Let's Compare: 5% Credit Card Rotating Quarterly Rewards

Yes, I would think only payment at samsclub.com is required. Pickup method ( in-store or shipped ) shouldn’t matter. They used to allow in-store payment for store pickup orders, I don’t know if they still do, but paying that way would be asking for issues.

I’m going to test to see if Scan and Go purchases count. They used to show up like a Samsclub.com order, but in the new Sam’s Club app it looks more like an in-store purchase, though not quite the same. There’s enough overlap that it’s worth a try.

FWIW, back in January, my online order for in-club pickup order showed as in-club in the app. All my scan and go orders also show as in club at my store location so I don’t know if it’ll work. They may only count online orders shipped to your door which would be annoying.

But they do sell their Sam’s club gift cards (from $10 to $500) with free shipping so that may be a work-around if those count. Membership (new or renewal may also count as online purchases - at least my last new membership fee was tagged as online order).

Their 2% cash rewards for premium members was recently changed to exclude online orders. But it does still include curbside pickup orders. Which could be another indication of how it’s treated; “online” may only include things that are shipped to your home.

Sams Club Gift Cards are the obvious work-around. But be careful ordering $500 values, they have some systemic issues that can create a lot of hassle.

Regarding WalMart/Sams Club GC orders…
The $500 cards are sent deactivated, and you have to click on a link in an e-mail sent to you to request activation. Don’t bother checking the balance until a couple hours after you request activation - If you perform a balance check too many times on a card, it will get get stuck in a limbo state. The geniuses at WM customer service will have no idea what is wrong with your GC, and try to blow you off rather than try to take some responsibility and help fix the card.

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The problem is, most of the time my $500 GC orders from Sams Club always ship, but the system never updates to reflect a shipped status, thus the activation email is never sent.

They’ll manually activate them upon request. But then it could still take 2-4 weeks for the order status to finally update so that the charge is processed to my credit card (do NOT try to hurry that process along!). At which point the charge posts and the system knows the cards were sent, but doesnt know they were manually activated - so I’m still getting occasional “reminders” to activate gift cards that I received and spent a couple years ago.

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Make sure you don’t have '.'s or ‘+’ in your email address. That also breaks their GC system.

Since quantity is not an issue, would you be better off with smaller denomination cards then? Like 5 x $100 GC instead of 1 $500 GC? Would the other smaller gift cards have the same issues?

Just from my own experience, it’s only $500 GCs that cause the problems I’ve experienced.

I received on offer from Paypal for no transaction fees through the end of the year if you use the QR code on your phone for someone to send you money ( i.e. in-person transaction ). I have to assume this is a targeted offer since there was an activate link in the email. Perfect timing with Chase being 5% for Paypal this quarter. But with no transaction fees, even 2% cards could be used. I doubt I will hit it that hard though as I don’t want to poke the Paypal bear and end up with money frozen for months.

I bought WM 15 100.00 gift cards with my Discover for 75.00 cash back already posted. Buy online groceries and other stuff so will use it up. may do again with wife’s Discover by end of Dec.

Just another random warning - over the past couple years, I’ve found a couple giftcard designs that will always ship with a $10 balance, no matter what denomination ordered. A couple comments/reviews for that design will note this issue, and they dated back over a year. And as far as I know they continued selling them anyways, so who knows if the system was ever corrected.

A quick call to the right department will get it fixed right away (finding the right department isnt quite so quick), but best to stick with the tried and true basic card designs.

thanks Glitch99! When the cards arrived I could not activate them! had to call and go thru the “tree” Got a real nice rep who confirmed they had 100.00 on each and activated all of them in one shot. They are the blue standard WM cards. So far we are on the 3rd one. And their payment page software is the best. it keeps track of all the gift cards and prechecks the one that has a balance on it. And it tells you the balance left as soon as you order. And my entire Iife I was never a WM person until about 4 years ago for the MO /VGC thing MS thing

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Discover 2021 categories ( same as 2020 I believe ):

  • Q1 JAN–MAR 2021: Grocery Stores, Walgreens and CVS
  • Q2 APR–JUN 2021: Gas Stations, Wholesale Clubs and Select Streaming Services
  • Q3 JUL–SEP 2021: Restaurants and PayPal
  • Q4 OCT–DEC 2021: Amazon.com, Walmart.com and Target.com
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Every time I’ve had problems with activation of cards, I call and waste hours on the phone getting passed around to various people at Sams and Walmart who have no clue what is going on. FWIW I typically request a $50 gift card for customer satisfaction bonus. The last time I asked for $50, the gift card supervisor sent me a $75 GC along with an apology for the terrible service. My time is worth way more than $50 or $75, but at least I feel less bad about the way Sams/WM treat customers by not properly staffing people to provide customer service.

Can confirm that it works this quarter. I did a $10 trial gift card ordered online from Sam’s using the Citi Dividend card, shipped free to my home, and got 5% cashback on that on my statement. Used the $10 gift card in store without issue so doubled down and ordered enough gift cards to keep us going until Q2 of 2021 (discover 5% then). :wink:

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But did you order a $500 value card? If so, did it process properly?

They have language in their gift card description that any gift card above $250 requires activation so I stuck with $200 gift cards.

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Chase Freedom Q1 2021 categories: Wholesale Clubs, Internet/Cable/Phone bills, streaming.

Chase Freedom Q1 2021 5% Categories: Wholesale Clubs, Phone/Internet, Streaming - Doctor Of Credit

This category set is not as profitable for us. Our phone is about $54/mo, internet is $70/mo. So that’s only $370 or so of organic spend. We don’t subscribe to any of the ‘select streaming services.’ The rest will have to fall onto Costco I guess, through whatever quarterly spend we have there and finish up with a purchase of a Costco gift card to drain throughout the year.

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Also redundant if you have Ink.

I’m thinking about moving away from Chase-only, the recent acquisitions (loyalty co.) and erosion of value in existing transfer partners (the transfers are still 1:1, but many of the partners have reduced in value) make me feel like the long- stable UR value may have its days numbered.

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