Join host Justin Vacula with guest Beth as they delve into the intricacies of maximizing Chase DoorDash and Instacart credits to save on groceries and enhance travel experiences.
Discover tips on effectively using credit card rewards, organizing multiple accounts, and making the most of your grocery savings.
Plus, hear about their recent travel adventures funded by points and miles, and upcoming plans.
Don’t miss out on practical advice to help you travel at low cost and save money.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast
00:44 Optimizing Chase DoorDash and Instacart Credits
02:23 Maximizing Chase DoorDash Credits
06:45 Exploring Instacart Credits
15:13 Managing Multiple Accounts and Credits
20:50 Using Instacart Credits for Groceries
21:48 Instacart Delivery and Pickup Options
22:28 Maximizing Chase and Instacart Plus Benefits
24:20 Stacking Chase Offers and Saving Strategies
26:53 Non-Perishable Items and Grocery Strategies
32:55 Traveling with Miles and Points
35:25 Upcoming Trips and Credit Card Strategies
39:36 Closing Announcements and Events
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Justin Vacula: You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula here to help you travel the world in next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. Thanks for joining me for today’s episode, optimizing Chase DoorDash and Instacart Credits. Past podcast guest Beth King joins me to help you save money on groceries.
Visit meetup.com/philly miles and [00:01:00] points to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and Points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are June 22nd and July 13th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes for more content between podcast episodes. Follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on Facebook and x follow Justin Vacula on Instagram.
Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips, community, and posts. On with today’s episode recorded June 9th, 2025. Welcome back to the show, Beth. Thanks Justin.
Beth: Glad to be back.
Justin Vacula: You’ve been continuing your player five I believe situation. You have many family members involved managing and helping with their accounts, so you’ve been saving lots of money on groceries.
Using these various Chase credits that were [00:02:00] recently introduced.
Beth: Thanks, Justin? Yes. Player five. Right now I’m on Player five, but moving forward to Player six starting in two years. So I keep adding members as they turn 18 and it certainly does help to have additional family members who are willing to let you take over their accounts and set them up and utilize them.
Justin Vacula: Excellent and many other benefits of having multiple players. But for today’s episode, we’ll focus on these chase credits. I think it’s something that most people have brushed off, perhaps overlooked. Oh, it’s only $10 here, only $20 there. Oh, I have to install these apps. But in chatting with you, especially utilizing the multiple players, you found tremendous value.
Beth: Absolutely. And in part, it’s of value to me because. I live relatively close to some of the places where I can quickly pick up food or groceries, and I’m a little bit flexible with my job, and so I can swing by after work at one of my local Wawas to pick up my DoorDash credits, things like that. [00:03:00] So it’s partly a situational con contextual to my situation.
But even if you’re not in the same situation I’m in, I still think you should consider the opportunity to get free food free groceries.
Justin Vacula: Because the answer to everything, of course, is more credit cards. What are some of the Chase credit cards that offer these various Instacart and DoorDash credits?
Beth: So the Chase Sapphire Reserve offers two $10 DoorDash credits to be used only at convenience stores every month.
And the Chase Sapphire Preferred offers one $10 DoorDash credit every month. Again, only for convenience stores.
Justin Vacula: So that’s the Wawa Sheets seven 11 stores.
Beth: So for me, the trick for this is to find a convenient store that offers pickup. And the reason is simple. If you are using any of that $10 towards delivery or a tip, I have found in my area that both Wawa and Sheets allow for pickup.
I have some of them [00:04:00] not too far from me, not too far from work. I simply go in and I’ll put in $10 worth of groceries into my DoorDash carts at Wawa or sheets, and then go ahead and pick it up. And you find somewhat similar items at both, but there’s not complete overlaps. So take a look at both and see one’s what you find.
Justin Vacula: And these locations are very prominent in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Many of them, and I think many listeners. They’re located, they probably have lots of these convenience stores, so it’s probably part of a route that they’re going on anyway, or it’s not much of a detour. And then in some cases you can also buy gift cards at these locations.
Beth: Yeah, absolutely. I haven’t found gift cards for purchase in my local sheets in Wawa, but I buy things like eggs, which are expensive. I know. But between me and P two, we have four $10 Chase staff. I reserve. Credits towards DoorDash and so I could buy eight dozen eggs for basically free. Yeah. America
Justin Vacula: loves math.
How many eggs is that?
Beth: 72. Ooh, [00:05:00]
Justin Vacula: so that’s the Chase Sapphire Reserve. What about some of the other Chase cards that offer these credits?
Beth: Chase Sapphire Preferred offers DoorDash credits, and that is $10 one once a month at convenience stores. So I have two players with that card and I have handed over to those.
Kids of mine, they’re really adults now. The ability to buy, get their own $10 a month, so I don’t handle it for them. For me it’s either free eggs or as Justin. ’cause you tried it out once and got yourself a free veggie sub and it’s a free lunch if you’d rather not buy eggs or butter or milk, which I’ve done in the past.
Justin Vacula: Yes. Wawa locations near me. I can get a shorty or a six inch veggie sub for about four 50 so I can put two in the same order. It comes to under $10 for a pickup order. So with this Chase Sapphire Reserve, essentially two free lunches,
Beth: or you can actually put in an order twice, right in a row for the same account.
Even I found. So if you only wanna go once a month with your [00:06:00] Chase Sapphire Reserve credits, you can do it that way. Put in an order, wait till it’s actually accepted, then put in a second order, and then head straight to sheets or Wawa and you’ll have two lunches waiting for you if you want.
Justin Vacula: When I was in your area, I went to sheets and placed two orders, and they actually didn’t make the second order they thought.
It was a mistake, a duplicate order. So I’d recommend listeners place an order that’s slightly different. Maybe the first veggie sub would’ve green peppers and the second would not.
Beth: Yeah. Good strategy. Intrepid.
Justin Vacula: Intrepid employees trying to save you from alleged errors.
Beth: If they only knew.
Justin Vacula: Yep. All of our shenanigans.
Any other chase cards Offering these credits.
Beth: So for the DoorDash credit, it’s just the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Absolutely love the Instacart credits that have that appeared in early May, or reappeared, you might say, but in slightly different form and fashion. The new Instacart credits are now found on.[00:07:00]
Every co-branded card, personal and business, which is a bit surprising, right? Because these are net cards that you typically get these kind of benefits from. However. There are no Instacart credits for the Freedom Cards for the Sapphire Cards, so it’s only the co-branded cards. So everything from the IHG cards to the Marriott, to the Southwest, to the Hyatt, to the Air Plan, British Airways, Iberia all, and those are all $10 a monthly credit on Instacart.
For me, even more interesting on the business cards, but only the business. Ink, ink Cash and Ink Unlimited. There’s $20. Months, monthly credit for Instacart. And the neat thing about it is you actually can use one of each card and you can add them to your account. So you can end up with, as I have on one account right now, I have the ink cash, the ink unlimited, so that’s 20 and 20.
IHG, that’s another 10. I’m told now [00:08:00] that the Ritz-Carlton also offers $10. Mine won’t connect yet, and so I’m gonna have to call about it, but if that one works out, I’ll have $60 a month. The only trick here, the only trick, the only obstacle here is that you really do need to use them separately. I have found in putting Mult back to back orders in Instacart that the second one replaces the first.
I just have to make multiple trips. For me, it’s worth it. Because Instacart often offers promo codes. For example, Aldi, I had a $10 off, $35 Aldi order. So that brings it down to 25. And then with my $20 in cash benefit, I brought it down to $5. Just like with the DoorDash, I say pick, do pickup only. If you really are stuck and you can’t get outta the house, then sure, delivery might make sense, but you lose a lot of that money in delivery and tips.
Find a place that uses pickup. Some places have no minimum pickup requirements, and so you can put in $10 worth of Instacart order and pick it up at one of your local grocery stores. And it’s easy because you just drive in, [00:09:00] you tell the app that you’re there and you sit in your car, you can catch up on your phone or on work, and they bring the food out to you and you’re on your wagon
Justin Vacula: and saving some time in the grocery store too.
Beth: Absolutely. And you save yourself from making dumb decisions in the grocery store. A lot of us
Justin Vacula: I hope listeners are more disciplined about that, going into the grocery store with an idea, with a list and not buying junk, we’ll surely get a lot of free junk from Weiss getting all this Italian ice coming up for free and ice cream, things like that, and hot, all these random promos for sure.
And with these credits, this is just based on a calendar month, correct?
Beth: It’s a calendar month. Okay, that’s
Justin Vacula: nice. It’s not card member month. Okay. So that keeps it a lot easier. Now, do these credits work as a charge to your card or does the app Nope, just have a slider that tells you can get a discount?
Beth: It actually discounts the total amount in the app itself. So what you need to do is [00:10:00] you take your card, go to the case, and you’ll find links to connect your for the offer. You’ll add your card in and once you’ve added your card in and activated the offer, then it automatically, when you’re using that card, it will take the $20 off for that month for your next card, right?
If you have, if you use your ink cash first, and then two days later go back to Instacart and then you can use your Ink Unlimited $20 and just make sure that you change the payment so that it’s the Inca Limited that shows as the payment for that order, and it will automatically deduct the $20. Then two days later go and make your payments be the IHG card if you have that, and it’ll take $10 off automatically.
Yeah. So it works quite nicely. You know exactly what you’re paying going in, which works out really nicely.
Justin Vacula: That’s good. So no accidental, oh, I use the same card twice, now I have to pay full. That’s a pretty good way they have it. It could be better if it just added credits to your account, similar to how American Express does that with Uber credits.
But in this [00:11:00] case it’s not too bad. So how are you keeping track of these? Do you have a spreadsheet or using an app like Evernote? What are you doing to keep track of the credits?
Beth: Yeah, I have a spreadsheet, just a basic Excel spreadsheet, and it’s pretty basic and I just. I write down all the cards that I have Instacart credits for, and then I just check them off when I’ve used them for the month.
So I happen to have two Chase Ink cash cards, but yeah, I can only add one to my account. But Player Five in this case only has one. A Chase Ink card, she’s on the young side. She has the Unlimit, so she added that to her accounting, got her $20 off, but then she was able to add my second Ink cash card to her account and get another 20 off on her account.
So you can spread out your cards. So each account can only have one of any single type of card, but if you have multiples, they can be used in other accounts.
Justin Vacula: Okay. Pretty good. So a little bit of organizations. So maybe keep a spreadsheet, start at the top, go down and just make sure to start early in the month if you can.
So as you’re not ramming everything in the last [00:12:00] week and then missing out.
Beth: And especially because once in a while Instacart will have these little. You get error messages for some reason. You’re not sure why something goes wrong. Orders get canceled, right? The orders get canceled, absolutely. Or today I put in an order for 2020 $1 and one of the $5 items wasn’t in stock, and so I didn’t get a message or anything asking if I wanted to substitute.
They simply didn’t include it. So now I have to decide if it’s worth going back for a $5 order, the last credit. So anyway, but we’ll see. If I have time, I’ll do it. Otherwise I’ll just, I’ll let it, I’ll let it go For the month.
Justin Vacula: I’ve had some canceled orders and I think what we’re happy accidents where they process it, but then they just add credit to your account and that credit doesn’t expire that month.
So then you could just put that into a future order.
Beth: Yeah. This, in this case, if they don’t have the item and they don’t actually charge you for it, you’re refund. You’re not charged for that amount. So it’s not. So you can’t use it in, you can use it that month still, but you wouldn’t be able to use it in subsequent months.
Whereas like for other, for the primo codes for [00:13:00] Instacart, which is quite nice, like if they ask $10 back, if you put in an order for $36 and one item for $5 isn’t in stock. They won’t take the promo code away, so you still get the, like they don’t reduce the total amounts. They don’t prorate, I guess the credit to the $10 off promo code according to what you spent.
They give you the whole $10 off.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, they made a business decision on that one. We were out of the sweetened almond milk, so we just did whatever. Instead of giving you the unsweetened, I,
Beth: I know people, I’ve heard of people who actually will intentionally try to buy lots of items that. They think won’t be in stock.
So if you’re required to spend 35 to get 10 off, if you can try to make sure that $15 a worth of items in your cart is not in stock, then you end up getting free $10 of groceries. Ah, interesting.
Justin Vacula: What would you target? Are there very specific bananas or protein powder jugs? I
Beth: don’t know. I don’t do that. I, that’s not my,
Justin Vacula: this is like the supermarket sweep television show where they’re looking for the bonuses in the store and there’s only one Yeah.[00:14:00]
Beth: Yeah, I guess so.
Justin Vacula: You might get a lifetime achievement award. If you’ve had a certain amount of canceled orders, they might cancel your account. So maybe not play with fire too much there.
Beth: Yeah, good points.
Justin Vacula: And you mentioned P five soon for P six. So how many credit cards do you think in total do you have with these credits?
So maybe it’s like a hundred, 200 worth a month, maybe more than that.
Beth: It’s, right now it’s 160 a month across the different players that I have. One thing I could consider doing, ’cause this does work, if you have, let’s say, two ink caches and you can change one to an unlimited and then you could, I could play with that a little bit, right?
So that every account has, so every card is attached to an account. It’s probably the best way to put it. Anyway, but 160 free groceries a month. That’s quite, that’s very generous on Chase’s part, so I’ll just take that and be satisfied.
Justin Vacula: Yes. And a lot of these unknown annual fee cards or cards that we were paying very small annual fees for, that we were paying for anyway, that we were grandfathered into these benefits.
It’s not [00:15:00] like they upped the annual fees and added the credits. At least not yet. Chase.
Beth: Yeah, that Chase, yeah. There’s rumors out there that some of the Chase cards are gonna be changing.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see about that. But for now, we’ll be grandfathered in. How do you manage multiple logins? Do you have a phone army?
Do the players have the apps on their phones? What does that look like?
Beth: The, I have all the players just sign up on their own laptops, their phones, and so they all can attach their own phone number. ’cause I think Instacart doesn’t want one person to have multiple accounts, and so they have various ways to try to prevent that.
So I just have each of the different players. Stop by the dining room and set up the account, set up their own carts, and then put in the order and then they just screenshot me. Or if they’re, if I’m ordering something for them, I should say, if they’re ordering something for me, they’ll just screenshot me with the receipt so that I can go and pick it up.
Or sometimes they wanna buy their own food and that’s great too. And they have credits then to use and they can go pick it up themselves.
Justin Vacula: It’s Beth King and the Round Table, but instead of [00:16:00] Swords, it’s different phones.
Beth: Yes, but we all have only one, one sword of a person. I imagine if you were savvy, you probably could create multiple accounts on your own and get around their various ways to try to stop you from that.
But for me, I just, I prefer just to play by the rules and. We still have $160 between us, so that’s plenty. Plenty of food for the month.
Justin Vacula: I’ve long been a fan of HSN and QVC smartphones that you can buy low cost TracFone from them. The last I looked past podcast guest Decker ordered a TracFone for about $35 from them, so he can use that for the My Vegas games.
We’ll recruit you to the phone Army one of these days. Auto spin a win. And you can then run other apps like Instacart, DoorDash, and maybe make life a little bit easier through multiple phones. It may or may not be a contradiction.
Beth: Yeah, sure. Yeah. That’s also a possibility.
Justin Vacula: Yes, you have a program on at night television, maybe you’re watching Monday Night Raw.
You could just toggle the apps and spin the games. [00:17:00]
Beth: Yeah. To each their own. I don’t know if I’ll be doing that. I mean myself anytime soon, since I’m not, I don’t take cruises and things, but
Justin Vacula: but
Beth: that certainly is
Justin Vacula: a strategy you could develop. Maybe the My Vegas games will offer DoorDash and Instacart gift cards they have before.
Beth: Yeah, that actually would Then you might get me spinning the win.
Justin Vacula: Ooh, we’ve upped the ante. And can you use gift cards in these apps for the difference? So say it takes off the $10 credit, but you still owe $3 and 43 cents can use gift cards to offset that.
Beth: I have never done it myself, but I’ve been told it works now.
DoorDash just made the changes so you can do that. Instacart people are reporting that’s, that, that does work. I would assume that you would have to have the payment right that’s associated with the credits. That’s at least the defaults for that order, even if you’re not using it to pay the additional amount.
But I’ve not done it myself. If I have three cards attached Chase cards, I can’t always have the remaining amount that I [00:18:00] spend. Go to one of the, one of those three cards or to a different card altogether? It has to be attached to the card, right? The payment has to be attached to the card that I’m getting the credits from.
I’ve been told you can still use Instacart gift cards, but I’ve not done it myself.
Justin Vacula: For our purposes, I think we’re going to slightly go over the credits. So if we aim to use a $10 credit, I don’t wanna spend more than 11 or $12. So if it’s just a dollar charge. I then start wondering, oh, is it really worth investing 50 a hundred dollars into a gift card and have that money floating and then adding another complicated, yeah, complicating factor to the mix.
But if people out there are exclusively using DoorDash or Instacart rather than going in the grocery store and they’re making big orders for their family, then maybe the gift cards would be more appealing. But for these credits, not so much, I think.
Beth: Sure. Yeah. Not the way I’m using them.
Justin Vacula: That’s DoorDash.
You’re using for mainly the convenience pickup. You said [00:19:00] eggs, butter, some other items that you could find at Wawa and sheets. Anything else at the convenience stores that you’ve liked?
Beth: You can use your strategy and get yourself a lunch. Both sheets and Wawa have kitchens where they make pizzas and burritos and subs, and so that’s certainly an option.
I will say that the items are, they’re overpriced $5 and 39 cents for a. A dozen eggs is more than they cost in the grocery store. So you wanna keep that in mind still. If you’re only using the credits, things are overpriced. It’s free. Is free.
Justin Vacula: Yes, I agree. And you could add something like a banana to top it off.
That’s a classic place. So if you have the $10 credit and maybe your order total comes to $9, instead of ordering something for four or $5. You can add bananas to the order. So I think that works. Yeah. I’m in the first world problem of too many grocery rewards. That’s, it’s been a thing for a long time and now I’m getting extra rewards at Acme.
You don’t have Acme in your area, so I’m mainly looking for things to get through this that I can’t get at [00:20:00] Acme. So for you, you’re looking for more of the convenience items that are also grocery items rather than snacks and food. So that makes sense. It’s gonna depend on what other things you have to save money.
On groceries and what your priorities are, but I still think that there’s something for everyone, unless they’re living in an area that doesn’t have these convenience stores. But I think most people will have something, seven 11 Wawa Speedway, hopefully not a Speedway hut, a place that really doesn’t sell much.
Hopefully they have the full storefront.
Beth: If you like to have a decent beer at night, you can. There are liquor stores that also are on DoorDash, and they’re listed as convenience stores. Or use your DoorDash credits for those things, but then you of course have to show ID when you pick it up in order to get it, so there’s that option as well.
Justin Vacula: Interesting. Let’s move on to Instacart. How have you been using the Instacart credits?
Beth: I see the Instacart credits as fulfilling some of my basic grocery needs, things like vegetables and fruits and. [00:21:00] Cereals and things. I like to see them as a little bit of my fun money, so I’ll buy pickup the Instacart that I think I normally wouldn’t spend money on, just because I feel like it’s a little bit of a way to introduce a little bit of diversity and what we eat, buy some things that are maybe a little bit pricier than I normally would like, and, but I feel like we can splurge and I definitely, I do a mix of the basics, the things that I want in the house.
And things that I think are a little bit more, we call them luxurious items. Held, hooked. I try not to go overboard with that either.
Justin Vacula: So more than the rice and beans that Dave Ramsey often talks about. And ironically, we’re using credit responsibly in getting a lot of free groceries. You’ll never hear that on his show.
Beth: No, because he tells you don’t have credit cards.
Justin Vacula: Alcohol might all be bad too. Don’t have that. Moderation probably impossible. In my area, I have Aldi that has the Instacart pickup, but Aldi has a limited supply. For instance, Aldi doesn’t have almond milk, so I’ve been using Instacart through [00:22:00] Giant PA and getting that as a delivery.
I pick the next day delivery to save $2 for some reason. Giant doesn’t offer a pickup near me. I haven’t seen that as an option, but I know in the app it’ll allow you to toggle, but that location does not for some reason. So normally I’ve seen the delivery as 3 99. 4 99. I’ve heard some data points of more expensive delivery in more populated areas.
What have you seen for the delivery?
Beth: The nice thing about the Chase credits is that they also offer Instacart Plus, and so that reduces the delivery costs, gets rid of the fee. Lowers. It depends. So there are various advantages to having Instacart. Plus they do allow pickup, but only at select locations.
You just have to hunter a little bit to find out where you can pick up. And as long as it’s relatively convenient, you are saving even. Even though deliver, if you might only be 3 99, even if there’s, I think, an expectation, you add a little bit in tip, so that eats into your [00:23:00] $20. So for those reasons, finding a pickup option I think is really great.
So by, by me it’s Wegmans is a pickup option. All this is a pickup option. But again, they have a requirement that you order at least $35 of groceries. Wegmans, you can order as little or as much as you want. Then Giant also has pickup now by me, but just one of the, I think just one of the two that’s in my area, that’s
Justin Vacula: Scranton and Dixon City,
Beth: Scranton had it, at least when I ordered Instacart, when I had.
We used to be that Chase Sapphire offered us fair credits last year and the year before. So I used it one time at Giant for pickup. Anyway, so there are a few options, but you really, you do have to make sure when you’re in the app or when you’re looking at Instacart on your laptop, that you click on the pickup option and then you should see appearing in front of you, only the stores that offer pickup.
And then you have to further investigate and find out if there are any requirements on the pickup as there are with Aldi, that you have at least $35 in groceries.
Justin Vacula: So try to [00:24:00] maximize so that the credit is worth more so you don’t have to spend as much out of pocket.
Beth: Yeah. That’s my goal and we’re, I’m fortunate that the Wegmans buy us offers pickup for, managed to work it out just right.
And I’m only spending one, 1 cent right on those groceries. Oh. So that’s a great, that’s a great deal.
Justin Vacula: A penny for listeners thoughts?
Beth: Yes. There you go.
Justin Vacula: And there’s some other stacking and sometimes there are Chase offers. I saw on an IHG card of mine of all things that there was a DoorDash offer on there, so it gave me cashback stacking with that.
So thank you once again to Card Pointers, who’s a sponsor of the show automatically activating Chase offers. I have an affiliate link with them, card pointers.com/her gerdy travel. So it is pretty cool when some of those Chase offers pop up, it’s instantly activating them. So nice to stack with those.
Have you seen that happen on your cards?
Beth: Absolutely. Yeah. It doesn’t always. It doesn’t always work because like for the Instacart, for example, and the DoorDash credits, it takes the. [00:25:00] $10 or $20 off the total. And so what you’re paying then the remaining amount, whether it’s a penny or $3 or $5 or 15, right?
You can, that you can get certain, say percent off if you have an Amex, sorry, a Chase offer never hurts, right? To get additional 10% off whatever amount over that you go over the credits and yeah. Fun to save.
Justin Vacula: I imagine some will make larger orders. Those that don’t wanna spend a long time in a grocery store.
I, I’ve seen people in grocery store, they have this packed cart, they’re hanging sodas over the side and they have all this stuff on the bottom. I’m never one to make a run like that. I’m just getting a little bit at a time. I don’t have a family. And even for you, you’re just getting a lot of these mini orders.
But I think there could be a case where someone’s at home, it’s maybe nine o’clock they’re. Just laying down and they’re deciding to place the order on their phone. So maybe they could do the order from home, pick it up, and save the time [00:26:00] there. So those Chase offers might be more impactful in that situation, right?
It’s a trade off of time versus the pickup order versus the delivery. So people have to make their decisions there and what makes sense for their situation.
Beth: Sure. It’s always good to remember though, that Instacart does charge more for groceries at most stores. Or should I put it in the reverse? Most stores charge more for products sold through Instacart.
Ooh. And so there’s always a markup. The markup is not as steep at Aldi’s as it is at other stores, but it’s everywhere, and it can be somewhat substantial. And if you are gonna go way over the credits, you and you, if you have the time, I would consider just going to the store, picking up $20 worth of items through Instacart credits.
Then going and parking your car in the normal parking spot and then go inside and getting the rest of the groceries that you weren’t able to get. But that would, that does take time. And I can imagine plenty of people would just prefer to pay the extra amount.
Justin Vacula: Many people unfortunately procrastinate and it might be the end of the month.
They think, oh, I’m already stocked on groceries. [00:27:00] What are some things that you might get that are non-perishable or would otherwise last for a long time? May be kind bars, paper towels, other supplies.
Beth: Absolutely. So any of the toiletries, right? Those are always good options. If you are not needing groceries, I’ll oftentimes buy cans of black beans, rice, things like I, we like chia seeds and our oatmeal and yeah, we also steel cut oats.
There’s all kinds of products out there that are healthy that last for a long time. And do you have, if you wanna get backups so you can put them in the back of your cupboard and it’ll be good for quite a while. I don’t think you need to resort to. Necessarily to boxes of mac and cheese.
Justin Vacula: Wouldn’t recommend that here.
Yeah, it could be easy to put on weight in this hobby, so it’s something to be mindful of.
Beth: It is. Absolutely.
Justin Vacula: And is it possible to go inside of a store, place an order, and then have the pickup order ready and something [00:28:00] like five or 10 minutes? Or do you do all this in advance?
Beth: Instacart doesn’t go that fast at most stores.
So you put it in order and then even if you put in order and have a pick, have a pickup time. That’s the earliest possible. It’s almost never five or 10 minutes. Now, some, every once in a while, if I have a small order, I’ll get an email saying it’s, or it’s ready early, but you can’t really count on it. So I would definitely suggest ordering before you leave home and then going to the store, picking up your order, and then going inside for the rest.
I think that’s just a better strategy. DoorDash though, like that’s much faster. So I can be at a next door to a Wawa and think, oh, I could use some eggs, put in my eggs order, and then five minutes later it’s ready. So that’s a much faster so than Instacart. Instacart could have a grocery store, can have many Instacart orders backed up, and they’re not gonna necessarily get yours done in five to 10 minutes.
Justin Vacula: And you could even schedule for the next day so you can put in that order at night and then have it ready for a pickup at maybe 11 in the morning.
Beth: Absolutely. I do that all the [00:29:00] time. In the evening, I’ll quickly put into the cart my order, and then I’ll pick a time the next day when I know I’ll be free and then I hit submit and yep, it’s a great way to do it.
Justin Vacula: While others are mindless scrolling through reels on TikTok or Instagram, we’re placing grocery orders.
Beth: Yes. Really unique read.
Justin Vacula: And what about traveling? Might it be the case that you can use these, say you have an Airbnb in Florida and decide, okay, I’m gonna save these credits for when I’m away from home and get the groceries.
Beth: I’ve done it with the DoorDash and you can certainly do it with Instacart and you can certainly use these credits anywhere where there are convenient stores for the DoorDash credits or. Grocery stores for Instacart, and certainly if you’re gonna be gone for a while, that’s a not a bad option. I see these credits in some ways as paying for Gates that I would otherwise have to buy myself, and then I have extra savings then for travel.
So I don’t see them myself as [00:30:00] being connected deeply to my travel plans. They help me afford my travel.
Justin Vacula: I liked going to Hard Rock cafes away from home and using my credit card rewards there from the Hard Rock credit card I’ve used. Amex Gold credits at Cheesecake Factories away from my area, so it is cool.
Yeah. If you could find some of these credits away from home.
Beth: Oh, absolutely. I remember when they used to have, I think it was the Chase cards. They gave you credits towards the, what was it called again? It was that, that, that quick service. Quick delivery service. They didn’t have any in our area, so I find myself in New York City and think, oh, I could order it to my hotel.
And I’d get a bunch of those items delivered to the hotel for me, thanks to Chase. So yeah, definitely an option.
Justin Vacula: Listeners in the comments, if you could do an archeological dig and what that credit was. Feel free to post.
Beth: It was a business that started in Philadelphia a while back, and it was, they specialized in very quick delivery of snack items.
So yeah, the idea is. It’s late at night and you don’t feel like you,
Justin Vacula: oh, was it [00:31:00] goPuff?
Beth: Yes, it was goPuff. There you have it. So the goPuff, they closed in our area. So I would, when I would go to a big city where they still had it. I would just order, I would order every night at a different $10 goPuff order to my hotel and it would get dropped off at the lobby and I would have my free STS of things like nuts and, yeah, we’ll see.
I got a lot of good nuts through goPuff.
Justin Vacula: Yeah, that was the old slap chop commercial with Vince offer was the guy’s name. He said, you’re gonna love my nuts.
Beth: Ah, I did love the goPuff nuts.
Justin Vacula: Any pitfalls to avoid with this? Maybe forgetting credits, forgetting to enroll orders that might not be eligible. Have there been some learning moments for you in this process
Beth: with the Instacart credits and DoorDash credits?
You obviously have to enroll, but you wouldn’t forget to enroll because you see the money come off your receipt before you order, so you would know if you had enrolled because the money wouldn’t be, you wouldn’t be credited for it before you [00:32:00] hit submit for your order. But yeah, just forgetting to use all of them in a given month or finding yourself using them late in the game and then orders get canceled.
Maybe another kind of pitfall though is becoming so fixated on maximizing every credit that forget to live your life. And so
Justin Vacula: we
Beth: don’t want to over. For me, this is fun and it’s a nice little side thing. I, this shouldn’t take the place of spending time with kids or friends or doing other fulfilling things.
That’s
Justin Vacula: why you involve the family in it. Hey, let’s go to the grocery store together and hey, we’ll buy gift cards together. And that way maybe the manager won’t gimme so many issues. You. You got some heat at GameStop a while back, I remember. Yes. You maybe got age profiled.
Beth: Yeah, I probably did. And maybe a 50-year-old female in those GameStop steward.
It’s not a norm normal demographic.
Justin Vacula: All right, so those were some small wins with the groceries. Let’s wrap up with bigger wins as I ask many [00:33:00] podcast guests. Have you had any recent travels with miles and points?
Beth: We’ve traveled a lot and. Thanks to miles and points, we’ve traveled more further and with more luxury, I think I would say, than I would’ve imagined.
So just returned from Antigua, which is a small island in the Caribbean, and we stayed for a night at the Inn at English Harbor with a Hilton free night certificate. A beautiful place in the southern part of Antigua where we got to. See some historical sites take part in some cultural activities. And then from there we had some free night certificates we used at the Hermitage Bay and the Hermitage is a beautiful resort, absolutely gorgeous.
I’ve never been anywhere as beautiful and all the meals and drinks are covered and you, and we ate so well. We were able to snorkel right on the beach there, right by our beachfront villa, and we took hikes and all of it thanks to Hilton Free Night Certificates.
Justin Vacula: How did you get [00:34:00] there? You booked some flights with miles and points?
Beth: Yes, absolutely. So we used American Airlines miles to get there and JetBlue miles to get back. So we split it up into two with two different airlines. That turned out to be the best deal for us.
Justin Vacula: And you flew out of Newark for this one.
Beth: Flew outta JFK in this case.
Justin Vacula: Ah, you’ve even better.
Beth: Yes. I’m not sure.
It’s a little harder to get to, but we used a free night cert today at a Marriott the night before we left, since it was an early morning flight and that keeps, that means there’s a lot less hassle. You don’t have to get up at three in the morning. Yep. To get to the airport. Yeah. It was a pretty easy flight from JFK.
It’s nonstop. That took only three and a half hours to get there. About four to get back. If you live on the East coast, I strongly suggest looking into Antigua as a good option for Hilton free United shirts.
Justin Vacula: Nice. I’ve made that promise in past podcast episodes when I’m. Taking international flights, I’m going to stay near the airport the night before, rather than chanting it, trying to fly out the same day, and then often rushing.
So good. Absolutely good. A good tip [00:35:00] to reinforce the listeners to not end up in a position I did where a connecting flight got canceled and then the whole trip. Was canceled.
Beth: Fell apart. Yep.
Justin Vacula: The day of walking around at the Philadelphia airport.
Beth: Yep.
Justin Vacula: I got some lounge access. The Delta sky closet as past podcast guest Justin Walter calls it.
But the sky closet days are over because the Chase Sapphire Lounge of Philadelphia is amazing.
Beth: Yes.
Justin Vacula: Any upcoming trips with miles and points?
Beth: We’ll be going with the family and a few others to the Netherlands, which is where my parents and husband’s parents are from. And so we did rent an Airbnb, ’cause there’s gonna be 10 of us, and we’re gonna be in a small village in the north and the northern part of the Netherlands.
But I paid for that mostly with Capital One Venture Signup bonuses because for Capital One, Airbnb’s count as travel. So you can erase. Travel purchases using Capital One points. So that was a [00:36:00] great way to reduce the cost of the Airbnb substantially. And then for flights, we’re all flying in different airlines, different times, different days, but almost all of it, not all of, almost all of it with.
And the only exception is some of us are flying via Play Airlines, which is an Icelandic airline back. From Amsterdam, and that’s a low budget airline that flies into a small airport just outside New York City called Stewart International Airport, and they’re a low budget airline. So I went ahead and paid those fares up pocket.
Justin Vacula: Nice. It’s getting to Europe. That’s the big miles and points problem. But the cheapo flights in Europe usually what about $150, $200 for a flight with cash fare.
Beth: Once you’re there and the flights are cheap, the trains are relatively cheap, we’ll have a rental car, which I got with my Chase on the Chase portal for 1.50 cents per point using Chase Ultimate rewards points.
But yeah, but there’s lots of options once you’re there. But you’re right. Getting there and back, it’s a [00:37:00] bit more, it’s a bit more work.
Justin Vacula: We’re both going to the Netherlands, but I think at different times, which is pretty funny.
Beth: Yeah, but very close. I think July five. When do you leave again?
Justin Vacula: Yes, it’s June 28th.
I’m flying to Boston. June 29th. I’m flying into Amsterdam. A cruise I’m taking is July 5th to the 12th in Amsterdam, going to Norway and back. And then I’ll be there for the 12th and the 13th. So when you arrive, my ship is departing,
Beth: so it has to Yeah. ’cause we arrived on the sixth, the morning of the sixth.
It’s overnight, so yeah. I will wave to whatever ship I see from the air as we land.
Justin Vacula: Waldorf Astoria in Amsterdam had some open nights, so I was able to use Hilton free night certificates for that, and then ending at the Hilton motto, Rotterdam Block or Black, some different stays there, but that Waldorf was not open or available for all those nights for bookings or free [00:38:00] night certs.
Beth: I’m impressed you got it for any nights at all because that’s a tough one. Again, we’ll be staying for on our way out for one night, some of us two nights at the Hyatt Regency, right outside in Central Amsterdam, but on the outskirts.
Justin Vacula: Very good. The winds continue as you’ve been in this game longer than me, maybe eight years, nine years, and we’re still having lots of success.
Beth: It’s it’s an amazing little side gig. Absolutely.
Justin Vacula: Any upcoming credit card applications.
Beth: I have, I’m working on three signup bonuses right now, trying to get my, another free night cert with my Hilton Surpass. You need 15 K spend to get a free night, so working on that, and so I, I think I’m gonna wait till after Amsterdam before I make my next move for new applications
Justin Vacula: with all of the grocery store creative spend with gift cards, prepaid cards, gaming cards, all roads leading to online blackjack, of course, pretty easy for us to hit our spindles.
Beth: Absolutely. Thanks for having me again, Justin. It’s been great to be here.
Justin Vacula: [00:39:00] Any goals for 2026? Any travels earlier in the year?
Beth: Definitely go somewhere for spring break, although we haven’t decided where yet, even what part of the world. But in the summer we are gonna stay domestic and we’re going to all fly to the west coast, to the Oregon coast because we have family out that way.
And so we’ll have a nice family reunion and we’ll see how we can make points and miles work magic for us on the West coast.
Justin Vacula: Yes, like in poker you might hear the expression, I have a lot of outs, chances to improve and make a better hand. But with points and miles, we definitely have lots of options to make things work.
Beth: Yeah. Thank you so much Justin.
Justin Vacula: Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes, some closing announcements. Ticket sales for Zork Fest 2025 A Miles points and gambling event are live@zorkfest.travel zork.com. I hope to see you at Zork Fest 2025 in Las Vegas december 5th through the seventh at the M Resort Casino Hotel.[00:40:00]
I’ll also be speaking at Chicago Seminars Hyatt Regency O’Hare, November 7th through the ninth, 2025. Use promo code HurdyGurdy that’s one word when buying a ticket to support me. Join me from October 24th through the 26th 2025 for Chicago Seminars Holiday Inn, Chicago Oak Brook. Use promo code I must have a promo code 20 for $20 off tickets.
Visit meetup.com/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 June 22nd and July 13th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes. For more content between podcast episodes follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on Facebook and x.
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Thanks for [00:42:00] listening. Have a great day.
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