Monday Fuel Points Hangover

Kroger has been running a 4x fuel points promotion on Happy branded gift cards since about a week and a half ago, and mid-last week a promotion for 2x fuel points on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays showed up too. To everyone’s surprise:

• The 4x and 2x coupons stacked to earn a total of 5x on Happy gift cards
• Variable Visa and Mastercard gift cards earned 1x
• Money order purchases earned 1x

The 2x coupons aren’t new, they show up every couple of months and have standard language that excludes earning on gift cards and money orders (amongst other things). Typically that language is enforced, but obviously not always. There’s another piece of good news too: the current 2x coupon is running through January 30. That means you’ve probably got another Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for shenanigans assuming no one fixes it.

Lessons learned:

• Always clip all coupons related to grocery points
• Always enter your rewards ID at checkout even if you wouldn’t normally earn points
• Pay close attention to the rewards earned on your receipt to spot anomalies

Finally, remember that this sort of thing isn’t just a Kroger phenomenon; it happens at other chains too (and there are gems to be found out there right now).