In Australia, our supermarkets love a good bonus offer on gift cards. Nearly every week Coles and Woolworths release a new offer, and this week Woolies takes the cake with its prepaid Visa deal.
Until next Tuesday, you can earn 10x Everyday Rewards Points per dollar spent on $50, $100 and $25-500 variable load Vanilla Visa and Visa Birthday gift cards. The reason this offer gets us so excited is that Visa gift cards can be used pretty much anywhere Visa is accepted. Instead of being limited to a particular brand like other gift card offers, the Vanilla Visa can be used at nearly all eftpos machines.
In short, here’s what you need to know;
- Available in-store at Woolworths from 26 June to 2 July 2024
- Limit of five $50 or $100 cards per day
- Limit of two $25-500 variable load cards per day
- A gift card activation fee applies ($5.95 or $7.95)
Fun Maths: Vanilla Visa To Sky High Vino
As the earn rate is tied to the amount spent, and the activation fee is fixed, purchasing two variable load cards loaded with $500 yields the highest return. You can purchase two $500 cards each day the promotion is live, earning 10,000 Everyday Rewards Points per day, or 70,000 points across the week.
Everyday Rewards transfer to Qantas Points with a 2:1 exchange rate, meaning you would end up with 35,000 Qantas Points at the end of this promotion. In the spirit of maximising this Red Roo offer, I am taking advantage of 1 point per $1 spent on my Qantas credit card. That’s 7,000 points just for paying.
All up, I will earn 42,000 Qantas Points for $111.30 (fourteen $7.95 activation fees). It’s a cheap way of boosting your balance, at 377 points per $1 spent on fees.
What To Do With $7,000 Worth Of Gift Cards?
The tricky part to these promotions is normally getting the funds from the gift card back into your bank account. But with a bit of points-nerd ingenuity and maybe even a payment pal, the answer is clear.
Previously, Woolworths would allow you to purchase additional Vanilla Visa cards using the previous day’s cards, but based on our testing, this no longer works.
If you’d prefer to stay in the loyalty program good books, Vanilla Visas can of course be used for bills like any other card, and it appears ATO payments are also accepted.
