Mastercard (and Visa) Gift Cards on Sale at Safeway (Dead)

69/365 This sale is over.

This week, you can get $15 off of two $100 Mastercard gift cards and $10 off two $50 Mastercard gift cards by clipping the coupon in your just for U account at Safeway or other Albertsons branded grocery stores. I also had a Visa deal in my just for U account, but my husband and my mom did not, so that deal may be targeted. Either way, this is a great deal, especially if you have a credit card that gives you rewards at grocery stores. These gift cards can be used like a debit card at other stores which do not give you a category reward on your credit card.

Savings Breakdown

Here’s how the savings break out. Each card has an activation fee. The fee is $5.95 for the $100 card and $4.95 for the $50 card. If you maxed out this deal on your just for U account, you would have $300 to spend, but only have paid $296.80. That’s $3.20 profit right off the bat.

Maximize Your Rewards

Of course I can’t be satisfied with only $3.20 in profit. I’ll also use a credit card that has a rewards category at grocery stores. Normally for us, that’s American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card with 6% cash back on up to $6000 per year in the grocery store category. Due to this cap, I try to look for other cards to occasionally mix in, since we will inevitably hit that cap each year before our card anniversary. Right now, my Chase Hyatt Visa has a spending bonus of $25 for the months of November (already done) and December for spending $500 each month in certain categories, including groceries and movie theaters. That’s a 5% reward, but will include some valuable Hyatt points for my spending at 1x which is 500 points each month, saving my valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards for other redemptions.

So now the math looks like this: $3.20 from Safeway, plus either $14.84 out of $25 if I hit the $500 spending threshold on the Chase Hyatt Visa or $17.81 cash back on American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card

Check Your Local Store’s Brand

Be sure to clip the coupon to your just for U account and use your number or card at the register to get the discount. If you’re not sure which stores are owned by Albertsons in your area, take a look below. You can find this clickable image here if you scroll to the bottom of the page.

Winning!

I know I told this last time I wrote about this deal, but it’s a good story. I think about it every time I’m buying Visas at Safeway, so I’ll tell it again. Once when I was buying some of these discounted gift cards, the bagger was joking to the clerk about why I would buy them. I told him that since there was a rebate, I was getting them for less than they were worth, and then on top of that, I was getting 6% cash back on my American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card, and I could use them at other places that didn’t have category bonuses or at Walmart to get money orders in place of cash. His young mind was blown, and he told me I was, “Winning!” And he said it several times. That WAS definitely a win!