So in my last post, I talked about the ongoing promotion at Kroger owned stores (Kroger, Smiths, Ralphs, Frys, Dillons, etc) where you get a $5 coupon if you buy a Visa or Mastercard gift card.
My plan was to buy 12 $500 gift cards for a total of 27,000 American Express points, but Grant from Travel with Grant did point out that doing so might increase my odds of the dreaded “Financial Review”. So we’ll see about how much I push this particular promotion.
One question I did have was on the topic of Fuel rewards and Community Rewards
Fuel Rewards
Visa and Mastercard purchases are specifically prohibited from earning Fuel Rewards. There is even a sign on the gift card rack at one of the Krogers I stopped at saying that, though the cashier the other day tried to insist that they did.
If they did, it would be a moneymaking deal all the time to buy Visa and Mastercard gift cards, since each $500 gift card would earn $1 off (up to) 35 gallons of gas, more than offsetting the $5.95 activation fee.
Community Rewards
Kroger also has the concept of Community Rewards, where every non-profit organizations can sign up to earn 4% back on purchases by its affiliated members. So I thought that this would again be a great deal, since a $500 gift card purchase would earn $20 back to a local non-profit
I had visions of how I could possibly sell this to my local school foundation
“Now listen, you just cut me a check for $60, and I’ll make sure to get you $200 in Community Rewards….” But alas, before I could come up with the perfect pitch for this hare-brained scheme, the rules once again got in my way.
It appears that they do not qualify
Ah well…. Maybe next time 🙂
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
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