It’s been several months since I’ve been in a Speedway seeing as the resale rates on Best Buy gift cards haven’t been as good recently. On our way from Montezuma Well to Cathedral Rock in Sedona yesterday we had to stop for gas and there was a Speedway along the route.
We wanted to grab some Gatorade and snacks, so we headed inside and I took a look at the gift card rack as we headed to the checkout. They had signs up for all the bonus point deals running this month, but most interestingly they now sell variable load Vanilla Visa gift cards.
Up until recently, the maximum denomination of Vanilla Visa gift cards they sold was $200. I’d heard murmurings recently of variable load Vanilla Visa gift cards now being available in Speedway gas stations, so it was great to see that was indeed the case.
I wanted to buy a $500 card for myself though to test out if it would earn 20x Speedy Rewards points like third party gift cards do. Along with the drink and snacks, the total came to $513.28. My Speedy Rewards account was subsequently credited with 10,265 points which is 20x that spend. That means both the $500 value of the gift card and the $5.95 purchase fee earned the points.
That’s ridiculously good. The value of ~10,000 points varies depending on how you redeem the points, but you can redeem 10,450 points for a $10 Speedy Cash gift card which can be used for both fuel and merchandise. Buying a $500 Vanilla Visa gift card therefore gets you a few bucks of free gas even after the purchase fee, plus you can pay with a card that earns more at gas stations to make it even better.
It’s up to you whether you want to risk clawbacks from Amex by paying with a 10x Platinum card, but the Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex cards as well as the Discover It card are offering 5% cashback at gas stations from April to June 2021. There’s also the Wyndham Rewards Business Earner card which earns 8x Wyndham points at gas stations, along with a whole host of other cards that offer bonused spend in that category.
This might be the kind of deal you hit hard before it goes away as I can’t imagine Speedway keeping this deal in its current incarnation forever (or 7-Eleven once that deal closes). I don’t think they’d necessarily stop selling variable load Vanilla Visa gift cards; the bigger likelihood is that they’d stop offering Speedy Rewards points on the purchase.
Before going hog wild on this though, be sure you have ways to liquidate the gift cards. Vanilla Visa cards have limits at Walmart for money orders, so it’d be best to test liquidation options if you’re not familiar with Vanilla Visa gift cards in case you encounter problems elsewhere with draining their value.
I have about 13 speedways in my city. I REALLY hope they start selling $500’s. That would AMAZING.
Wonder if they’re doing this to make up for the drop in BBY sales, lol.
Thanks for this. Speedways all over around here.
Have all the problems with the Wyndham Earner card been ironed out?
The Speedway CC gives 50 ppd on all Speedway spend. On top of the 20 ppd you mention. That is ~7% in free gas and with regular use, the points do not expire like Kroger. The only decent use I have ever found for this card.
Based on what Travel With Grant has mentioned before, it seems like the Wyndham Earner issues have been resolved.
how long is the 20x good for?
It is always 10x. Every month they have a promo, generally double points. Sometimes triple. You have to sign up for these. May/June can be a jackpot with $15 GCs for $100 spend on Loews, Home Depot, ebay, etc. GCs for Father’s Day and others for Mothers Day. Worth following.
I didnt see any promo regarding the 20x though.
My total was just under 500 and the register displayed I earned around 9k points.
The 20x is just the standard earnings – it’s not a promo per se. Seeing as you spent just under $500, multiplying that by 20 gets you to the ~9k points.
has anyone tried to purchase more than 1? csr wasnt sure what was going on when scanning 2nd even on a separate transaction.
Can you clarify what you mean when you said “csr wasnt sure what was going on” ?
Are you saying the CSR was making up rules and not allowing you to purchase a 2nd GC? Or was it a computer/system issue?
Where were the best places to sell BBY gift cards before they dropped in price? And how much were they re-selling for?
It was possible to sell on private markets last year for 98-100% for a fair chunk of the year.
I’ve used GCW and they offered around 92%, can you share these other markets? 🙂
Well, “technically” I still use GCM when I can…. they’re running on corona fumes since 3 of their founders are vets or current servicemen, and I know for a fact that their #1 guy is medical in the Army and has been mobilized for almost the entire pandemic, so since last April or may (I think).
But, despite their big ugly yellow banner saying “we’re temporarily closed) they’re still operating with a dramatically scaled back brand list… ones that I’m guessing they’ve already got the buyers for since it’s probably not feasible to hold on to anything in this Biz environment.
Selfishly, I keep hoping the pandemic will be declared over so that CardCash can have some decent competition again….
If you ^we’re^ an approved seller, just shoot ‘em a message. But if you weren’t, I’ve heard they’re unfortunately not taking anyone new on
P.S. Sadly, it selling only. They’ve disabled the ability the purchase cards directly through the skate for some reason
Does speedway allow split tender payments? (i.e. put $300 on first credit card and remaining ~$205.95 on second card)
They might do, but I’ve never given it a try.
Vanilla Visa’s are suppose to be excluded from receiving points according to the terms. I will try it anyway because I chose the double merchandise offer (40x) for the May perk.
I don’t think it’ll earn the additional 20x, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to try.
@Stephen Pepper – I am new to Speedway Rewards and am finding it a bit confusing. A few questions:
this calculator is accurate
https://www.thepointcalculator.com/us/transportation/speedway/speedy-rewards
Thanks – so do I need to select the button corresponding to “1000 Bonus Points Coupon” in the app?
yes whether you’re trying to redeem points or ‘claim’ additional bonus points.
So what do these 3 options really mean? Is this something I will receive after spending a certain amount of money?
For example, most points programs are very simple. You earn 5 points per dollar and so if you spend $10 you earn 50 points which can then be redeemed towards whatever. But it seems like speedway is not that straightforward?
just see what’s available to redeem or use the calculator.
You earn 20x points per dollar when buying gift cards. You can view redemption offers here https://www.speedway.com/speedy-rewards/redeem but I think you need to be logged into your Speedy Rewards account.
I’d hoped to write a guide to the Speedy Rewards program last year, but never had time to write as comprehensive a guide as I’d hoped. Marathon are in the process of selling Speedway to 7-Eleven, so I’m now wary about creating a guide only to have 7-Eleven make a ton of changes in the next few months once the sale is complete.
Ugh, selling to 7-11 is terrible as lot of 7-11’s tell me cash only for visas. Every speedway in my area lets me buy visas without any questions.
I have tried this two times now eith the variable load vanilla Visa cards that go up to $200. I did not earn points on either purchase. I even submitted the receipt through the app for the second one and it gave me an error saying I had already provided my alternate ID at the time of purchase. I read previously that vanilla Visa gift cards were excluded from earning points. Perhaps they fixed a glitch in the system that was paying out points for these. Boo. Wasted $11.90.