OMGWTFBBQ, Kroger Fuel Points Edition

[For those of you outside of Kroger land, general principles about tackling problems may still be applicable.]

We’ve talked about the strange state of Kroger Fuel points several times this year, but there are new developments that warrant yet another one of these posts. Unfortunately things aren’t great and nearly every heavy-hitter manufactured spender that was utilizing fuel points in their strategies has had accounts irrevocably locked and lost at least a little money as a result. The updates:

• Kroger now seems to have a dedicated team seeking fuel points abuse
• Kroger is reaching out to some heavy hitters by email, asking them to explain the account
• Accounts are being locked in near real time while loading, and it seems to be triggered by back-to-back purchases
• Kroger is finding ways to correlate accounts, apparently even by the purchasing credit card
• Kroger has shutdown an account mid-redemption

So, if you still want to play the game, you need to stay under the radar. That means:

• Get a new IP address before creating or accessing an account (some ideas here)
• Use a new incognito window when creating or accessing an account
• Use a new credit card number when buying (AU and employee cards can help)
• If you do back to back transactions, use multiple cards and Kroger accounts
• Load fuel points at a drip over several days
• Redeem fuel points back-to-back, as quickly as possible if outside of your own geography, or as a slow drip if within your own geography

The window is very much closing on this one, stay safe!

The Kroger fuel points marketplace.