Google recently relaunched their Google Pay app as GPay. As part of this relaunch, they’re offering a referral bonus of $21 to both parties (see this post for details).
They’ve also launched a bunch of great promotions, the highlight of which is $21 back when spending $50 at Target. That works when buying a $50 gift card, so if you’re a newly referred user you can get $21 back from the referral offer and $21 back from the Target offer, making a total of $42 in exchange for a $50 gift card purchase from Target.
That’s not the only notable deal though. At the time of writing this post, they’re offering 20% cashback at REI on up to $250 of spend, 20% cashback at Burger King and more.
The best thing is that these are card-linked offers, so you don’t have to pay with the Google Pay app itself. That provides many opportunities for stacking deals for additional savings and rewards which can open up all kinds of ways to make gift card deals even more profitable.
Google Pay – Important Things To Know
Before listing some of those stacking opportunities, here are a few key things to know about Google Pay:
- Activation – You have to activate offers in the GPay app and ensure the card you want to use is enrolled in the offer.
- Discover – Discover cards aren’t eligible right now, so it can’t be stacked with the 5% quarterly categories on the Discover It card.
- Seeing Offers – If you’re not seeing these offers in the Google Pay app, it might be because you’re using the old version of the app. These are showing up in the new version of the app listed as GPay.
- Not Instant Cashback – Although transactions seem to track instantly, the cashback can take a few weeks to be awarded.
- Notifications – One of the nice features of GPay’s card-linked offers is that you’ll receive immediate notification when an offer has been used.
- iOS – Even though this is a Google service, it’s not restricted to Android phones – you can get GPay on iPhones too.
13+ Ways To Stack Google Pay Card-Linked Offers
1) Shopping Portals
Any time you buy something online you should click through from a shopping portal. Check Cashback Monitor to identify the best portal rate, but be sure to check the terms of each offer in Google Pay in case a deal is only available in-store.
2) In-Store Cashback From Shopping Portals
Speaking of in-store, some shopping portals offer cashback or rewards for in-store purchases when paying with a card linked with the portal and linking it with that retailer. A few examples are Rakuten, Alaska Airlines, United and JetBlue. Update: Google Pay, Alaska Airlines and United all use Rakuten for tracking, so it won’t stack with those after all.
3) Amex Offers
The Google Pay app is currently showing two separate offers for 10% back at H&M – one valid for in-store purchases and one for online. That would stack with the H&M Amex Offer giving 20% back on up to $50 of spend, meaning you’d be earning a total of 30% back. That’ll hopefully be possible with other Amex Offers in the future too.
4) Chase Offers, BankAmeriDeals, etc.
Similar to Amex Offers, Chase cards receive targeted offers for certain retailers and restaurants. For example, there’s been a Burger King Chase Offer in the past offering 10% back; that would stack with the 20% cashback offer in the Google Pay app.
Chase Offers is powered by the same backend which provides BankAmeriDeals on Bank of America cards and similar deals on cards for smaller banks.
5) Dosh
Dosh is another app which has card-linked offers, so you can pay with a card linked in both Dosh and Google Pay to earn double cashback. For example, GPay has two separate offers giving 10% cashback at Banana Republic in-store and online and Dosh is offering 4% for the same.
6) Gift Card Sales Direct From Retailer
Retailers sometimes run gift card deals, such as buying a $100 gift card for $80 or offering a $20 bonus card when buying a $100 gift card. Provided the retailer is the one that processes payment such as with this REI deal, it’ll stack with a card-linked offer in Google Pay.
Just be sure to take a look at the URL in the address bar if buying online; if it goes to a third party site like CashStar, Buyatab, etc., it likely won’t stack.
7) Uber Visa Local Offers
Update 2/15/21: Uber Visa Local Offers is ending on February 24, 2021.
The Uber app has a program that allows you to earn Uber Cash when paying with a Visa card linked in the app at eligible retailers. You have to enroll in the program, but once that’s done then that’s it – you don’t have to link each offer to your card(s).
To enroll in the program and view your local offers, open the Uber app then go to Menu > Payment > Earn Uber Cash With Visa.
8) SoFi Money Offers
If you have a SoFi Money account, the debit card provided on your account has access to card-linked offers. To find those, open the SoFi app, then go to Money > Offers.
Some offers are automatically linked to your card, but others you have to manually link by tapping the ‘Claim’ button. I’ve seen Burger King in there before (but not right now), so there’ll hopefully be times you can pay with your SoFi Money debit card to earn cashback from SoFi and stack with cashback from Google Pay.
9) Credit Card Bonus Categories
Most credit cards offer bonus points/miles/cashback in certain categories which stacks nicely with GPay card-linked offers. For example, you can earn 20% cashback on the Burger King offer in Google Pay while paying with a card that offers bonus points on dining purchases.
10) Cash App
The Cash App offers Boosts which provide instant discounts at different retailers and restaurants each week. You can add your Cash App debit card to the Google Pay app as a payment method, so it should be possible to stack Boosts from the Cash App with cashback from GPay.
11) United Visa Rewards
United’s MileagePlus X (MPX) app has a feature which is only available for Chase United credit card holders called United Visa Rewards. This is a program where you load offers to your Chase United card and earns you bonus miles when you make purchases at those retailers and restaurants.
If any United Visa Rewards retailers simultaneously appear in the Google Pay app, you can stack the two.
12) Bumped
The Bumped app removed much of what made it useful in 2020, replacing itself as a glorified shopping portal (see here for more details). They still have some in-store card-linked offers, but it’s powered by Rakuten and so in all cases I found you’d earn better rewards going directly with Rakuten’s in-store card-linked program. Still, Bumped is still a stacking option with Google Pay. Update: Google Pay uses Rakuten for tracking, so it won’t stack with Bumped.
12) SimplyMiles
SimplyMiles is a card-linked program which earns American Airlines miles. At the time of writing this post you can only link Mastercard credit cards, but that’ll hopefully open up to Visa and American Express in the future. Some retailers on SimplyMiles tally up with retailers listed in Google Pay’s offers. Update: SimplyMiles uses Rakuten for tracking.
13) Other Card-Linked Apps (Drop, Pei, etc.)
There are numerous other card-linked apps like Drop, Pei, Payce and more. There might be instances where GPay card-linked deals happen to be at eligible retailers in those other apps.
Stacks On Stacks On Stacks
In some cases, it’ll be possible to stack Google Pay offers with more than one of the above opportunities.
For example, there’s been an H&M Chase Offer in the past giving 10% back. If that appears again, it’d stack with a 10% offer in GPay. Uber Visa Local Offers has a similar 10% offer and Rakuten has offered cashback as high as 10-15% at H&M both in-store and online. That could earn you 40-45% 30% cashback.
Similarly, you could stack an H&M Amex Offer giving 20% back with GPay and cashback from Rakuten. It sadly wouldn’t stack with Uber because that’s only eligible on Visa cards.
Update: Google Pay uses Rakuten for tracking and so that’s not an additional stacking opportunity.
Question
Are there any other stacking opportunities I’m missing? If so, let me know in the comments below.