Reader Jay reached out the other day to share that Giant Eagle is offering some (or possibly all?) customers the option to change from their existing Fuelperks+ program to their new myPerks program.
If you live in Giant Eagle territory and buy gift cards there, this could have some interesting implications. For some people the existing Fuelperks+ setup will be best, while for others the new myPerks program will be better due to earning potential, ease of use and not having to maximize redemptions.
Here’s a guide to how the new Giant Eagle myPerks program works and how it compares to Fuelperks+.
How The Existing Giant Eagle Fuelperks+ Program Works
As a quick recap, here’s how Fuelperks+ are earned…
…and here’s how they’re redeemed:
As you can see, every 50 Perks you earn can be redeemed for 2% off a grocery shop or 10c off per gallon of fuel on up to 30 gallons. You can redeem Perks in larger increments with the redemptions rising accordingly. For example, redeeming double the Perks (i.e. 100 Perks) can earn you double the savings on groceries (4%) or gas (20c off per gallon).
Redeeming Perks for grocery savings has the potential to be very rewarding. That because rather than you getting back 2% in rewards for every 50 Perks you earn which can be redeemed for groceries, every 50 Perks you redeem takes 2% off your entire grocery shop. Using those Perks on a $20 grocery shop therefore doesn’t provide great value, but redeeming it for a $200 grocery shop is.
Let’s give a quick idea of the numbers we’re looking at. Giant Eagle offers 1x Perks on gift card purchases as standard, but often gives 2x-3x on select gift card brands each week. At the time of writing this post they’re offering 3x Perks for every $50 spent on Apple gift cards. If you bought a $100 Apple gift card you’d earn 300 Perks. Those could be redeemed for 12% off groceries, which on a $200 grocery shop works out to be savings of $24, so 24% of your original gift card spend. That’s an incredibly rewarding rate for a brand like Apple and doesn’t even take into account the bonused spend opportunity by buying those gift cards with a credit card that earns more at grocery stores.
While that means there’s the potential for some great value, if you live alone and don’t spend much on groceries or gas you’re going to be hard-pressed to redeem your Perks for good enough value to truly make the program worthwhile at times.
How Giant Eagle myPerks Works – Earning & Status Levels
The number of Perks you earn under the new myPerks program varies depending on your status level:
If you’re a regular myPerks member you’ll earn 1x on groceries and gift card purchases, 2x on gas and ‘Our Brands’ and 5x per prescription filled. If you’re a myPerks Pro member, you’ll earn 1.5x on groceries, 2x on gift cards, 3x on gas and ‘Our Brands’ and 10x per prescription filled.
How Giant Eagle myPerks Works – Redeeming
On the redemption side of things, myPerks is set up in an easier-to-understand way. Rather than redeeming every 50 Perks for 2% off groceries or 10c off per gallon of gas, they’ll be worth a flat $1.
If you don’t drive much, have a car with a small gas tank and/or don’t spend much on groceries, being able to get a fixed $1 off your grocery shop or gas purchase for every 50 Perks earned could be preferable to how you currently have to redeem Perks in the Fuelperks+ program.
Here’s how the math works out on gift card purchases outside of any kind of promotion. If you’re a regular member you’ll earn 1x Perks which means that if you spend $100 on gift cards you’ll earn 100 Perks. Those can therefore be redeemed for $2 off gas or groceries, so 2% savings based on your original gift card spend.
For myPerks Pro members, a $100 gift card purchase would earn 200 Perks based on the 2x rate. Those could be redeemed for $4 off gas or groceries and so you’d effectively be saving 4% based on your original gift card spend. While that’s not amazing, it could be a great deal on high value brands like Best Buy and Amazon seeing as you can earn that rate every day of the week even when there aren’t any bonus points on offer.
Note that Perks can’t be redeemed for gift cards – only groceries and gas.
How To Earn Giant Eagle myPerks Pro Status
Giant Eagle is currently offering myPerks Pro membership to anyone who switches from Fuelperks+ to myPerks – you can register here. This offer is valid through December 31, 2022 and it initially gives you myPerks Pro for 90 days.
myPerks Pro status is then calculated on a twice-yearly basis based on your activity during six month periods – January 1 to June 30 and July 1 to December 31. To earn or maintain myPerks Pro status, you need to have done one of the following during each six month period:
- Earned 2,500 Perks, or
- Made 25 qualifying trips to GetGo:
- Spend $5 inside GetGo, or
- Fill up with 5+ gallons
Buying gift cards can help you earn the 2,500 Perks, but there’s an important distinction regarding how many Perks from gift card spend will be eligible. The base earnings you receive from gift card purchases (i.e. 1x) do count towards myPerks Pro status, but not the bonus Perks you earn from promotions and/or from having myPerks Pro status. That means that if you wanted to earn myPerks Pro status solely by purchasing gift cards, you’d need to spend $2,500 on those within each six month period. That’s less than $420 per month which shouldn’t be too hard to do.
When Do Giant Eagle myPerks Expire?
This new myPerks program has another benefit compared to Fuelperks+. With Fuelperks+, the Perks you earn expire 60 days from the end of the month in which you earn them.
With myPerks, the expiration date is longer. For regular members they’ll expire 90 days from the end of the month in which they’re earned, while for Pro members the Perks will expire one year from the end of the month in which they’re earned.
For example, let’s say you earned Perks on May 13. If you’re a regular member those would expire on August 31 of the same year, while if you’re a Pro member they’d expire on May 31 the following year.
How Many Points Do You Earn On Gift Card Purchases During Promotions?
Giant Eagle often offers 2x, 2.5x or 3x Perks for every $50 or $100 spent on select gift cards. Something I was curious about is if that stacks with the 2x you earn as a Pro member. For example, with the Apple gift card deal giving 3x Perks for every $50 you buy, would that mean you’d earn:
- 4x (3x from the promotion and the additional 1x from Pro membership)
- 6x (3x from the promotion which is doubled by having Pro membership)
It turns out that the answer appears to be neither! In a follow-up email from Jay, he mentioned that in an email from Giant Eagle about the Apple gift card deal it advised that he’d earn 5x. That doesn’t match up with either option that I’d expected above, so it seems that Pro members might have their earnings doubled but that it’ll be capped at 5x on gift card purchases. If my suspicions are correct, that would mean a 2x promo would earn Pro members 4x while any promo offering 2.5x or more would top out at 5x. Jay did confirm that emails he received from Giant Eagle stated that on a 2x promo that he’d earn 4x, so that certainly seems to line up with what I’ve speculated.
Something important to note is that what’s advertised and what’s earned could be different though. Jay reported that although he was supposed to earn 4x during a recent promotion, he only earned 2x or 3x. Hopefully that just relates to teething problems with how the new myPerks program credits Perks, rather than Pro members not earning bonus Perks when a promotion is running.
Should You Switch From Fuelperks+ To myPerks?
myPerks Pro Members
OK, so let’s say you’re a myPerks Pro member and you buy $100 of gift cards during a separate 2x promotion. You should – in theory – earn 400 Perks which can be redeemed for $8 off groceries or gas, so 8% based on your gift card spend.
If you’d continued with Fuelperks+ rather than switching to myPerks, that same $100 gift card spend would’ve earned you 200 Perks. Those could’ve been redeemed for 8% off groceries or 40c off per gallon of gas. If redeeming for groceries, staying on the Fuelperks+ program would’ve worked out better if you’d have redeemed those points for $100+ of groceries, while myPerks would’ve been better if you redeemed them when spending less than $100 on groceries.
If redeeming for fuel, you’d have needed to be able to fill up with 20+ gallons of gas under the Fuelperks+ program to make that better than an $8 redemption under myPerks.
Regular Members
If you don’t have a Pro membership, your existing Fuelperks+ membership could be much more appealing. With myPerks you’d only earn 200 Perks during a 2x promotion and buying $100 of gift cards. Those Perks could be redeemed for $4 off groceries or gas, so 4% based on your gift card spend.
With Fuelperks+ on the other hand, you’d only need to spend $50+ on groceries to get better redemption value on those earnings. Similarly on the gas side of things, you’d only need to fill up with 10+ gallons to get better value from Fuelperks+ than myPerks.
Final Thoughts
myPerks is an interesting development from Giant Eagle. It’s far easier to understand on the redemption side of things and can potentially be much more rewarding on the earning side.
There are some people who’d seem to do better by sticking with Fuelperks+ for now though – mainly anyone who wouldn’t be able to earn/maintain Pro membership in the myPerks program and those who can currently get great value when redeeming Perks on a large grocery shop or gas station visit.
Question
Have you had an opportunity to test out Giant Eagle’s new myPerks program? What did you think? Are you earning points as you expect you should? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
I’ve done the math, and if you are a big shopper or high-gallon fuel user then the old program is waaaaay better and I’ll stay with it as long as possible.
With today’s program, I typically fill up both my minivan and three additional small gas cans to max out the 30 gallon limit. Given all the grocery and gift card purchases we make, we almost always fill-up at today’s gas prices (i.e., low $3.00-ish per gallon) for a free tank…that equates to roughly $100 off each time we do this! Under the new program, max savings is $30 per fill-up.
Not interested in the new program until forced to do so.
Definitely not for everyone — people should run the numbers on this one before switching, and thankfully this post should help out!
For me, new program was better for a few possibly niche reasons:
1) I tended to want to spend too much on gift cards relative to how much I spend on gas, earning the points faster than I could redeem them. I would get full value when filling up, but just don’t use enough gas.
2) 20% off groceries at Giant Eagle is not very compelling for me personally. I normally shop at another store where prices seem like they’re quite a bit lower than Giant Eagle. Being able to get “free” groceries by redeeming against the full dollar amount makes the grocery route viable for me.
3) The perks can be a handy way to generate profitable spend on high value gift cards (cause of reason #1).
You had an example of how this new plan works. A person named Lindsay spent $330 0n groceries, $295 0n gift cards, and bought 47 gallons of gas. She had a total of 719 perks.
You show she saved $92. 719 perks are only good for $14 how did she save $92??? Before I join your program I need this explained.
I don’t know if you saw that example of Giant Eagle’s website rather than this one?
Too darn confusing. I will shop elsewhere.