My favorite Just4U gift card promotion is back

The only grocery store loyalty scheme I pay any attention to is the Safeway/Albertsons/etc. Just4U program, which periodically offers bonus points on the purchase of gift cards. When the bonus is high enough, it can be worthwhile to buy gift cards and resell them at a loss, making back more than the difference in value in Just4U points.

Through October 12, Just4U is running my favorite version of the promotion: 10 points per dollar spent on “Online Exchange” gift cards. These cards are actually just codes you enter online to redeem the value on the card for virtual gift cards at a variety of merchants. If you’re reselling the gift card, be sure the reseller you use accepts virtual gift card codes, since you won’t get a physical gift card to mail in.

Is it worth it?

Keep in mind, this manufactured spend technique is quite expensive: if you redeem an Online Exchange card for a Lowe’s gift card, for example, and sell it to CardCash for $402.50, you’re out $98.50. That’s either a lot of money or a little money, depending on what you get for it.

During the current promotion, a $500 Online Exchange card would earn 5,000 Just4U points. In order to break even, you need to value those 5,000 points at 1.97 cents each: if you valued 5,000 Just4U points at exactly $98.50, then this would be a way to manufacture “free” spend, since you’ll earn (hopefully bonused) credit card rewards on the purchase as well.

Another way of looking at it is in terms of revealed preferences. I happily manufacture spend at grocery stores year-round at a cost of 1.4%, so I don’t need to make back the entire $500 in order to get the same value I’m already happy getting; I’ll break even valuing Just4U points at just 1.8 cents each.

Check for a stack on Saturday

For many months Just4U has offered bonus points on gift card purchases almost every weekend. They don’t award those points for prepaid debit card purchases, but the promotion does stack with their other brand-specific gift cards, and should stack with Online Exchange. That means this deal could be even sweeter on Saturday, October 12, the last day of the Online Exchange promotion. I don’t see any reason not to wait until then, unless you’re worried about folks cleaning out the shelves in your area while you wait.