Both a family member and I are in the market for new vehicles, and as such I’ve visited a few dealer websites as of late. I’ve come across several test drive incentives at various dealers — which led me to poke around and see some others I could find. At the moment, I see offers from Volvo, Hyundai, Subaru, and Polaris. If you did all four, you would come out with $160 in Visa gift cards.
For the record, I always use a Google Voice number with this kind of thing (discourages a lot of dealers as soon as they call and have to give a name and gives me the ability to easily screen the calls or ditch the number if they annoy me too much). YMMV with how much follow-up is necessary to receive your gift card — occasionally these deals go smoothly and you get the gift card as expected a few weeks after driving. Other times, you need to follow up several times with the dealer and/or tweet the brand on Twitter for help and/or contact corporate or the BBB. However, if they go smoothly and you have some dealers nearby, it could be easy money. Check the fine print of the offer, but most just require that you show a driver’s license and proof of insurance (though I can’t ever recall being asked to show proof of insurance).
I found each of these offers by simply going to a dealer’s website (any dealer seems to work) and then clicking “New Inventory–>View New Inventory” or “All new inventory” or something like that. Most dealer websites are very similar.
Then, as soon as I went to scroll the list of inventory, I got the following pop-up offers (again, not dealer-specific — I did them at multiple dealers and different parts of the country):
Volvo: $50 Reward Card (Amazon, Visa, or Nordstrom)
Hyundai: $40 Reward Card (Amazon, Visa, ?)
Subaru: $25 Prepaid Reward Card (Visa)
Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram: $25 Reward Card (Walmart / Visa / ?)
Polaris Slingshot**: $20 Visa gift card
**I assume that the Polaris offer requires a motorcycle license in order to test drive. This one has a direct link — click the image above to go to the offer. Hat tip to Doctor of Credit on this one.
Bottom Line
This is a pretty easy win if you don’t mind telling the dealer no. Some dealers are easier about this than others — I’ve read some reports where the dealer won’t even make you test drive, but there is some paperwork that needs to be done. If you’re going to take advantage of the offer, I’d suggest taking the vehicle out and at least feigning some interest in buying. If you’re truly in the market for a car, there’s no reason not to take them up on an incentive. And if you buy a Volvo, check out the Overseas Delivery Program. It looks like fun, even if it’s not the best value anymore.
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Super easy. Find your local Subaru or Hyundai dealer website. Click on new vehicles to view their inventory. Select any new vehicle to check out more photos/detail and the VISA offer is an automatic pop-up window on your screen. Fill out a few details about yourself and print out the offer and take with you to your test drive. You can call and make an appointment or just show up.
Found ’em. I “only” got a $40 amazon card and a $25 visa card.
Go you! That’s $65 more in your wallet. I’m going to try Volvo next. They are offering a $50 VISA.
So easy! I’m in the market for a new car and accidentally stumbled across Hyundai’s offer this past weekend before I was headed on my planned test drive. They gave me a $40 online VISA gift card which I quickly redeemed and applied online to my home utility bill. I tried it again today at Subaru (no interest in purchasing) but took the drive, showed some interest and immediately was E-Mailed my $50 online VISA gift card. I too redeemed this one quickly and just applied online to my utility bill. That’s $90 cash in the matter of 2 days! Woot woot! Total time length/spent at Hyundai took a few hours but only because I was driving a few different models and am serious. I was in/out of Subaru in about 30 minutes. I may try Volvo next. 🙂
Where did you stumble across the 2 offers?
They pop up on the website after a bit of browsing. Specifically for Volvo, it took looking at a few of their most expensive cars to see the offer pop up, but it did. Just print the form, be blunt and they likely won’t waste their time or yours trying to sell you a car.
I never got the card from Subaru.
I went into Subaru and test drove a car and gave turned in paperwork with the code. They explained that they would forward that to the proper person who handles that. It has been almost a month and I leaned that they lost my paper. I no longer have the code so I can’t provide the proof I need to collect my $25 gift card. I have contacted Subaru of America and they told me it is a 3rd party vendor. If I do not get the gift card the next thing I will try is putting is a bad yelp review. This gift card should not take more then a couple of days to receive.
I did both the Volvo and Subaru offers this weekend. It took a total of 30 minutes because both dealerships were close by. Told them the truth and said I was there for the incentive and both gave me the gift cards. Haven’t been called yet but have received a couple of emails.
I went to my local Volvo dealer on Saturday morning before doing a bunch of errands. He gave me the keys and said have it back by 5:00! Did my errands and got back about 3 hours later. Dropped it off and I was out of there. That evening my $50 Amazon code showed up.
Pretty painless.
Full disclosure – I bought a Volvo from them last year.
[…] Easy win: $160 in Visa Gift Cards for test drives […]
As someone who found the Hyundai experience last year frustrating (lots of annoying calls and emails and actually getting the gift card required several follow-ups with the dealership), I was wary about doing another “deal”, but I decided to do the Volvo offer, since there is a dealership on my way home from work, and I wanted to look at one of their cars anyway. This experience was much better, from the low pressure approach in the dealership to having the gift card fulfillment email in my in box minutes after I left the dealership. I don’t know if Volvo dealerships generally are better than Hyundai dealerships, but the Volvo dealership I visited handled this promotion well.
It’s not the car maker that is responsible for how the dealership handles it. Some dealers are unaware of their car company running a test drive promotion. I actually went through that
I love test driving cars for incentives. Test driving cars for Visa gift cards is one of the best legal methods available to get extra cash in your pocket. Bank sign on bonuses rank higher. Now is the golden age of that.
I test drove a Hyundai in response to a similar offer a few months ago and I wouldn’t recommend wasting your time with a similar offer. Fulfillment was completely up to the local dealership. I completed all of the necessary steps but they never submitted the paperwork I left them with. I called and emailed to follow up and neither the salesperson or the contact person for this program bothered to return my messages. I came away wiser but very frustrated at the waste of time. There was no recourse with Hyundai. If the dealer doesn’t come through you are out of luck.
That’s a bummer. I read some similar stories about the last Hyundai promotion. Did you try tweeting Hyundai? I saw over at Slickdeals that some users reported tweeting Hyundai and the local dealership and getting the situation resolved pretty quickly that way. Too bad — it shouldn’t have to be that way. Thanks for sharing your experience with it.
jUST TEST DROVE A HYUNDAI IN MUNCIE IN….GOT GIFT CARD VIA EMAIL WITHIN HOURS…GREAT EXPERIENCE…NO PRESSURE
Just this week I went to a Hyundai dealership, told them I was just turning in a form their website mentioned and got the email confirming completion of the requirements within an hour. You need to confirm that the dealer is taking part in it. Not all dealers do.
absolutely not worth the hassle unless youre unemployed
I would imagine doing this would take less than an hour. Even if you are employed, doing test drive for volvo would net you $50. Thats $50 an hour. So unless you make over $104k a year, it is absolutely worth it
How would you like to double your money Jake?
Blog and post your test drive showing it takes under an hour to go in and out and I’ll pay your another $50. A few stipulations. You have to go through the whole process without rushing or walking out on the person helping you. You can be stern and straightforward as much as you want, but you can’t be an ass and rush or walk out on them. No editing the video to prove time length.
I’ll be waiting for your sub one hour video and looking forward to paying you $50.
Joe, many dealers indeed don’t require you to test drive. In fact, just this week I redeemed two “test drive offers” for Visa gift cards and didn’t even need to sit down with a salesperson. I was just blunt and let them know that I’m not interested in purchasing a vehicle, but instead strictly looking to receive the gift card their website mentioned for test driving. Really is pretty simple