Kroger isn’t the only company newly allowing customers in certain regions to redeem fuel points for savings on groceries. Hy-Vee is now allowing customers in Wisconsin to do something similar with their Perks with a feature called Fuel Saver Cash Conversion.
As a quick recap, when shopping at Hy-Vee you earn Perks which can be redeemed for savings on gas. They also sometimes run gift card deals that offer increased earnings, such as 30c off per gallon for every $50 you spend on eligible gift cards, with a limit of 20 gallons.
If you can maximize those fuel redemptions that can provide very good value, but most people only need to fill up with so much gas – if any at all. This ability to now redeem Perks for grocery savings is therefore a nice alternative to have, although there are a few important things to be aware of.
First, as mentioned earlier this opportunity appears to only be available for those based in Wisconsin right now. I’m not entirely sure why only Wisconsin is eligible, but I’m guessing it’s because Hy-Vee doesn’t have as many – if any – fuel partnerships there for their customers to redeem their points at.
Another key thing to be aware of is that the redemption rate isn’t particularly great. Every 1 cent of fuel savings is worth 10c when converted to Hy-Vee Cash. Using the example above of a gift card deal where you earn 30c off per gallon for every $50 you spend, it means you’d earn $3 Hy-Vee Cash for every $50 you spend on gift cards, so a 6% return. That’s versus the potential for up to $6 savings on gas (so a potential 12% return). However, it’s better than nothing at all, especially if higher value brands like Best Buy and Amazon return to past high resale rates in the future.
Only those with a preferred store set in Wisconsin are able to convert Perks to Hy-Vee Cash. Before those based in other states get any ideas to set their store to Wisconsin but redeem the Hy-Vee Cash in their own state, the FAQs of this feature state that you can also only redeem Hy-Vee Cash at stores in Wisconsin. Whether that’s been coded correctly is another matter though. If you were wanting to test this out, I’d do it on an account with very few points in case it does work as stated and you end up unable to redeem the Hy-Vee Cash.
This is a positive development for those based in Wisconsin. It would be nice if it got rolled out to all Hy-Vee customers at some point in the future, but there’s nothing indicating that’ll happen in the near future.
Many thanks to Andie for all of the details about this.