Kroger has recently made an update to their systems which now allows you to pay for gas at Kroger fuel centers (and those of its affiliate stores like Ralphs, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, etc.) using Kroger eGift cards.
When buying a Kroger eGift card from AARP Rewards, Roman reports the following language in the new terms:
At checkout, one (or more) gift card(s) may be applied to the balance owed first and if there is a remaining balance, customer will be asked to provide a secondary payment option to pay the remainder. To redeem for fuel, please prepay at the fuel kiosk, egift cards cannot be redeemed using the fuel pump reader. Kroger gift cards may also be used for payment at Kroger Pickup and Kroger Delivery services. Cards cannot be redeemed towards Kroger Ship orders or Fred Meyer Jewelers and Littman Jewelers stores.
The terms of their gift card usage on Kroger’s own website also now state:
When making a purchase, customers present the gift card to the cashier, or insert the Kroger Family of Companies plastic gift card into the fuel pump reader (Kroger Family of Companies egift cards cannot be redeemed using the fuel pump reader). The gift card balance remaining will print on sales receipt.
As you can see in both sets of terms, you can now redeem Kroger eGift cards for fuel purchases, but not at the pump – only at a kiosk with a cashier.
kroger gift cards not excluded from 4x?
4x promo terms: “Excludes the Kroger Family of Companies Gift Cards, Amazon gift cards, and some restrictions apply. See store for details.”
Not sure about your flat conclusion we’ll only to be able to use gc at kiosk…
“… or insert the Kroger Family of Companies plastic gift card into the fuel pump reader ”
How do you get only at the kiosk from the word “OR”…?
I find someintriguing possibilities herein…
Oh, I see the distinction now — the Kroger e-gift cards can only be used via the kiosk. (the plastic versions can be used at the pump….. THAT has utility.
I have never actually succeeded in using a plastic gift card at the pump, despite trying to do so at multiple Kroger-banner stations in about a dozen different states. So even with plastic cards, I’ve always had to prepay the attendant. What’s new here is that eGCs could not be used at all at the gas station until recently — they had to be converted to plastic in the store (which some customer service desks were willing to do and others were not).
Went to my local Kroger-owned gas station today and verified that this actually works. Cashier was able to scan the gift cards off my phone by following the instructions that came with the card. The only hiccup was that, following the instructions provided, he was not able to specify how much to take from each card (I was splitting tender between several cards). But (assuming this was not actually due to the cashier’s incompetence) this will only matter in California and a few other states where one may wish to leave a small balance on each card and then cash it out.
Currently on a cross-country roadtrip, so was able to get additional DPs. EGC worked at Smiths in NV and UT, City Market in western CO, and Baker’s in NE, but did NOT work at King Soopers in eastern CO. According to the cashier, this was a known issue.
Additional DPs: works at Ralphs in So. Cal. but does not work at Mariano’s in Chicagoland. It looks like the POS update rollout did not occur in all Kroger sales regions.
Customer Service desk at Mariano’s converted one ecard to a plastic one for me so that I could pay for gas, but only after I made a fuss and walked them through the process.