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Regional grocery chain Giant Eagle is offering a great one day deal on gift cards.
The Offer
Earn $.25 in Fuel Perks for every $50 you spend on all retailer gift cards.
Key Terms
- Good one day only, 8/5/2016.
- All cards included except prepaid GPR cards and GE gift cards, telecom.
- Visa and Mastercard gift cards are included.
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Fuel points works by awarding points for spending at Kroger. Then the customer can redeem points for a $ amount off each gallon of gas.
Has anyone bought Visa GCs that can confirm they earn fuel points? On Giant Eagle’s Facebook page, their rep states several times that Visa GCs are NOT included. Thanks Greg and Sean for sharing this!
Also saw someone trying to buy GE gift cards thinking they’d get perks on those. At least they asked the cashier first, or they would have been very disappointed after they bought them that they didn’t get any perks. There are some other gift cards that aren’t receiving perks either. You should see the perks on the screen facing the customer during the ring up. GE’s response on their FB page is that there are not extra perks on all gcs, but only most of them.
Those upset about this shouldn’t blame Shawn. I asked him to publish it.
There are no concrete right or wrong rules about what is OK to publish and what isn’t. I long ago decided that any deals that are publicly advertised are fair game for this blog. I understand that some don’t agree with this approach, but I’ve held to it consistently for years: https://frequentmiler.com/2014/01/13/blogging-the-line/
There’s a reason they’re doing it as a one day discrete advertisement now rather than their typical way for years. I get your thought process, but this was very much so lightly advertised for a reason. They only notified their “e-customers” 1/2 day in advance and didn’t have any physical advertisement until stores opened today.
Bob, I’ve tried to explain to Greg and Shawn, but you said it in a better way and I hope they’ll clearly understand the problem.
This afternoon, found out some stores removed 200 VGCs. Wow. The one store I know already had problems from the last big promotion which lasted a week, because it had heavy ms’rs who didn’t use wisdom, so they actually removed the 200s months ago. Thanks a lot. This used to never happen when it was just the true GE regular customers who were on the marketing lists instead of those not even within the store’s location area. I’m going to suggest to some folks I know at GE that they filter email subscriptions to those who live in the area and block those who just want on their marketing list so they can have material for their blogs, which are intended for national. This has gotten out of hand.
I cant agree more…..this deal has been going on for years, but I am starting to see it dwindle. GE used to run these promos for 2 weeks at least once a quarter and now its been so much more sparse. I take advantage of this heavily for my own use, but there are non-local people that come in and abuse this BAD. I know several first hand…..especially as other fuel programs have been dwindling.
He may have censored my comment even though I used no profanity nor called anyone names. So here’s another, yet gentler version. I expressed my disappointment in this blog for publicizing a very localized fuel deal that can only handle the number of participants it receives from the store’s own local advertising. Friends of mine on staff at that chain told me that they won’t do another deal they used to do, better than this one, because they said “outside blogs” brought in the wrong people (not regular customers) and that caused problems. They’ll never have that promo again. They had no problems with it in the past and only made changes once it hit the national blogs. Some local sales need to remain local, otherwise problems occur and then no more deal.
Sorry, no censoring ocurred, finally saw my other comment. Connection issues.
Wahhh
I’m a GE local, which promo are you talking about that will never see the light of day again? The $10 coupons? I hit that one pretty hard.
That and others are gone forever because blogs, not in local region, blasted it. GE staff told me to blame blogs for bringing in non-locals. They only want locals because they’re the ones who shop. FM used to care about keeping a lid on the small localized ones, Shawn doesn’t seem to understand. He gets paid by FM per post, so I understand the incentive. It makes this blog look bad to a lot of people because they directly had a negative effect on what locals used to enjoy. But, they won’t believe us and they’ll just make excuses. I spoke the truth based on what I was told by employees and blogs like this one can take it to heart or ignore it.
BTW, at the time of this writing, FM is the only blog with this post, so they can’t say “well all the other blogs are talking about it”. Maybe Greg is on vacation.
Even DOC has stayed away from this. He was kind enough to remove past GE details when he realized the locals were not happy about it going out beyond the region via outside blogs. He wanted to protect fragile deals. Unfortunately, by the time he acted the damage had been done and that particular deal, which would come around every so often, will never see the light of day again. Bloggers do have a responsibility to be careful about certain localized deals that can’t handle too many. Maybe Shawn just didn’t realize. But, if he’s reading any of this he knows now and should take action. That company has been getting tighter and tighter about these type deals because of problems related to non-local people. No wonder this one is only one day.
Edit: I see Greg posted a comment at around the same time as me.
For the record Greg and I both agreed that this was a good deal before publishing and he is aware of not only the deal but your comments. This is a widely advertised deal including on the company’s social media.
Thanks for your comments! Have a great day.
So what was the deal that they killed that you keep speaking of? Happy to share thoughts with another local on this and future deals.
Chris, why would I reveal anything on here about any deal anymore? Even a defunct deal that a company won’t offer anymore because of the attention it got from blogs like this shouldn’t be discussed in detail. Blogs like this bring certain unwanted people into local stores that can have a negative impact. I’m not talking about honest ms’rs, but there are certain people without moral codes who read ms blogs to take advantage in more ways than you and I. And, there are some ms’rs who go WAY beyond hitting a deal hard and those kind aren’t always in a certain area or normal shoppers. Unfortunately, GE became sensitive to certain types and blamed “outside” publicity for bringing those unwanted elements into their stores. But, some bloggers won’t take responsibility. They don’t live in the area that these stores are and don’t understand the direct impact and simply don’t believe they are contributing to the problem. Less discussed now the better. Damage is done.
What a bunch of whiners. This is a one day deal that will not die an untimely death. It is a one day “flash sale”. It is on GE’s Facebook page.
Shaun – thank you for posting!
Unfortunately, not all the readers of this and other ms blogs are as tactful or as legal in their approach to these localized promotions and have caused problems. This store has clamped down at registers so hopefully they won’t experience as many issues as in the past when deals would get publicized on these type blogs. FYI, your cc will be matched to your photo id or they won’t allow certain gc sales.
Absolutely, the worst post ever by Shawn. Remember this folks, he should be permanently on your do not reveal list. At this point, he’s considered one of the worst offenders at over publicizing small local deals which can only handle those who already know about it. GE already nixed one of their better promos from ever seeing the light of day because they got people coming in from outside the area. I know this because friends who work there told me how it got ruined. They blamed the “outside” blogs. They deem any blogger not in the GE local vicinity as an outside blog and they didn’t appreciate that type of publicity. I respectfully ask this be removed. If FM is around I would expect he might do something. He used to be better about this type of thing. And, ATM above is unwise to reveal the math. Let people figure out things on their own. If they can’t then they shouldn’t be ms’ing at levels they don’t understand.
Thanks, Shawn.
I’ve been out of town on business, working 14 hour days, so haven’t looked at any deals. I’ll get a card tomorrow and gas up my car for the drive to FTU Advanced.
Can’t wait to retire in 6 weeks and have time to get back into deals!!
Cool bullfrog. Love back.
Shawn, seriously dude – not cool.
3 things – 1 – thank you very much for posting this as I hadn’t heard about it; 2 – when I post things like this on FT and the like I always get boatloads of hate aimed at me for “revealing this.” I’m sure you know that already, but just saying; 3 – I’m a local and specifically checked the weekly mailer yesterday because I was expecting a sale soon and didn’t see anything, where did this come from (sorry for the very blatant ask of your source)?
Don’t post this on FT or anywhere else. In fact, posting this on this widely read blog is a mistake, in my opinion (despite Shawn’s best intentions)
I learned my lesson and typically only share with friends and family.
Bullfrog you should reach out to the people flaming you for posting it instead of getting defensive. Odds are they could help you a bit. (Said friendly, not sarcasm)
I don’t believe that I ever got defensive. I probably exaggerated my original post here. I did it 1 time (when I was “young” in the world of MS. I had literally 6 people PM me telling me to remove it and they explained why. I did remove it and haven’t posted the deal since. And yes, I have from time to time reached out to them. That’s really all I was trying to convey to Shawn, though I guess it must have come out more defensively than I meant it to. Really, nothing but love.
BTW, if you’re wondering if this is official or not, Giant Eagle’s facebook page confirms this: https://www.facebook.com/gianteagleinc/
Why?!?!?
Because it’s a great deal! Buying a $200 VGC for $6.95 fee yields $1.00 x 35 gallons of gas = $35. Moderately scalable; gas points expire 3 months after they are earned.
Those of us who are five figures a year on it don’t like seeing it in public. That’s why.
You only can get 30Ga/fill. Still a great deal. Will hit his hard.