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For years, people with Visa business cards could enroll in a program called Visa SavingsEdge. This program provided card-linked offers that gave statement credits for certain retailers, services, travel companies, etc. For example, you could earn 2% when filling up at Chevron, 4% on Wyndham and MGM Resorts bookings, 5% on Mailchimp subscription payments, etc.
A few weeks ago Visa SavingsEdge announced that the program as it existed would end on May 31, with a revamped program being launched at the beginning of June. As part of that change, Visa SavingsEdge members would need to re-register and re-link their Visa business cards. I did that yesterday and I’m not convinced it was worth the minute it took to do that.
The new Visa SavingsEdge program has four features – online cashback, in-store cashback, travel cashback and instant coupons.
Online Cashback
This feature is a shopping portal. I’m not sure if Cashback Monitor plans to incorporate it in the portals they track, but as things stand it won’t be a huge loss if they don’t. For all the retailers I checked, the cashback rates weren’t competitive versus what’s available elsewhere.
In-Store Cashback
This is a continuation of the program’s previous card-linked offers, but with a different lineup of eligible retailers. There are three sub-categories – retail, fuel and dining.
Retail options seem to be limited at the moment. The default zip code only displays 4% cashback at Petco right now, with zero options showing in other zip codes I checked.
Fuel options could be useful as several gas station chains including Loaf ‘N Jug, Kwik Shop and Turkey Hill are available, along with others – all at 2% cashback. That’s not a huge return, but it’ll stack with the 8x earned if paying with a Wyndham Rewards Earner Business card.
Dining options appear to be run by Rewards Network which administers the dining programs for airlines, hotel programs, Bilt and more. That means that if you enroll your card with Visa SavingsEdge, it’ll presumably unenroll you with those other programs.
You’ll earn 5% cashback when dining at participating restaurants which may or may not be better than the other program(s) your cards are enrolled in.
From what I can tell, all three of these in-store cashback categories suffer from a very limiting feature. It looks like when you enter your zip code it searches that zip code for eligible offers and that zip code only. With normal Rewards Network-run sites like MileagePlus Dining, if you enter your zip code the first results will be restaurants based there, but then it’ll show other dining options within x miles. Visa SavingsEdge doesn’t do that, so you’d need to enter every zip code near you to fin nearby offers which is likely more hassle than it’s worth.
Travel Cashback
Visa SavingsEdge is advertising “up to 35% cashback” on travel booked through their portal which, currently, only covers hotels and car rentals. As would be expected, “up to 35% cashback” means that you’ll likely earn cashback rates lower than that.
I think results are powered by Priceline, with hotel prices being marginally cheaper than Priceline’s own results based on the limited searches I did, but potentially significantly more expensive than you could get elsewhere.
The way search results are presented seem like they’re intended to mislead. For example, here’s the search results for Las Vegas for the night of June 18.
For some results, you’ll see that they list prices for Hotels.com, Orbitz and Priceline, while for others they’ll only show other pricing for Priceline. That’s because for the results where they only show pricing for Priceline, the other sites have cheaper prices.
The top result above looks like it could be a great option. You’d pay $114 for a night at Harrah’s and earn $83 cashback, a net cost of $31 before adding on taxes and resort fees. That’s cheap, but a quick search on Google Travel displays options that are even cheaper, going as low as $9 or $10:
Remember that booking hotels through Visa SavingsEdge will mean you’ll be forgoing all kinds of other things like earning hotel points, elite night credits, receiving status benefits, earning cashback through a shopping portal, etc.
Instant Coupons
The final feature of the program is Instant Coupons. These are discounts available on business-related services such as advertising, office supplies, software, etc. Similar discounts often seem to be available through other business-focused services, but there might be some value to be had here if you needed to pay and/or subscribe to one of these services.
Summary
The somewhat abrupt ending of the old version of Visa SavingsEdge didn’t bode well, but I’d been mildly hopeful that they’d at least continue the old offers like Mailchimp, Wyndham, MGM Resorts, etc., while adding a few other features. Unfortunately they’ve removed all of the offers that I personally was able to make use of, replacing it with earning opportunities that aren’t going to be very lucrative.
Despite that, if you have at least one Visa business credit card it might be worth registering an account nonetheless just in case there are opportunities you and/or your business can take advantage of.
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Unfortunate DP: Did 4 separate purchases of $500 Gift of College gift cards at Cumberland Farms. The first purchase which included a few other items from the store posted the 2% back credit. (In fact, for some reason, it posted twice!) The subsequent three transactions that were exactly $505.95, while I initially received text and email confirmation that they would receive 2% cash back credit, were eventually denied as invalid and did not post.
Visa Savings Edge T&Cs state: “PIN-based purchases, purchases initiated through identification technology that substitutes for a PIN, Interlink-processed transactions, payments made for pre-paid and re-loadable cards such as certain gift cards, and similar cards; payments made for payment instruments that can readily be converted to cash (for example, travelers cheques, money orders, wire transfers, and similar products or services); or transactions that are not processed or submitted through the Visa U.S.A. Inc. payment system are not Qualifying Purchases. We reserve the right to determine in our sole discretion whether a Visa Business Card transaction is a Qualifying Purchase.”
The takeaway appears to be to not make purchases that perfectly match a typical gift card purchase amount.
This might be old news to people, but it appears that the restaurants in VisaSavingsEdge can be different than those in other Rewards Network dining programs like American and Alaskan.
I dine regularly at a local breakfast place that left American/Alaskan at the end of April and it is still in VisaSavingsEdge with a listed expiration date of 12/31. I just payed my bill and almost instantly got a text message from the program confirming the cash back so I’m fairly certain it’s not just a caching issue on their site.
Likewise, there is another place I sometimes visit that is in American/Alaskan/Bilt but not VisaSavingsEdge.
Curious if anyone knows how this works under the hood.
Aside: This posted to my Wyndham Business Earner account same day and 2 points were deducted from my Wyndham Earnings for the $1.73 cash back. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that happen before where one loses points for dining cash back… but then I don’t usually dine with visa savings edge cards.
I was mildly hopeful that the reconfigured SavingsEdge would be better than the old version, which had little value.
This looks like it’s even worse.
[…] A few weeks ago Visa SavingsEdge announced that the program as it existed would end on May 31, with a revamped program being launched at the beginning of June. As part of that change, Visa SavingsEdge members would need to re-register and re-link their Visa business cards. ➡️ Read more […]
2% isn’t amazing, but it’s nice that Cumberland Farms is included among the fuel options for those who need some Gift of College gift cards – like you said, it’s a nice stack with the Wyndham Business card.
Ooh, interesting that Cumberland Farms is included in your area.
The valid locations map for Cumberland Farms shows Cumberland Farms’ entire footprint (mid/south eastern FL and New England). My guess is all Cumberland Farms locations are included for everyone; it may just not show up for you on the web site unless you access the site from somewhere near Cumberland Farms’ footprint.