Using Fluz as intended: don't sleep on expiring "boosts"
/Over the years I’ve occasionally mentioned on the blog, and described extensively in Subscriber-only Newsletters, Fluz, the third-party gift card merchant. As a reminder, the publicly-available version of the site sells gift cards at hundreds of merchants and offers a rebate in the form of rewards that can be redeemed for additional gift cards or withdrawn as cash, once certain thresholds are met.
A quirk of the site when used as intended are “boosts,” which can be used to receive an increased rebate on a single gift card purchase, typically 25% on the first $10 in value. A few weeks ago heavy users of the site realized they had somehow accumulated dozens of these boosts, which are expiring May 5. I checked and had 20 in my own account.
If you can find boost-eligible gift cards to stores you typically pay cash at, this is a no-brainer. Apple gift cards, for example, can be purchased in $10 denominations and loaded into your Apple account for purchases across the Apple ecosystem. Perhaps needless to say, it is difficult to find 25% discounts on brand new Apple equipment.
Unfortunately many merchants have minimum values above $10, which correspondingly reduces your total savings. Here are a few other obvious options for merchants where you might already be spending cash:
Grubhub ($10 minimum)
CVS ($10)
Ace Hardware ($10)
Target ($10)
Starbucks ($10)
Walmart ($10)
REI ($10)
Ebay ($10)
Uber/Uber Eats ($15)
Lyft ($25)
Amazon ($30)
Note that some merchants, like Apple, allow you to load multiple gift cards into a single account balance, while other merchants, like Ebay, save individual gift cards and limit the number that can be used in a single transaction. Before loading up on gift cards to a single merchant, make sure you know which model that merchant uses.
