Walmart.com AMEX Offer: 33% off Starbucks and Subway Gift Cards (20-25% off other Gift Cards)
(Hat tip to Mark at the Travel Blawg for reminding me to take advantage of this offer)
This offer has been around a while, I mentioned it on September 19 (link), but didn’t plan on taking advantage of the offer until Mark sent me a message. I looked into the offer (spend $15+ and get $5 statement credit) and it seemed like a good deal.
Here are all the $15 gift cards and egift cards that Walmart sells online. I am a big fan of Subway and Starbucks, so I bought a few of those today ($5 off $15 = 33% discount).
They have 3 $20 gift cards and several $25 gift cards and egift cards available ($5 off $20 = 25% discount and $5 off $25 = 20% discount).
Before I made my purchase, I checked on Cash Back Monitor to see which portal offered the best payout. Since I have a Discover It Credit Card, I used the Shop Discover portal. I will report back on whether the portal cash back posted for my purchases.
After placing my order, I received a confirmation email from Walmart.
Shortly after that, I received the following email and an alert on my iPhone that I had qualified for an AMEX Offer.
A few minutes after that, I received the Starbucks egift card link in my email.
Clicking the link takes you to Walmart’s Digital Delivery Center. Enter your email address and click View eGift Card.
Then click the Print button to view your Starbucks eGift Card.
Copy the Starbucks gift card code and security code and add the Starbucks card to your Starbucks account.
Then merge the Starbucks eGift Card balance with your main Starbucks gift card.
I wish it were that simple to repeat the above steps multiple times and purchase multiple gift cards. Unfortunately, when I placed 5 separate $15 orders on Walmart.com in the span of 10 minutes with 5 different American Express credit cards, I started receiving a few order cancellation emails. Apparently, my payment information could not be verified or something.
After calling Walmart (1-800-925-6278, then press 2, then 1, then 3 to get a representative), I learned that the Walmart system flagged my account. Apparently making several small purchases with different credit cards triggers an alert on your account. After speaking with a nice and very helpful representative, she told me she would un-flag my account and that I would be good to try again after 45 minutes. After getting back from lunch, I tried again and both of the canceled ordered went through as promised. Moral of the story, go slow when making several small purchases on Walmart.com, preferably spacing them out by hours/days.
In other news, here are some other AMEX Offers that showed up in my American Express account today. Honestly, I have never heard of any of these companies, but there might be a diamond in the rough for someone…
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
You can maximize the savings by purchasing $15 Walmart egift cards and combining them. then purchasing those $20 and $25 gift cards from your larger combined card. I combined all 10 of mine into a $150 physical walmart gift card that I am going to use to pay for part of a $500 VGC tomorrow (hopefully)
Good luck, hopefully all goes well with your Visa GC purchase!
Whoa… that works? I’m very curious to know if that works with a VGC, or any CG for that matter.
I bet it will. Give it a shot!
@seth – Did the egift cards trigger the $5 back from Amex?
I learned not to wait until the last day to purchase cards from Walmart (I have several Amex accounts). I already started ordering the gift cards now, about 2 a day, 12 hours apart so I don’t have to deal with cancelled orders. So far, so good.
That is a good strategy, Karen! Much easier to play it slow than deal with Walmart’s customer service.
Yeah. All of the credits posted in like a day.
The Discover portal says it’s not valid on gift cards and you have to use your Discover card
That’s true, but I have had luck in the past using other credit cards to buy gift cards. What the TOC say is not always enforced.
Plus, there are numerous reports online of going through the Discover shopping portal, using a non-Discover card, and still getting a pay-out.
good to know! thanks :)
What a pain. I tried to buy a gift card on walmart.com. After putting through my order I received an email a few minutes later saying my order was cancelled. After going through every automated menu known to man (including trying my usual tricks to skip these) and talking to a rep, they claimed they “called Amex to verify the charge and it was declined. You need to call them.” This took over 15 minutes.
Total bull if you ask me, since it was showing as a pending charge. Regardless I called Amex anyway and they said they approved the charge. However, they would make sure it would be cancelled and immediately offered a $5 credit for the trouble. For Walmart’s problem. The Amex call took all of 60 seconds.
Amex 1, Walmart 0.
It is crazy how difficult it is to save a few bucks. Apparently 5 $15 orders is very suspicious to them. Glad it worked out in the end for you.