In this episode of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast, host Justin Vacula is joined by returning guest Mark Konchinsky to discuss leveraging the Weis Markets Rewards Program for free groceries and discounted gas.
The discussion includes strategies for earning and redeeming points through purchasing prepaid/gaming gift cards, including FanDuel, DraftKings, and GameOn. Justin and Marc also discuss strategies to account for store policies and use multiple credit cards to split transactions to avoid adverse action with banks.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Low-Cost Travel with Points and Miles
00:56 Announcements and Upcoming Events
02:44 Welcome Back, Mark Konchinsky
02:58 Understanding Weis Rewards Program
04:55 Maximizing Points Buying Gift Cards
06:24 Redeeming Points for Groceries and Gas
15:49 Credit Card Strategies for Grocery Purchases
21:01 Navigating Weis Store Policies
22:15 Strategies for Splitting Tender
22:48 Maximizing Credit Card Signup Bonuses
23:52 Choosing the Right Gift Cards
28:07 Online Gambling and Rewards
34:28 Future Promotions and Best Practices
35:21 Pending Credit Card Applications
38:56 Upcoming Travel Plans and Events
42:39 Closing Remarks and Future Episodes
Show notes:
Greater Philadelphia Travel: Credit, Miles, and Points Meetup—Join me for monthly in-person events in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
Find my podcast episodes on
…and many other platforms!
Copy and paste my podcast RSS feed — http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:706382626/sounds.rss — to listen on your favorite podcast-playing platform!
Support my work through SubscribeStar and referral links by visiting the support tab on my website.
SubscribeStar supporters and YouTube channel members gain access to one-on-one calls, advance notice of podcast guests who will answer your questions, and a one-time custom podcast episode.
Subscribe on YouTube; like on Facebook; follow on Twitter; and follow on Instagram.
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. Free groceries and discounted gas at Weis Markets with returning guest Mark Konchinsky.
Before today’s episode, some quick announcements. Early [00:01:00] bird ticket sales for Zorkfest 2025. A miles points and gambling event are now live at zorkfest. travelzork. com. I spoke at the successful Zorkfest 2024 event and hope to see you at Zorkfest 2025 in Las Vegas from December 5th through December 7th.
I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and had a successful 2024 speaking at events with Award Travel 101, Frequent Traveler University, and both Chicago Seminars events. Thanks. If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, please contact me. 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 meetups are December 15th, 2024 and January 26th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes for more [00:02:00] content between podcast episodes. Follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. For bonus videos and community content, subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on YouTube.
Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram for content including trip photos. Search Hurdy Gurdy Travel on Subscribestar. com or become a channel member on YouTube to financially support my efforts at the 5 a month tip jar level. Receive special perks at higher subscriber levels, including private one on one conversations, And asking podcast guests your questions.
Find links and more, including credit card referrals, at hurdygurdytravel. com. On with today’s episode. Welcome back to the show, Marc
Thank you for having me. Maybe the fourth or fifth appearance. Definitely the fourth. I don’t know about the fifth. Definitely. We’ll have, we’ll leave that to the listeners.
Go back in the archives. Right. Absolutely. All right. We’re here to talk about [00:03:00] our second favorite grocery program. It is Weis Rewards at Weis Markets. Not to be confused with Weiss’s, it’s just Weiss. So can you tell us the basics of the Weiss Rewards program?
Well, the normies are just going to get regular groceries and they usually save up enough to save maybe 10 cents or 20 cents a gallon of gas.
But we’re going to get our game on cards, their fan duel, their things like that to maximize the points. And also get free food at some point, select items, of course, because why would they allow you to do anything you wanted?
That’s my wish for 2025. If we could just use the Weiss rewards to get anything in the store or mostly anything in the store, like we can at giant with the giant points.
That would be great. So can you walk us through how points are earned?
I, you get what, what one point for every dollar you spend. And then a hundred points is typically the minimum to get a discount on eggs. For instance, you can get 18 count [00:04:00] eggs for typically 99 cents. So the price does vary with the price of eggs themselves.
When eggs went up like seven, 8 for 18 count, then it might’ve been like 2. 99, but it was still a better deal than paying 7. 99 or whatever for eggs. Sometimes throughout the year, they have themed discount periods. Like right now we’re in Thanksgiving. So there’s turkeys and animals and things you get a discount and two Perky’s get a discounted or free offers.
There’ll be something going on for Christmas. I’m sure I want to say they have stuff going on for, for mother’s day, for barbecue cookouts. So they, they do theme them definitely around what you’re going to be, uh, using the items for.
Okay, so on the earning side, I would think most people outside of the credit card hobby, they’d go in, they’d spend maybe 150 on random groceries and they’d get 150 Weiss points.
So that’s the earning, but the second part of the earning, the more accelerated earning, what we’re [00:05:00] doing is that we’re buying prepaid gift cards. You mentioned DraftKings, FanDuel and GameOn are some of the best ones to buy there that give points. There are a lot of prepaid MasterCards, Visas, other products like that, that don’t give any points.
Although some of the legacy MasterCards, some of the older versions will give one X points. But at the moment, it’s FanDuel, DraftKings, and GameOn, in most cases, where if you were to buy a 250 FanDuel gift card, you’ll get 250 Weiss points.
As opposed to, in the early days of this, it used to give, like, double points sometimes.
Like a regular gift card,
even
every so often they’ll run a crazy special with a lot of what the FanDuel cards like 6x Usually it’s around what Super Bowl. I want to say around that time period.
Oh game on was bonus Yeah past around the Super Bowl. They couldn’t call it the Super Bowl. They called it the big course That’s what a lot of business not just wise
but [00:06:00] everybody seems to avoid using their words Super Bowl.
Oh Hopefully they don’t come exactly It’s the superb owl. That’s what it is. Various gaming gift cards. In some cases, the prepaid gift cards, as I mentioned, although you’ll have to test them. So if you’re going in and buying say 2, 000 in FanDuel gift cards, you’re going to get 2000 points, which is a good amount at this time, November, 2024.
We’re recording on the tail end of the Thanksgiving promotion. So right now it’s a free 12 ounce bag of frozen veggies for 100 points. So 2, 000 in FanDuel gift cards would get you how many bags of frozen veggies? Because America loves them. Twenty bags. Twenty bags. And I’m sure listeners know that right now my freezer is full of frozen veggies.
So it’s great. Normally I think they cost between two and 3 for a 12 ounce bag of frozen veggies. Right? Yes.
So it’s a nice assortment of vegetables. It’s not like just peas or just these carrots and corn. [00:07:00] It’s a whole Brussels sprouts and onions and things like that too.
Yeah, mixed vegetables in some of the bags.
Oddly, the mushrooms seem to be exempt. They didn’t have 12 ounce bag of mushrooms, there were 10 ounce bags. So I asked at customer service, Oh, this one wasn’t coming up, can you give me this with the 100 points, and they did that. So that was nice of them. Although, they changed the rules, it’s a little bit of war on happiness that now it’s one per transaction.
Which is funny, because of course, you can just do multiple transactions. So I was at self checkout a few days ago, getting 20 bags of frozen veggies at self checkout. Yes,
definitely want to do that as opposed to having to go on multiple trips. Because you’re already at the store, just go ahead and do that.
And usually what I’ll do is I’ll put the grocery bags with the reusable ones on the ground, and I’ll just scan them into the little wait area at self checkout. And then as soon as I ring out the transaction, I’ll put that and the receipt in the bag. So if I’m being watched by the security or whoever that they can see that I’m actually paying for each [00:08:00] bag with each one has its own little receipt.
But it also probably a good way to get some usage on some of those lesser use credit cards that kind of sit in your wallet, because 99 cent transaction
here or there. Some of the other items. Yeah. You mentioned 1. 99 for 18 count Weiss eggs. So you can pull some credit cards that you haven’t used in some time and use it for that.
Or maybe we have some bank account bonuses, or we have to use a debit card a certain amount of times to get a bonus or to waive a service charge. So that can be a good play for the discounted items. So they have here in November of 2024, 2. 99 for a 40 ounce Weiss quality or Weiss brand lasagna or macaroni and cheese for 200 Weiss points.
A 1. 99 for a five pound bag of russet, red, white, or gold potatoes. I wasn’t aware that there were that many potatoes. And 2. 99 for an 8 inch [00:09:00] pumpkin, apple, or apple crumb pie for 200 points. So they’re not charging you extra points for the crumbs to go with the apple.
This is like an ongoing thing throughout the year.
The price varies. Oh, no, it went up, it went up. It was
99 cents.
Oh no. So
some.
Still a good deal though.
Still a good
deal. Still a great deal. When you’re looking at the price of eggs being what it is, it’s still the best redemption. Certainly better than doing the discounted gasoline.
Yeah. So the gas, you do get a maximum of 1 off 20 gallons of gas.
It caps at the 20 gallons. It’s the maximum of one. So even if you had 5, 000 Weiss points. You can’t get the price of gas down to more than 1. I believe it used to be 1. 50 off, maybe 2 off and they have some Weiss has their own pumps in the parking lot or others will have partnering pumps at Sunoco gas stations.
So I think it’s easiest to use the Weiss pumps, but if your local [00:10:00] Weiss doesn’t have the pumps, then you have to go to the gas station. And I’ve had some issues in the past where they say, Oh, we want the physical Weiss card or. You need to enter a phone number. Like they seem to have different rules. The cashiers make up the rules that the different Sunoco stations it seems.
Yeah. I want to say that they actually scan the card at the Sunoco. So I’ve actually never used the points because you have to have an actual barcode.
If you signed up with the app, you might not have the physical card. I don’t, I don’t know how that works. So maybe you can link it in store, but yeah, as you alluded to, we had a previous episode on giant rewards.
And the giant gas rewards are much more valuable. So for Weiss. I think it’s all about the discounted food items. Yes, exactly. Free, 2 liter Weiss quality soda for 100 points. So I have my Jack Daniels customized bottle that I got from Zorkfest 2024. They had these custom engraved bottles. It was funny, at the end of it, there were some left over.
People didn’t claim their bottle. So I can go on the record of drinking out [00:11:00] of some other guy and still keep this PG. And some past promos, Go Gurt was a thing. There were free boxes of Go Gurt. I got boxes and boxes of Go Gurt. It was also Grogu branded, so it was Grogu Go Gurt or Gro Gurt. So I put some in my fridge and some in the freezer.
So that was a nice one.
Almost like a frozen yogurt then. Yeah.
Absolutely. Hot Pockets for free was a previous promotion. I think it was the first time in my life I bought Hot Pockets as an adult. Although I’m never sure I purchased Hot Pockets as a minor, maybe I was given them, but I don’t think I’ve ever purchased Hot Pockets, but they were totally free at Weiss.
It could have been Friends of Your Visitors, something like that too. Maybe. Shredded cheese for free was one option, Pop Tarts for 99 cents, and then there was a time where the Pop Tarts were free, 35 count Clorox cleaning wipes. So I like that because I have tons of them under my sink at the moment. And they’re probably good [00:12:00] until they dry out.
But so far. Cans
of baked beans were a thing at one point, hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, sliced processed cheese. Well, where you wonder, is this really actually cheese or is it just just plastic
wrapped in plastic? And a wonder bread for 99 cents, a regular Weiss quality bread. So the question, what are the points worth varies depending on how you redeem them, which is usually the case with credit cards, but it gets to be, as we’ve talked about it, whose line is it anyway, moment, because it’s You could just go in, buy 500, whatever worth of the prepaid cards, and just have more than enough points than you need for a promotional period, and just get basically whatever you want from the list.
Absolutely.
I think that’s the name of the game. The turkeys, the hams. The Tofurky’s at Christmas and Thanksgiving, possibly Easter. I can’t remember. The food is not so much of a great redemption. Typically, it’s certainly something. And as long as so many eggs you can use, you can only go through so many eggs before it’s just too many.
They had 99 cent pickles at one [00:13:00] point. And it’s like a callback to the classic Tourette’s guy YouTube videos. 30 cases of pickles. What am I going to do with that? Yeah, I guess I only buy a few jars that I won’t just stock the pickles in my back room that may or may not go bad at some point, or it’s just a strange.
So yeah, maybe not spending 99 cents on all these pickles, but I’ll take the cleaning wipes and those. Yes, because
there, there is a certain amount of shelf life to all these products, the frozen vegetables. I’ve had some that have kept the freezer burned over time. So you do want to keep that in mind.
Like how long would this stuff keep and we wish they would do things like napkins and paper plates and whatnot that you could actually eat. Would have no, no worries at all about shop like,
And what about the expiration of the points? I think they’ve been quirky in their points redemptions because they’ll seem to change it every month or every promo that they do.
Unlike other chains where it’s just. Earn that month, expire at the end of the next month. They seem to have all these long periods of expiration and earning. [00:14:00] Yeah. We
wish they would expose like what the thing is and make it consistent for one month. The next typically they expire just after like on the Saturday, after a holiday.
This case is going to be expiring. What? Thanksgiving or after Thanksgiving 30th, but the holidays, the promotion for the Thanksgiving itself. Expires the 28th.
You just have to pay attention to the dates and just not assume that they’re the same as the previous period. So it’s not as predictable. You just have to pay attention to the signage in the store, the flyer online.
And of course I share it on social media when I see the new Weisberg. And the receipts. It’s on the bottom of your receipt. You guys should make a marking in your calendar
too.
Yeah. Google calendar is helpful for organization for me. And I think this month is strange because the Thanksgiving promotion expires.
End of day on the 28th, I believe it is, but the points last until the 30th. Okay. We were happy to give you all these free items until the 28th, but then on the 29th and 30th, we’re just not going to give it to you. It would be like, just make [00:15:00] it for the end of the month twice. It’s really
strange. 29th and 30th are your egg stock up days.
Just blow through your remaining point.
Yeah. And the life of the eggs might not be a super long either, but we know that we can just earn points and yeah, it’s actually,
you can, you can have a pretty decent shelf life. I want to say like maybe six weeks. These are
the new questions we come across in the miles and points world because people outside the hobby, it’s like, Oh, I’m not going to have that much in my fridge at one point.
Or you make
a big quiche in the freezer or
something. Yeah. It’s like, how long can these cleaning wipes last before they dry out? Okay. If some of them go to waste, not a huge deal. We mentioned some of the earnings. So I think the first card that we saw there was the game on gift cards. These are 400 max denomination.
Yeah. With a 5. 95 activation fee. So even though they have the activation fee, we’re going to be using credit cards like the American Express Personal Gold card, getting 4x membership rewards. At Grocery, my favorite credit card, [00:16:00] the MGM Mastercard, where we’re going to get 2x MGM tier and 2x comps and or free play.
At the beginning of the year, the tier year for MGM is going to reset. So I’m going to start using that card again. I’ve already achieved my status for the year. So I basically get sidelined for the grocery purchases. We have the city strata premier for three X thank you points at grocery and the altitude reserve for three X points with mobile wallet, or 4.
5 percent back the altitude reserve. As far as I know is no longer available for new applicants. So RIP, Altitude Reserve, if you missed it.
You’re very sad as the Altitude Reserve go away, one of the, one of the better cards. My second favorite card.
Yeah, and it’s really easy, I think, there with the split tender as I’m not recommending using Altitude Reserve for the larger transactions because people have gotten shut down in the past.
So typically at Weiss, when I’m making my 2, 000 [00:17:00] transaction, I’ll say to the cashier, I’d like to split this amount between multiple cards. So I’ll specify the amount with the cashier. They type it into the system and then you make the payment. Unfortunately, there’s no way to split the amount yourself.
Whereas a giant. At the little kiosk to pay you can hit the no button when it says this amount correct and choose the amount you want to pay per card. But with Weiss you have to tell the cashier and it appears that you can use up to six cards, six credit cards for one transaction without any errors in the system.
So typically I’ll start with a card that maybe I’m working on a sign up bonus for so I keep the transaction under 300 to look more like an organic grocery purchase. And then I’ll split the rest between cards that are more seasoned. So I avoid fraud alerts or have any other issues. Always a good plan.
Hide it as much as you can, as a pretender. Yeah. It was a listener question asking about Amex cards. Can you use Amex cards [00:18:00] for spend? And we’ve addressed that many times in previous episodes that you can, but just split it and be careful if it’s a new American express card. Because they’re known to be sensitive on the signup bonus spend period.
So if you were to just go in with your brand new Amex Gold card and make a 2, 000 transaction in a grocery store, they might not count that toward the signup bonus or they might claw back points that you’ve earned from the signup bonus. But over time, it doesn’t seem like American Express cares very much.
Amex cards in my experience.
Along with that secondary, like for the Hilton card, where you’re trying to hit 15,
000, for instance, on the Oh yeah, that’s a good one. That’s another good card to use at grocery, the Hilton Surpass card. If you spend 15, 000 on that card in a calendar year, you get a free night certificate.
At Hilton property, and it’s also the 6X grocery on the surface.
But only the personal one.
Yeah. RIP on the Hilton business. We
can’t have nice things. This is why [00:19:00] we can’t have nice things.
Some other credit cards might be useful. The World of Hyatt personal card that’s also 15, 000 spend in the calendar year for the free night certificate.
Any other cards?
Blue Cash Prefer for folks who are into that. The 99, 99 or 95 annual fee card. And then don’t forget about the occasional freedom. And DiscoverCard, it, DiscoverItCard, what has that chosen?
Yeah, 5X in quarterly categories up to 1, 500 in Spanish.
And Justin, I’m surprised you’re not mentioning the new PayPal card too, the PayPal debit card.
Oh, that’s a good one, yes. On the topic of debit cards, the PayPal debit card, you can load funds to your PayPal account, you get a physical PayPal debit card in postal mail, and you get 5 percent in PayPal rewards or cashback. On up to 1000 spend in a calendar month at grocery stores. It’s a little bit wonky.
You have to activate the grocery category within the app. [00:20:00] I haven’t used it for gift cards because I could instead use credit. So I don’t want to give up the credit card rewards. So using the PayPal debit card can be for someone who’s maybe newer to the hobby and they don’t have the grocery earning cards or perhaps they can’t get money orders for some reason.
But I think using the PayPal debit card for money orders. It codes as a grocery purchase. So you’re paying an 89 cent 99 cent activation fee, whatever it might be. And you’re getting 5 percent on that. There’s the opportunity cost of, if you use a debit card to buy gift cards, you’re missing out on the credit card rewards.
So I’m usually using that PayPal card for. The money orders or with giant, you can’t use credit for DraftKings gift cards. So when they run promotions, bonusing DraftKings, you can instead use the PayPal debit card to buy the DraftKings gift cards.
Right. But not everyone can have a giant nearby. So I guess using the 5 percent cashback card, PayPal card for groceries at White would be the [00:21:00] worst thing.
Right. And the paperwork is also an issue at Weiss. It seems as usual, cashiers make up their own rules about when you have to fill out paperwork if you’re to make a transaction. So at my local Weiss store, or if you buy 2, 500 or more in one visit, one transaction, you have to fill out paperwork. Can you talk a little bit about what that process looks like?
I
guess they bring in a binder and have you fill in your, the copy, your driver’s license information into that binder. I’ve never had paperwork done at Weiss. Weiss before, but I’m guessing how they do it there.
Yeah, usually at the higher amounts. Now, I’ve been out of my local area and I’ve gone to other Weiss stores and I’d get something like a thousand and they say, Oh, you have to fill out paperwork for 1000.
I say, Oh, it’s my understanding that the corporate policy is 2500 for paperwork. And then the cashier will usually say something like, Oh, we have different rules at this store. I think, again, they make up the rules. They’re just not telling the truth. They’re confused about. Okay. What the policy is. So unfortunately there’s usually [00:22:00] no arguing about that unless they admit they make a mistake, but from my experience, that’s rare.
So you might have to fill out paperwork, which adds time to the visit. So you might want to only do a lesser amount per transaction to save time. Yeah. I used to do smaller transactions and try to get, you know, in and out of the store. And usually you have to go to customer service to buy these cards, because if you go to our regular register, it requires an override.
So I usually just go directly to customer service and sometimes the cashiers don’t know how to split tender. And if you go to the self checkout and you get an override from an employee at self checkout, you can’t split tender at self checkout. So I usually just go to customer service, I get my 2, 000 worth of cards, I’m able to split tender and things usually go very well.
Nice. Of course, the answer to everything is more credit cards is why we’re splitting tender. This can be a very effective way to hit signup bonuses in a disguised way.
Yes. I had, as you call it, an app o [00:23:00] rama where I had the Altitude Reserve. I had the, uh, Spiti Strata Premier and also the, um, the Chase, uh, Sapphire Preferred and was working on the signup bonus for all three of them at the same time.
And was able to do split tender, uh, throughout the, the process, uh, between all three cards.
So you just had to go there earlier in the day. Cause I know sometimes you’re working, you don’t get out of work until maybe five or six o’clock and customer service can close at those times. So on your off days, you’d go there in the afternoon and you’d be okay to do that and do those larger transactions.
Yes.
Uh, I usually work till seven, but, but yeah, having customer service be open a lot of times, although they are actually open longer these days, It’s supposed to be a giant, but I can get in there by 8 o’clock and still get through the customer service, but things we’ll be looking up.
Alright, and to return to some of the gift cards we’ve been buying there, we mentioned the Game On, which appeared to be the first ones that were there.
We’ve later seen the [00:24:00] Giraffe King’s gift cards. Those are usually variable gift cards that go up to a 100 denomination, and they have no activation fee. A bit tedious, I would say going to customer service with 20, 100 DraftKings gift cards. And I’ve had cashiers that would make mistakes. They’d forget to scan a certain card.
They try to scan it card twice and get confused. The FanDuel gift cards, I like better for that reason. And some others, the FanDuel cards are variable cards from 25 to 250. So you don’t have as many physical cards when you’re going to customer service. The transaction goes smoother. I think. So I mostly buy the Game On and FanDuel when I go to Weiss.
Yes, but you probably want to mention not to get those crazy MGM cards. We might see them on the shelf.
Oh yes, I’ve seen MGM gift cards that appear to be 25 denomination cards. That seems extremely tedious. And I’ve heard data [00:25:00] points of fees with those as well and alleged free play, but the free play might not be eligible if you’re an existing member.
So I’ve just stayed away from the MGM cards. I could be mistaken on that, but dealing with 25 denomination cards just seems terrible. So I can draw the line there. Sometimes you might find 50 draft Kings. That’s a little tedious as well. So finding the fan duel and the game on, even if you have to pay a fee with the game on, it’s still positive.
As long as there is another promotion going on, giving you these extra grocery items and you’re getting the credit card rewards as well. And another thing about the FanDuel is, from my experience, it’s usually harder to find the FanDuel gift cards compared to DraftKings. I can go to Wawa, find DraftKings, many other places, and Redner’s has the DraftKings, but I don’t see the FanDuel as often compared to DraftKings.
The DraftKings.
Yes. And then also the GameOn cards like to mix it up a little bit because you can do MGM, you can do BetRivers, you can [00:26:00] do SugarHouse.
Yeah. GameOn says FanDuel, BetRivers, Parks, DraftKings, and MGM is not in the picture, but you can still deposit them on BetMGM. I think you used to be able to deposit them on Borgata online, Pennsylvania, but for some reason that doesn’t work anymore.
And there are also WICE outside of Pennsylvania, so there are The sports betting sites in other states I had passed even through Maryland and found Maryland game on cards But I was able to use those in PA and the same thing for New Jersey So I think it’s just more of a branding thing I think that the game ons work on really any site that’s compatible with right game on.
All right any other thoughts on the Weiss Transactions or promotions that you’ve done. No,
nothing. Really. It’s just a it’s a good program getting their free food consistently Rather than just eggs, you have to live within their parameters, you know, doing like one per transaction. I think one thing we want to clarify is the fact that if it’s [00:27:00] a promo where you can get the frozen vegetables and the pie, you can do one of each in a transaction, but it’s a nice program.
Free items are especially appealing to me, but we’ve seen stuff like, Oh, they would have the 99 cent baked beans. But the baked beans were normally 2 and I generally wouldn’t be buying baked beans. So it’s not as much of a deal to me, but for the free items, I guess I can be creative and if I get extra cleaning wipes or extra go gurt, I think that’s fine.
So it adds a little bit of variety as they rotate these items through with the different promotions. Sure. We mentioned earlier that they sometimes run 4X or 5X promotions on various third party gift cards. So you could purchase gift cards like Amazon, Best Buy, Ebay, maybe Dunkin Donuts is there, some cards that you won’t find at Giant.
But I don’t think this is worth it most of the times, because you can just go to Giant when they have 5x promos, and the Giant points are worth more than the Weiss [00:28:00] points. And we could probably get all the Weiss points we can possibly want, buying the Fan Duel, the Game On, and the DraftKings gift cards.
So hopefully Listeners in Pennsylvania will become accustomed to the online gambling, except that you will have ups and downs and realize the extreme rewards that you can get with Weiss, Giant, and many other programs stacking promotions with the online gambling. Absolutely. And how has the online gambling been for you recently?
I got you into this. You hadn’t been a gambler before, but now you are. And
I still don’t think of myself as a gambler. It’s more of a means to the end. It’s a way to get through the gambling cards, to get the sign up bonuses with the credit cards, to get the free gas, et cetera. So I don’t really, I would not be normally gambling if there weren’t an hedge between the credit card rewards and the free groceries and free gas, things like that, I wouldn’t normally be gambling in that, uh, otherwise.
At this point, [00:29:00] I’ve gambled through probably about 135, 000 since February 22. And I’ve have an above average expectation of 101. 6 percent intermediate return. Oh, nice. Yes, there are definitely highs and lows there. There could have a run of bad hands. You can have a run where the, the online dealer gets four blackjacks in a row and you curse him.
At the end of the day, you still end up, you, you’ll get two blackjacks in a row and then hit for 20, and then a macular blackjack. So you’re, it’s all, it’s the long run.
Yes. We’re in it for the longest run. Yes. And you mentioned a little bit of over a hundred percent return, so it’s very likely. Site bonuses.
Yes, exactly. I’m counting site bonuses. I’m
counting free spins. Sometimes on our friends at FanDuel, you have that little prize wheel, which is free to play and you’ll get 10 free spins. And then that ends up being like, you win seven, 8 and change. Playing the free [00:30:00] slot games.
And typically I’ve been seeing Fandul promotions, like deposit 200, get a bonus 10, play 200, get a bonus 10.
And these seem to come daily. It’s at one point that I got a little bit in trouble. Let’s say with Fandul where I was depositing cards daily. So instead of depositing maybe seven cards in one session, I would just deposit one and let the balance build up as I wanted to get those play. Yeah. Bonuses, deposit bonuses.
So I would just save cards for the purposes of those bonuses. I would still get through volume each week. But I’d also pick up the 10 or so here and there. Fandul emailed me and they say, Oh, your deposits were spaced out. This seems to be a regular activity in the future. We need you to deposit all the cards at once for a session rather than spacing out your deposits.
So I don’t know why they were so concerned about that. You guys are encouraging me to space out the deposits with your promotions. Wouldn’t you expect this to happen, Fandul?
Yes, they’ve [00:31:00] been doing it pretty much alternating back and forth. Like you’ll make a deposit on. An even day, let’s even day odd day.
And then the next day, they’re going to have one to play through a certain amount of play and get additional bonus. And then the day right after that, you’ll get another day deposit bonus. And then a day after that, you’ll get another day of play ball. So they, they definitely do encourage you to make deposits on a regular basis, at least every other day.
So we’re getting paid outright by these sites to gamble, gamble, responsibility, gamble well, and getting all the grocery rewards. And some people might use those gas discounts, as I know some listeners have talked about. I’m like five minutes away from a Weiss and giant would be a 40 minute drive. So maybe it wouldn’t make sense for them to go to that giant, unless there were other stops on the way.
So that’s another thing with the gas discount and any other best practices that come to mind for grocery spending for gift cards or prepaid cards or best [00:32:00] practices generally, or more specifically for Weiss,
whether you’re at Weiss or at when it’s a good gift card week, if you’re going to go to Lowe’s and spend 3 anyway, you could stop at Weiss and get a 300 Lowe’s gift card and then turn around, use that at Lowe’s and get the grocery spend at Weiss.
On those grocery redeeming cards, and then also get the points towards free items at Weiss.
Possibility. I’d probably look for the higher value gift cards, as we have coming up on Thanksgiving Day, I believe. Dollar General is going to be selling Lowe’s gift cards at 15 percent off face value. And we’ve seen a lot of online deals for 10 percent off, ranging even up to 15 percent off.
And some more stacking can make it better. And of course we have the Pepper app. That’s offering rebates and pepper coins, I believe, is the currency now when you buy gift cards
pepper coins.
Oh, I’m discouraged Yeah, I’m discouraging the buying of third party gift cards at Weiss in most cases But the online [00:33:00] gambling cards for those who can online gamble and gamble responsibly is the way to go But I suppose if you can’t gamble responsibly or you absolutely don’t want to do it Then maybe getting the eBay or Best Buy or some higher value cards.
Or you have a surprise need to buy a gift for somebody and you’re, you don’t really have time to wait for something to come through on a special sale, just pop into Weiss and buy it rather than make it pop there, but still come out ahead.
And I think some social engineering or just being a good human being is that I’m friendly with the people who work there.
I’m a regular there. They recognize me. Oh, you’re the gift card guy. You’re back. And I laugh and ask them how their day was and all of that. And I think the first times I’ve gone in there and I still say it, Oh, I’m working on this credit card bonus. I’m doing this to get extra rewards. Oh, I’m getting these for the promotion that you have at the moment.
Because they might see it as suspicious that, Oh, who is this guy coming in here buying 2, 000 worth of gambling cards? [00:34:00] So I’ll explain it to them what’s going on, what I’m doing. And I think I have more success with my transactions due to that. Podcast listener Heidi believes that she’s gotten some strange looks or suspicion in grocery stores as she’s going in and buying all these gift cards and she’ll get questions.
Oh, did anyone ask you to buy these cards? Especially when you’re buying like 1,
000 worth of Nike in one shot or a thousand. 1, 000 in Best Buy cards, or they could definitely rake them eyebrows.
All right. Any other thoughts on the Weiss promotions, what we might see for Christmas? I think they’re going to run another promo for the 400 points to get the free holiday item or the discounted item.
We’re probably going to see.
Yeah. I would say we’re definitely probably going to see that the ham and turkey and Tofurkey’s and lasagna again, and some sort of deal with salmon the way they dug it right now, because it seems like Thanksgiving and Christmas have very similar. Main entrees, different desserts, of course, but, but yeah, and then we might see something [00:35:00] for St.
Patrick’s day, I want to say, and also for Easter.
Yeah. Mother’s day has been on the list before back to school has been a promotion.
Mother’s day is seeming to be some flowers and candies, some cakes, things like that as discount items. And then lookouts in general. So there’ll be like hot dogs,
hamburgers, soda, potato chips.
And going into 2025, you’re applying for more credit cards. You’re currently pending for the MGM MasterCard. What’s that looking like right now? I did check
it today. It’s still pending. I did call in and talk to a nice representative and they said it’s 7 to 10 days typically for review. And at this point, it was 4 days, but they’re counting it as, uh, Actual working days, Monday through Friday is how they’re counting it.
Not days on the calendar. Like I was thinking of it, but just hang tight. She said, and she didn’t see a reason like why I wasn’t going to get a crew. So she said, hang in there and we’ll get to when they get to it. And I do have the world [00:36:00] of Hyatt card now, and I’m working on that’s that hard spend actively.
Yeah, it’s all, it’s going to be super easy to smash any signup bonus or high spend goal, given the grocery stores that we have given the online gambling. It’s just truly amazing. When I was at Zork fest. In Las Vegas, people were approaching me and saying, I wish I had table games in my state. I wish I had sports.
People from California, they don’t have the online sports betting or the table games, but only a few states have the stable table games. And a few more have the online sports betting. So for the sports betting, I’ve talked before about using sites like darkhorseodds. com, where you can do matched betting or arbitrage betting.
So that’s one way to do it, or we’ve sometimes put action on what I’ve called the low risk bets. We recently saw, will the Detroit Lions make the playoffs, yes or no? And you were able to take the yes, so I think that was a group favorite as a low risk [00:37:00] bet. And currently there’s, will the Eagles make the playoffs, yes.
So these bets aren’t going to make you much at all. But it’s a way to get money out of the sites, to earn these grocery rewards, to earn the credit card rewards. We just have to dodge the massive bad beat of the Detroit Lions losing every game in the rest of the season and the other teams doing really well.
But probably, what, 99 percent or higher likelihood of that bet. Yes,
along with the previous years, we’ve had the no overtime bet. You’ve had the, uh,
Oh, the no overtime bet, I mean.
But was that one for overtime too? Nope.
Yeah, those usually aren’t as good
because
overtime is
more common, but the chance of there being a shutout in a game, especially when one team is favored, was pretty low.
That was a very safe way to liquidate some of the cards.
Yeah, two high performing offenses. Like the chiefs playing the bills, for example, what are the odds that, or what are the chances that one of those [00:38:00] teams who score zero points in the entire game, any other cards coming up for 2020?
No, I’m just looking forward to getting the MGM card.
And cause all of you talked about it and going from there. I did sign up for the 200, 000 point American Express business gold card. Still waiting to hear about that as
well. So who knows? Oh, yes. That was the no lifetime language offer. You were depending on that as well. Oh, that’s a, it’s a good sign rather than just declined or the office not available.
I
do think that the more cards that we all get. The harder it is to get instantly approved because the bank simped. Yes. The bank will look really? Are you really going to use a card beyond the sign of the bonus? Really?
Yeah, that’s right. So more credit cards, more fun and yes, more chase cards, perhaps maybe more business cards for you going forward.
And any trips planned for 2025? I know that you [00:39:00] recently booked the. MSC crews from the ocean casino match, not ocean casino. It’s not ocean with an S or ocean apostrophe S. They’ve clarified this on social media many times, but people still make the mistake, even though there’s no S in the logo or on the building or anywhere.
So that was a match, which you helped guide us through where I kicked my Wyndham status, changed over to Caesars, took Caesar status over to our buddies at hard rock. Went up from hard rock and transferred it over to ocean and then boom, you’re an ocean prime member with an odd distinction, but a prime member, um, and then you get a free cruise with MSC.
I believe it was anywhere in the Caribbean area, up to 10 days. And where we were looking at it, we’re trying to do an Alaskan cruise through a match after doing this cruise. You buy it by we, you mean
you
and your girlfriends. We didn’t want to [00:40:00] really go into the time related of going like flying down to Miami and taking a really long 10 day cruise because you have to arrive a day early, typically if you’re going to fly to this nation for a cruise ship and then to make sure you make the ship.
Cause they will not wait for you.
Yes. Arrived the night before. Don’t, please don’t. But for
a drive to port, which for us here in the Northeast is going to be New York City, whether it’s Manhattan or Brooklyn or Baltimore or Fort Liberty for Royal Caribbean, apparently soon to be in Philadelphia too, they’re going to reopen that grid port for Norwegian.
Yes. There’ll be another spot to go, but. Those ports you can drive to. So we’re going to do a seven day cruise from Brooklyn on the American Sea Maravelia, going down to Orlando, their private island with the Orphan Key, and then also to NASA.
Oh, great. And a note for listeners, if you’re still eligible to book the cruise, please [00:41:00] book it now, please don’t wait until December.
It’s November 26th. We’re recording, but December ocean is changing the rules. I covered that in a previous podcast with Darren. They’re saying that you need tier credits or tier points, so you need to play a little bit to get the cruise, but I predicted that they might do something nasty in December, and then you try to book it.
Oh, even though you matched before December, you’re under the new rules now, so sorry. You came all the way out to Atlantic City from California, and now you have to come back and play, and of course, and you get nothing, and do that, so. You lose. Good day, sir. Yeah. Don’t procrastinate. We also have year end credits coming up for Dell and many other.
Retailers, so please, I don’t want to see in chats, Oh, I, I forgot about it. Oh, life happened. And I put an order on December 26th and now they’re saying the shipping’s delayed and I don’t know what’s going to happen. Please use
your credits early. Um, and then we’re hoping to hit that MSC cruise for free and match with somebody, whether it [00:42:00] be Carnival or Princess or Norwegian or whoever to get to Alaska and do two cruises this coming year.
And virgin voyages
as well, possibly. Yeah, I
don’t
know. Whoever goes to Alaska is what we’re looking at 25. Yeah, that’ll be nice. So the winds continue. It’s been several years. of this hobby and a lot more to look forward to.
Absolutely. Ever changing hobby, but always something to look forward to.
Yeah, even at Weiss, all of the Mastercards at one point were giving the 1x points.
So we were getting those, liquidating those in other ways. And then the other ways seemed to have gotten a lot more difficult. So we’ve pivoted to the online gambling. Alright, anything else as we close? No, I think we’re covering it all pretty well. Okay, hopefully in the new year, Weiss will just give us flexible points like Giant.
Alright. And our 6, 000 points can just be worth our 60 in groceries. That would be great, but we’ll see if that’ll happen in 2025. Probably not, but it would be nice to see. There’s always hope. [00:43:00]
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. Early bird ticket sales for Zorkfest 2025, a miles points and gambling event, are now live at zorkfest.
travelzork. com. I spoke at the successful ZorkFest 2024 event and hope to see you at ZorkFest 2025 in Las Vegas, December 5th through December 7th. I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and had a successful 2024 speaking at events with Award Travel 101, Frequent Traveler University, and both Chicago Seminars events.
If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, please contact me. 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 meetups are December 15th, 2024 and January 26th, [00:44:00] 2025.
Find a link in the show notes for more content between podcasts episodes, follow hurdy gurdy travel podcast on Facebook and X formerly known as Twitter for bonus videos and community content. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram for content including trip photos.
Search hurdy gurdy travel on subscribe star.com or become a channel member on YouTube to financially support my efforts starting at the $5 a month tip jar level. Receive special perks at higher subscriber levels, including private one-on-one conversations and asking podcast guests your questions. Find links and more, including credit card referrals.
The website, UDIO created the podcast intro and outro music. The AI features of the website Descript helped me edit and improve audio quality. Thanks for listening. [00:45:00] Have a great day.
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.