maybe it needs a bank logo. Yeah, MetaBank is a bank. It says bank right in the name. I’m just saying bank is in the name. So that’s an option and it’s also worth noting that the deal is usually announced on Sunday.
Mm hmm.
That the flyer comes out on Sunday and it tells you about the deal that starts next Friday and the deals usually run from Friday through Sunday.
The deals usually start Friday and then [00:57:00] they end of day Thursday, but the flyer comes out on Sunday. So it’s a little clunky, but it’s nice because the points are predictably expiring and the app will even tell you when points are expiring, unlike other programs where the redemption and the earning dates are a little bit different or Acme and ShopRite, you have to go back to the store for a future visit at a future date, but the giant is more flexible in how you can use the points and when and for what.
Yeah, I do think it’s a program worth exploring if you’re in Pennsylvania, but of course, if you have questions, come hang out with us at the Willow Grove Giant, and we’ll be happy to talk all about it and how we’re able to leverage and maximize our rewards here.
Yes, and you could go to the Hong Kong Chef or Super Hong Kong Chef.
Chinese and Cajun kitchen. I don’t think any group members have tried the Cajun options yet. I stick to the Chinese.
Yeah, I I’ll [00:58:00] say I have not tried the Cajun options. I didn’t even know. I, I usually stick with the, the sushi.
Oh, okay. All right. That works too. He show sushi. That’s a hard one to say too.
Indeed. And it’s also worth noting, although not too much is that you also earn choice points on organic grocery spend. So if you were to buy a hundred dollars worth of groceries. You would get something like a hundred choice points that’s worth a dollar. So you got like 1 percent back, but sometimes you might get lucky and certain items are bonused.
There were some couponers talking about cheese being a money maker recently that, Oh, if you buy this particular cheese and you upload the receipt in the, I bought an app and you’re going to get these choice points as a rebate. But. I’m not really interested in buying cheese as a moneymaker when I could just go to Weiss and get free cheese.
And personally, I’m not even buying cheese to begin with. So I don’t really care. So we can get a lot more points through the gift cards and buy whatever we want and not have to buy stuff that we’re not [00:59:00] really using or don’t really care about. Now, there might be some great situation where, oh, I really like avocados and I get those every week.
And Giant has, um, oh, get 20. Bonus choice points per avocado, something like that. That could be nice. But we’re almost never looking at any of those other items because we’re getting more than enough points for gas. And then we just end up converting to grocery at the end.
Yeah, I would agree with that. It is funny that it took us almost an hour to get to the, how do you, how do most people earn giant points?
Which is by buying groceries.
Yeah, we hope that people level up and be better than most people. Like at the poker table, I hear people complaining, Oh, the price of gas is so expensive. The price of groceries. It’s so expensive.
I don’t know about that.
Is it? Is that what you say? Is it? Is it? I haven’t noticed.
I haven’t noticed. Yeah. Yeah. I said with a past podcast guest, Jack Gibson, I’m going to make and save money no matter who the president is. There you go. All right. Anything else to add?
I don’t think so. I, again, I think [01:00:00] we’ve said it already, but I think this is for those folks in Pennsylvania or, or Pennsylvania adjacent, New Jersey people, cross that river.
Delaware
people, come on over. They’re in, in Maryland saying, there’s a number of giant stores in the Southeast Pennsylvania and they all offer, I think, pretty competitive pricing and this great fuel and grocery program.
Yes. And I tried using my giant PA barcode in Maryland when I went to an event in Maryland and that did not work.
So, it seems like we’re our own island, even though the stores are both named Giant and they both have similar logos, although one may or may not be purple at the moment. That’s the other one is red.
That’s been my experience too. My family lives in Maryland. I grew up there and, uh, unfortunately, I’ve not been able to use my Giant coins or Giant cards or anything there.
Yeah. So, you’re taking the extra gas with you and you’re like, huh,
I’m gonna go there.
You use the funnel and put the extra gas in.
Yeah, fortunately I can get there and back on, on a tank of gas, so I, I don’t have to do that. But otherwise I would.
Oh, okay. All right. [01:01:00] Yeah. We, we’ve gotten into deep things in this hobby and, um, end up like pumping gas or filling gas in ways that we normally wouldn’t otherwise.
And some of these gas containers, I must mention towards the end here that they have what they call safety features. But some of these pumps, if you put the gas pump inside of the gas container, and there’s this like ribbed safety feature at the front, I don’t know really what it is, but I’ve had to take it out because the pump doesn’t go deep into the gas can and it stops pumping it, like turns it off.
So I had to take pliers to the white stuff inside the safety feature, remove the safety feature so that the pump can go completely in and pump the gas.
Yeah, there you’re referring to one of the, one of my favorite. Uh, Christmas presents from my kids that got me a, a pump off Amazon that you can actually, like you said, stick down into the gas container and it automatically pumps gas.
into the funnel so you don’t have to stand there holding your gas can, pouring it into the [01:02:00] side of your car. And some of the newer cars don’t always accept those, those gas can spouts very easily anyway, whether they are safe, safety designed or not. That’s been a, that’s been a great, easy, you can again, search for it on Amazon or eBay or use your Amazon or eBay discounted gift cards from Giant.
There you go. To do that.
Yeah, it’s at a point where if you’re going to go to Facebook Marketplace to look for the gas containers, you want to try to find the older designs. Rather than the newer ones that have these alleged safety features that just make it very difficult or impossible to refill the gas containers and then use the gas containers to fill your gas tank.
Yeah, absolutely.
And hopefully you don’t end up splashing gas on yourself in the process. And I also take cleaning wipes with me to wipe down the containers because sometimes the gas drips a little bit from the nozzle in between containers.
Yeah, nothing worse than driving back from the store and one of your gas containers goes sideways and spills gas on [01:03:00] your car.
It’s not a great way. Oh, I’ve
never had that happen. No? Because I’ve always had the lids tightly sealed. So I have never had that happen. The problem is the drippage in between the containers. The finer points of gas. That’s right. We’re really, we’ve, we’ve become, what’s going on? Yeah. What are these people doing to save money?
Good. Come on. You can’t leave those extra 15 gallons on the absolutely not. Absolutely not. Although some people will try to have two vehicles at the same time at the pump and ferry it around to the other side and fill the other vehicle. But some attendants have come out hollering, let’s say, because there’s a sign that says only one vehicle per purchase.
Yeah. So they’re trying to enforce the rules there. Your miles may vary
as always on that.
All right. Anything else wrapping up?
I appreciate you having me back, uh, especially to talk about something as fun as, uh, the giant, uh, gas rewards programs. Last time I said five years and here we are again. So look forward to the next opportunity to talk to your listeners.
Oh, yes. And with the new [01:04:00] microphone, hopefully.
And with the new microphone, absolutely. Hopefully listeners like the improved sound quality and hopefully I’m coming in all right as well. Absolutely. All right. Thanks. We’ll hear back from you soon and hope to record shortly. I’m going to be speaking at the September Chicago Seminars at Higher Regency, going to Las Vegas afterwards for a double birthday celebration with past podcast guest Mandy.
My birthday month in September, hers in October. So we’re going to chop up several birthday rewards. In Las Vegas, and then after that, we’ll come back and record some more episodes. All right. Okay. Thank you for coming on. Thank you, Justin. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. Visit hurdygurdytravel.
com to contact me. Find me on social media, read select episode transcripts, schedule a free consultation and use referral links to support my efforts. Find the show on many podcast platforms and YouTube. Where you can find bonus [01:05:00] videos supporting me with monthly donations on subscribe star will give you special perks, including a custom podcast episode questions answered by upcoming guests and monthly private one on one conversations delving into more advanced topics.
I don’t openly discuss at length in podcast episodes, visit meetup. com slash Philly miles and points to learn about monthly greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups. I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. I hope to see you in person at a future event. Find a link in the show notes. I’ll be speaking at multiple events in 2024, including the September Chicago Seminars event at Hyatt Regency, the October Chicago Seminars event at Holiday Inn in Elk Grove Village, and the Miles Points and Gambling event Zorkfest, November 2024 in Las Vegas.
For more content between podcast episodes, follow Herdy Gerdy Travel Podcast on Facebook. And X, formerly known as Twitter, follow Justin [01:06:00] Vakula on Instagram. Listen to my other podcast, the Stoic Solutions Podcast, found at StoicSolutionsPodcast. com. My podcast guests and I offer practical wisdom for everyday life, inspired by the ancient tradition of Stoic philosophy from Greece and Rome.
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