(Hat Tip to Manhar for the email)
Good evening everyone. Earlier today, I read Doctor of Credit’s post about Sam’s Club: Gift Cards Gone AWOL, Credits Posting & More. It seems like Sam’s Club is having some difficulties handling their AMEX Offer. Then a few minutes ago, I received an email alerting me to changes in the gift card shopping experience. It looks like Sam’s Club is now adding shipping costs to orders of Sam’s Club Gift Cards. That ain’t right!
After adding a $50 Sam’s Club Gift Card to my shopping cart, I entered my zipcode for Northern California and the estimated shipping was $6.06. Previously, all gift card shipments were free.
After logging into my Sam’s Club account, I went back to the shopping cart to see if the shipping option was the same. I actually thought the shipping would go back to free, since I am a Sam’s Club member, but to my surprise, the shipping estimate actually went up to $7.69.
I played around with a few different zipcode to see what I could find out. I entered Honolulu (96803) and the shipping estimate was $28.37. Crazy!
I then entered the zipcode for Anchorage (99501) and the shipping estimate was $65.01. It costs more to ship the gift card than the value loaded onto the gift card!
I looked up the Anchorage City Hall address and entered that as the shipping address. I was given 3 different shipping options ranging from $53.83 to $93.31.
I proceeded to the last page to see if the total would change, but it stayed the same. I *decided not to* place the gift card order. Sorry friends up north, there is no $50 Sam’s Club gift card coming your way.
What does this all mean? Clearly Sam’s Club has some issues with their shopping cart and shipping estimations. Is this limited to only gift cards? I have no idea. Is this a temporary issue? Hopefully. Will it be fixed soon? Maybe. Is this funny? Absolutely. Stay tuned folks, we will see what happens next. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great weekend everyone!
2 weeks ago I ordered 9 -$20 SAMs gift cards. I just got them all in separate fedex packages – 9 of them! Why in the world are they shipping low value gift card using such a costly secured delivery method? Doubt they’ll use Amex offers again!
Have you activated them?
It makes no sense. Sam’s Club might have gotten burned in the past shipping gift cards without tracking numbers.
They might use Amex Offers again, but they’ll be smart enough to do it just for purchasing a membership (if they can – hard when offers are typically just for any purchase).
Grant,
I’ve been on their site trying to find items for $20 or $40. Sure they have some products where there is shipping included but it’s akin to finding a paper clip for $20. Haven’t had any luck trying to find any product to buy at a semi-reasonable price. With gift card shipping fees, etc SC is trying to kill this deal, they obviously think the company made a mistake. If they want to steer people away from buying gift cards, fine, but where are the other options price wise? Wonder what Amex thinks about these obfuscatory tactics.
I haven’t looked at any non-gift card items, so I can’t recommend any good deals. Just find something you can use, even if it is a little more expensive than other retailers.
Sam’s Club had a good deal on Groupon for a Sam’s Club membership. I’m not sure if Amex Offers can be restricted to certain items.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Any idea if email delivery of 3rd party gift cards trigger the Amex offer?
Yes, it should. I bought Darden eGift Cards and it triggered the statement credit.
According to Dealswelike, egift card is only available to members?
That might be true. Do you have any interest in becoming a member? I’m not sure it is worth it.
What about to take these Sam Club gift cards into Wal-Mart and upgrade my gift cards to better gift cards with no problems :)
Good job! What gift cards did you get?
Chipotle
Yay! Enjoy your burrito and guacamole!
It looks like restaurant/store gift cards are still free shipping. I bought a $50 gift card to a restaurant I will be eating at anyway that was already discounted for $39.98. It gave me free standard shipping. Plus, I’ve already received (almost instantly) an email from Amex congratulating me on using the offer.
Sounds like the egift cards are still working well. Thanks for the update.
I placed 2 orders IHOP & Starbucks $30 Multi-Packs using two AMEX card accounts. Final cost will be $18 after the credit. No shipping charges on these cards.
Thanks for the data point Kalboz. Did you order recently or last week?
Ordered last Friday and already got confirmation from both AMEX (for using the $20) and Sam’s (for the order). Now, will have to do the wife’s cards :)
The emails arrive quickly, the gift cards do not.
I got an email yesterday (Monday) that they were shipped. Will let you know when they arrive.
Thank you. They take a while to get from Arkansas to California.
Just received the GCs yesterday (Friday). So it took a week from ordering to receiving them.
I received my second order yesterday. My third order was supposed to be delivered by UPS yesterday but never made it. So slow!
Gotta say I’m not real impressed with samsclub. I ordered a pile of $20 and $40 samclub GC to use at the local wally-mart. I’ve received all the cards and gotten all my AMEX credits for them, but I’m still waiting on the activation codes to be emailed from samsclub. Hopefully they’ll show up eventually. I guess I’m not any real money regardless….
That sounds frustrating. I hope your activation codes arrive soon. Have you tried to use the cards before they were activated?
Yep, tried a couple at walmart over the weekend. No go without the activation code emails….
Opposite for me. Got a card for $40. No activation code sent. Not a SC member either. I just did the guest checkout 24 hour deal on the site. Went to WM yesterday and was able to buy items at self checkout. Card was debited and now has a balance of $19. So it worked for me. I’m in California, San Diego.
Thank you for the datapoint. Maybe your card was activated without receiving the email activation.
Bummer, that sucks. I hope they arrive soon.
When you placed your order they should have given you an activation email separate from your order confirmation email. The header says “your SAMs club gift cards have shipped” and it includes a link to activate the card.
The STUPID thing though is that the link didn’t work for me. They also didn’t inciude an activation code. And when I logged into my account to try and activate it doesn’t work either. I called the 1-800 # and they weren’t able to do anything. So basically it’s the worst gift card activation system ever created. And I bought 11 cards.
SAMs club needs to fix their issues w the gc activations. It’s also kinda cheap of them to raise GC minimum and adding shipping costs , some as grant pointed are outrageous. Oh well my one and only time to shop at SAMs club if I can get the gc working!
Otherwise Costco FTW! (Cept Costco just dropped amex :(.
I can’t prove this, but I think if you ordered a Sam’s Club gift card early on, they shipped as activated. The last 3 orders all had the activation email link, but I haven’t received those GCs yet. It is a terrible and confusing system.
Very funny :-) I guess that’s a reminder to always check your shipping costs to ensure they aren’t something outrageous!
Very true. I always look at the total cost when I shop online.
Latest Sam’s Club gift card arrived today by USPS with tracking. The first came via UPS. SAVE the activation email you’ll receive. Takes less than an hour once you click to activate to make the card ready for shopping.
Thank you Nic. I ordered a $50 Sam’s Club GC and it looks like it is being shipped via UPS. The smaller GCs are shipped via FedEx/USPS.
So did you pay shipping fee for this $50 card?
No. I bought everything before Sam’s Club started charging shipping on GCs.
Grant, something interesting. I had a $42.58 GC from a restaurant in my cart. No shipping charge, great. Then for fun, I put the $50 SC GC in there and the shipping charge was an odd 58 cents for the SC GC. Took the restaurant GC out of the cart and the shipping charge shot up to $6.95 for the SC GC. So this is in line with what you wrote. Pretty f’ed up.
It is really messed up. Thank you for sharing, Kent.
Grant,
Don’t know if you still were looking for Sam’s Club gift cards to burn some Amex offers, but the $50 Sam’s club gift cards are now shipping for free. And even odder, they have three shipping options — standard, premium, and express all which are free too! Now they went on the other extreme. Sam’s is so confused and can’t get anything right … haha.
Also one other tidbit. I had purchased a bunch of $20 gift cards the first go around on a few of my Amex cards. I went to Sam’s and customer service helped me consolidate them all onto one card, so it’s easier to keep track of, etc.
Good morning Alex, thank you for the update. I heard the Sam’s Club GCs were back to free shipping. The people who run the online store are totally confusing everyone. I’m glad to hear you could consolidate all the GCs into one GC. I only have 4, so I think I can manage without combining them.
Bought Sam’s club GC but can’t activate the card using the email link they sent to me for the last two weeks and they are still working one it. Any idea what they are doing with it?
Just keep calling Sam’s Club. Eventually someone will activate your gift cards. The process is broken, but that’s what you have to do.