Here’s how you can quickly get up to $2 off per gallon, up to 35 gallons per fill-up, through September 30, 2012.
What:
Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in in the country. It is parent to 16 other chains. If Octomom were supermarket, she’d need to spit out two litters to equal Kroger’s brood. The Kroger Family of Stores has an awesome program called “Fuel Points”.
Fuel Points perks vary between each Kroger chain. For example, Kroger & King Soopers top out at $2 off per gallon. My area Ralphs caps at 20 cents a gallon. 20 cents ain’t too shabby, but it’s not 2 bucks! Fill up at your Kroger chain fuel centers for the best discount.
How:
You earn Fuel Points when you make purchases using your Kroger Plus Card – (or whatever your Kroger chain membership program is called). I’ll use Kroger for this post.
Spend a buck and get a Fuel Point (normal exclusions apply). You earn twice as many Fuel Points when you purchase a merchant specific gift card from Kroger. Here are over 100 merchant specific gift cards you can expect to find at Kroger stores.
– Buy a $50 gift card and get 100 Fuel Points = 10 cents off per gallon.
– Spend $1,000 on gift cards and get 2,000 Fuel Points = $2 off per gallon.
– They have special promotions where you get 4x the Fuel Points on gift card purchases.
The Goal:
Get 2,000 Fuel Points in a calendar month, so you can knock $2 off every gallon of gas you put in your bone dry gas tank at your next fill-up, up to 35 gallons. If you are a ne’er-do-well or scoff-law, you should know that trying to fill up two cars without shutting off the pump might get you thrown in Kroger jail.
My Suggestion:
1. If you are going to make a major purchase (TV, appliances, furniture, clothes, remodeling, etc.), stop by Kroger first to buy gift cards for the store you are going to use. Use those gift cards to make that major purchase.
2. Gift cards can be a hassle to manage and a financial blunder if you lose them. That’s another reason I like Amazon.com gift cards. If you buy an Amazon.com gift card, you can go home, sign into your Amazon.com account, enter the gift card numbers, and that gift card balance will now show up in your Amazon account for future purchases. You can cut up your newly purchased gift card. No worries!
3. Buy the gift cards with a credit card that gets you cash back or airline miles, and collect those rewards as well.
4. Of course, don’t spend $1,000 on gift cards for junk you don’t need, just so you can save $2/gallon on your next fill-up. Only use a credit card to buy your gift cards if you will pay off that credit card bill in full when it’s due.
The Perfect Scenario:
Like me, you have a standard definition TV. You’ve decided it’s time to buy a $600 HDTV at Best Buy, a bag of hammers at Home Depot, and a lifetime supply of Silly Putty at Amazon. You go into Kroger and buy gift cards: $600 for Best Buy, $300 for Home Depot, and $100 for Amazon.com. Bingo, you have 2,000 Fuel Points!
You jump back in your RV, SUV, or automotive acronym of choice, and head to the Kroger fuel center. Your car sputters on its last drop of petrol as you coast to the pump.
You want to fill up on an empty tank to maximize your savings. You’ll get $2 off per gallon, whether you buy one gallon or the maximum 35 gallons per vehicle per purchase.
Before you fill up, swipe your Kroger Plus Card so you get the $2 off. Enter your form of payment. If you use your Chase Freedom or Discover it card, you’ll get an additional 5% cash back on gasoline purchases July-September 2012. Click on Chip’s Favorite Credit Card Offers for up-to-date deals, terms, and conditions on these cards and more. Email me if you have any questions about which card might be right for your situation.
Thanks to Subscriber Chris:
See his actual Kroger receipts below. In June, he bought $1,500 in gift cards. That added 3,000 Fuel Points to Chris’ account which already had 116 points. On his July 3rd fill-up, 2,000 Fuel Points were deducted from the 3,116 Fuel Points in his account. He got $2 off per gallon and saved $41.50. As you can see on the receipt, that’s $1.57 per gallon for Premium! He filled-up like it was 1999.
This left Chris with 1,116 Fuel Points earned in June. On July 10th, he filled-up again and used 1,100 fuel points to get $1.10 off per gallon and saved $22.93. That’s a grand total of $64.43 saved!!
If Chris used his Chase Freedom or Discover it to buy the gas, he’d save another 5% on the gas from July – September.
You can read more about how this works by clicking the links above or Googling your Kroger chain and “Fuel Points”.
How long do I have to use my Fuel Points?
Fuel Points earned in a given month are available for use through the end of the following calendar month. Points do not combine across months. When filling up at a Kroger fuel center, you’ll always be offered the biggest discount available, based on each month’s fuel point totals available in your account. For example, if you have 200 unredeemed fuel points from January and 300 fuel points in February, the 30¢ per gallon discount from February will be offered on your next fill-up. The 20¢ per gallon discount from January will be available through the end of February.
Hi Chip,
Here is my scenario. Due to my nature of work I spend $500 for gas every month.
I do have Amex blue cash preferred card.
I’ve read in forums that if gift cards are purchased by amex yeild to 6% cash back.
lets say I purchase Amazon 500$ gift card. That would save me $30 when purchased with Amex card.
At the kroger gas station, can I use the same amazon gift card multiple times in filling my vehicle tank capacity of 15 gallon. As mentioned, its amazon card. would it be good to use at kroger gas station?
In your blog, its mentioned that we got to use kroger plus card? I dont have that card.
Please confirm and correct me if I’m wrong
Hi Sharda,
The Amex Blue Cash Preferred card will give you cash back of “6% US supermarkets up to $6,000 per year in purchases”. So if you bought a $500 Amazon gift card at your grocery store (Krogers is certainly one), yes you’d get $30 cash back from Amex on just that purchase. It is not an instant $30 off. You’ll get that from Amex when you collect your credit card rewards. You can only use your Amazon gift card at Amazon, so Kroger Fuel would not accept it.
Grocery stores sell other merchant specific gift cards. They even sell MasterCard and Visa gift cards. You could buy a $500 gift card, pay the purchase fee of about $5, and still get 6% cash back on that purchase. Using money to buy money and getting cash back. You’d be out the $5 card purchase fee, but still get 6% cash back from Amex. So you’d win! You can only get6% cash back on $6,000 grocery store purchases per year.
You touch on something else: Kroger Fuel. That can be a lucrative way to save money on gasoline. Check out my posts on that: http://www.chipsmoneytips.com/2012/08/kroger-4x-fuel-points-sweet/ AND http://www.chipsmoneytips.com/2012/07/2-off-per-gallon-with-fuel-points/
Great to hear that. Thanks. It was informative.
Sams club only accepts Master card or debit cards. I suppose that would be a perfect purchase at Kroger inspite of $5 fee when paid with Amex blue cash.
Coming to fuel points, I’ve seen your blog. Is it mandatory to use Kroger membership card for fuel points?
Cant I use the same master card purchased at Kroger for fuel points?
As I understand it, when you buy Kroger gas, you want to plug in your Kroger Plus membership number so it can give you any discount based upon Kroger Fuel points that you have earned in your Kroger Plus membership account. You do not have to use a Kroger 1-2-3 credit card to buy the gas.
You can use your MasterCard gift cards at the Kroger pump to pay for fuel.
If you are looking for ways to use up your gift cards, AmazonPayments is excellent. Just type in your name when AmazonPayments asks for the name on your credit card (your gift card). http://www.chipsmoneytips.com/2012/08/amazon-payments-webpay/
From the Kroger website:
Rules of the Road:
Only purchases of eligible items made with your Kroger Plus Card or 1-2-3 REWARDS® Visa® Card from the Kroger Family of Stores are eligible for points. *Gift Cards have no value until activated. Only purchases made with your loyalty card from The Kroger Co. Family of Stores or 1-2-3 REWARDS® Visa® are eligible. Excludes The Kroger Co. Family of Stores gift cards, Green Dot® prepaid reloadable products, MoneyPaks® and American Express® Variable Load, Visa® Variable Load, 1-2-3 REWARDS® Reloadable Visa® Prepaid Debit Card and MasterCard® Variable Load gift cards. See gift cards for details, terms, conditions and (if applicable) fees. Product and offer may not be available in all states. Excludes alcohol, tobacco, money orders, postage stamps, gift cards/certificates, lottery, promotional tickets, fluid milk, milk products, CRV tax and pharmacy purchases. The program can be modified or discontinued at any time without notice. Fuel redemption offer is for one purchase of fuel not to exceed 35 gallons, subject to credit and debit card fraud prevention limits on the amount of purchase. We may suspend or remove you from the fuel program due to violation of these terms or because of fraudulent activity or suspected fraudulent activity. Fuel redemption offer cannot be combined with any other discounts. Not valid where prohibited by law. The Creditor and issuer of the 1-2-3 REWARDS® Visa® Card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A Inc. All trademarks are property of their respective owner.
Excellent. Thanks.
I was wondering how I could spend 3K on my new chase sapphire card.
I checked with my apartment to pay on credit card but they mentioned there would be 2.9% fee on it.
For paying thru amazonpayments, I got to get their Account Number. Isnt it? Doubt, if they would share. Other utilities, I have my bank account shared for automatic debits every month. Is there a way, I could use amazonpayments without being charged for utlities etc.
Hi Sharda,
I’ll address Amazon Payments in a moment. If that all sounds like too much trouble, there is an easy way to meet the spending requirement of $3,000 on your Chase Sapphire card, so you can get the 40,000 point introductory bonus (worth ($400 tax free cash). Just go to the grocery store and buy Visa or MasterCard gift cards. You can use your Sapphire card to put up to $500 on each gift card. There is a purchase fee of about $5 per card you buy. Then take your time using those Visa or MasterCard gift cards anywhere Visa or MasterCard is accepted.
Heck, if you just got your Sapphire card, you could use it to buy six $500 Visa or MasterCard gift cards, and meet the spending requirement in one trip. You’d pay $5 per gift card ($4.95 or $5.95, I forget which it is). 6 x $5 = $30. You’d be out $30 but you’d meet the spending requirement and have $400 worth of points coming from Chase.
AmazonPayments WebPay is an excellent way to send money to other peoples’ AmazonPayments WebPay account – using a credit card. You don’t need the other person’s account number, just the email that person used for their AmazonPayments account.
You can send up to $1,000 per calendar month. No fees. So, if your landlord has an AmazonPayments account, and will allow you to send him $1,000 per month, that is a great way to spend $1,000 on your credit card. Your landlord may not be interested in doing this.
As I linked to in my post above about AmazonPayments, they actually encourage you to “send money to your friends” using this. Some people abuse this (in my opinion) by sending $1,000 per calendar month to a friend, who then sends the money right back. We are still in March, so you could send $1,000 over the next 10 days, and another $1,000 April 1st. I have done that to pay a contractor.
Hi ,
I had been to Kroger and wanted to buy Visa gift card of 1000$ with my Amex blue cash preffered card. to avail 6% cash back and fuel points. When asked if it earns fuel points, they said no.
Any gift card which is pre-loaded would qualify not ones which you top up like visa gift cards etc.
My plan was to buy this visa gift card and buy 1000$ worth of furniture @ BIG LOTS store which I liked. Unfortunately they dont carry bit lots gift cards at kroger. In this scenario what could you recommend to earn 6% cash back on amex card + fuel points.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Sharda,
It’s too bad Kroger doesn’t carry Best Buy cards, or you’d be golden! I checked out http://giftcards.kroger.com/ and they do carry Best Buy cards. But they said “at participating stores only.” Does another Kroger, or another area grocery store chain carry Best Buy cards?
Of course, you would not get Fuel Points with a Non-Kroger store. But I think that is smart to use your Amex at a grocery store to buy gift cards and get 6%, then use the gift cards to make a purchase.
As for Fuel points, check out http://www.kroger.com/fuel, enter your zip code, find your store. In that store’s details, click where it says “Fuel Details”. They will give you all the ways you can get Fuel Points.
Its not best buy. I was looking for “Big Lots” stores gift cards where I could buy furniture worth of $1000
More Over as mentioned, I was told Visa /Master gift cards purchase not eligible for fuel points.
BIG LOTS… Yes! I had Best Buy on the brain.