Safeway versus Giant: Value, Scale, and Timing

As so often happens in the grocery store rewards game, when it rains it pours, with both Safeway and Giant currently offering big bonuses on the purchase of “Happy” brand gift cards. This family of gift cards can be loaded with up to $500, and each sub-brand can only be used at specific merchants, where they are processed as credit cards. They can be easy or difficult to turn into more universally accepted prepaid debit cards depending on the merchants you have convenient.

Safeway versus Giant: Value

Through April 10, 2021, the purchase of Happy gift cards at Safeway will earn 8 Just4U points, while their purchase at Giant/Stop&Shop/Martin’s stores will earn 8 Flexible Rewards points. As the name suggests, Flexible Rewards points are more flexible than Just4U points, since they can be redeemed down to the penny for almost anything in the store. If you’re able to redeem them at scale, however, Just4U points are somewhat more valuable: if you can redeem your entire balance of Just4U Rewards for their maximum value you can get over 1.3 cents per point, or a 10.56% rebate on the purchase of Happy gift cards (plus any credit card rewards earned on the purchase), and you can take advantage of the Just4U double dip to even redeem some of them against otherwise-forbidden goods like liquid dairy products.

In other words, if you have equally convenient access to both stores, and can maximize the value of your points in either program, you should treat 8 Just4U points as “somewhat” more valuable than the same number of Flexible Rewards points.

Safeway versus Giant: Scale

If you don’t have the time or inclination to maximize the value of Just4U points, then Flexible Rewards are clearly superior. Capped monthly rewards redemptions and quick expiration make it pointless to earn more than a few thousand Just4U points. You could easily maximize the value of the entire Safeway promotion in a single trip and just one or two Happy gift cards. Exploiting the higher value of Just4U points requires a disproportionate level of planning, networking and attention to detail, while maximizing the value of Flexible Rewards points requires nothing more than doing your shopping as usual, scanning your card, and walking out with free groceries.

Safeway versus Giant: Timing

The two factors above should do 100% of the work for 90% of listeners. Do you have access to both Safeway and Giant stores? If not, your decision has been made for you. Are you a detail-oriented control freak or do you just want to score some free groceries? If the former, Safeway’s your store; if the latter, Giant’s for you.

There’s one final consideration I want to put out for the remaining 10%: even if you are comfortable maximizing the value of Just4U points, you may want to consider hitting Giant first, and waiting until May 1 to take advantage of Safeway’s offer.

That’s for two reasons. First, Giant’s offer ends earlier, on Thursday, April 29, while Safeway’s runs through May 10, 2021 (as long as you add the offer to your Just4U accounts while it’s still available in the app and online).

The second reason is more pedantic: Just4U points expire at the end of the month in which they’re earned. That means points earned between now and April 30 will expire at the end of May, while points earned between May 1 and May 10 will expire at the end of June (for the clipping of rewards that will themselves expire at the end of July). Especially if you’re already exhausted your April redemption opportunities, waiting until May 1 to begin refilling your Just4U balance will give you a lot more time to ultimately redeem your points.

Conclusion

Obviously if you don’t drive much or spend much on groceries there’s not necessarily any reason to try to maximize both of these promotions, and it’s perfectly reasonable to keep life simple by focusing on just one (or neither). But these are at least some of the factors you should consider when weighing grocery store bonus rewards against one another.