How To Buy Gift Of College Gift Cards Online & In-Store (Walmart, Target & More)

A few years ago, Gift of College gift cards started appearing in a few stores around the country. These gift cards can be used to fund college savings accounts (529 plans) as well as to pay off student loans.

One of the main reasons people might want to buy Gift of College gift cards is because it’s a way to fund college savings accounts or pay off student loans with a credit card – albeit indirectly. That’s because these gift cards can be purchased with a credit card, whereas it’s often not possible to fund college savings accounts or pay off student loans with a credit card.

Update 7/24/24: This post has been updated to include CVS and Fleet Farm and to note that Target might no longer be selling these in-store.

Gift of College Activation Fees

There is a slight downside to Gift of College gift cards though. They come with a $5.95 activation fee, similar to the activation fees you pay when buying a variable load Visa or Mastercard gift card. That reduces the benefit of buying them, although the net percentage fee depends on how much value you load to the cards.

If you have a retailer that sells variable load cards that go up to $500, loading $500 to a gift card and paying a $5.95 activation fee means you’re paying a 1.19% fee. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing though because the credit card rewards you can receive on that purchase could greatly outweigh the 1.19% fee. For example, if you buy a $500 card at a grocery store when cards like the Chase Freedom or Discover It are offering 5% cashback, you’d earn $25.30 cashback. Spending $5.95 to get $25.30 therefore means it’s worth paying the fee as you’re still coming out ahead.

The math is very different for smaller denominations though. For example, loading $100 to a Gift of College gift card still incurs a $5.95 fee. That means you’re paying a fee of 5.95%, so it’s highly unlikely that the credit card you’re putting the spending on will give rewards worth that much.

Where To Buy Gift Of College Gift Cards

As mentioned earlier, Gift of College gift cards aren’t available in all stores, but they’ve increased the number of locations from which you can buy them in recent months. Here’s a list of the current retailers and how you can maximize the rewards you earn when buying Gift of College gift cards from them.

Online

Giftcards.com

• Denominations Available – $25-$200
• Direct link to offer (our affiliate link).

This is perhaps the best option for Gift of College gift cards anywhere, whether online or in-store. That’s because Giftcards.com isn’t charging a purchase fee, you can earn rewards by clicking through from a shopping portal and there might be a Giftcards.com Citi Offer that can be stacked with all this.

Gift of College

• Denominations Available – $25-$200
• Direct link to offer.

Despite being the official Gift of College website, they only sell gift cards up to $200 rather than $500. That limits the usefulness of buying the cards from them directly because the lowest fee you’ll pay is 2.98% based on a $200 gift card. Buying a $25 gift card is awful value as the fee is 23.8%.

If you did want to buy directly from them, choosing the eGift card option is best because buying physical gift cards results in also having to pay a shipping fee.

I’m not sure what purchases directly from Gift of College code as. You might be able to earn a bonus on a card like the Bank of America Cash Rewards card if you have Online Shopping selected as your 3% category, but I haven’t tested that out.

Fluz

• Denominations Available – $25-$200
• Direct link to offer (my referral link).

One of the great features of Fluz selling Gift of College gift cards is that they’re not charging a purchase fee. You also earn a small amount of cashback on the purchase.

The downside is that you can’t buy these directly with a credit card – only via ACH, with your cash balance or with a debit card. If you have access to the Fluz Power Portal though, you can prefund your account with a credit card and then using that balance to buy the gift cards.

Update 7/24/24: Gift of College gift cards aren’t available through Fluz right now.

Walmart

• Denomination Available – $100
• Direct link to offer – eGift card (our affiliate link).
• Direct link to offer – physical gift card (our affiliate link).

With a maximum denomination of $100, the $5.95 fee works out to be very high when buying Gift of College gift cards from Walmart. The somewhat good thing about this is that other than buying the cards directly from Gift of College, buying from Walmart is the only online option available at the time of writing this post.

One way to help mitigate the fee is to keep an eye out for Amex Offers that are valid at Walmart.com.

In-Store

CVS

• Denominations Available – $25-$200

Some cards offer bonused spend at drugstores like CVS such as the Chase Freedom Flex card, along with cards that have 5% rotating categories each quarter. The max $200 denomination limits some of that appeal though.

Rakuten sometimes has card-linked offers for CVS, as does SimplyMiles.

Target

• Denominations Available – $50 & $100.

The low denominations mean the $5.95 activation fee likely won’t be worth it. You can presumably mitigate part of the fee by paying with a Target RedCard as that gives a 5% discount, but your net cost on a $100 gift card is still $100.65. Seeing as you wouldn’t earn credit card rewards when paying with your RedCard, you’d be better off just funding your loan or college savings account with $100 of cash to save the $0.65.

Update 7/24/24: Target is no longer listed as a retailer on the Gift of College website, so I’m not sure if that’s still an in-store option.

H-E-B

• Denominations Available – $25-$500.

OK, now we’re talking. H-E-B is a large grocery chain with stores all over Texas, so this is a great option if you live in the Lone Star state.

As mentioned earlier, buying a $500 Gift of College gift card means you’d be paying an effective 1.19% activation fee. Paying for a $500 card with a credit card that earns more at grocery stores means you’d earn rewards worth more than the $5.95 fee.

Save Mart

• Denominations Available – $25-$500.

Save Mart is a grocery store chain found all over California. That means that similar to H-E-B, paying with a card that offers bonused spend at grocery stores is your best option, unless you’re working on the signup bonus on a new credit card.

Lucky Supermarkets

• Denominations Available – $25-$500.

Lucky Supermarkets is another California-based grocery store chain which is owned by the same company that owns Save Mart, but their stores aren’t quite as widespread in California. Instead, you’ll tend to find them in San Francisco and the surrounding area.

Still, if you live in the region served by their stores, buying these gift cards with a card that earns more at grocery stores is a good option.

Foodmaxx

• Denominations Available – $25-$500.

Another grocery store chain based out in California, although they do have a couple of locations in Nevada. Again, pay with a card offering bonused spend at grocery stores.

Brookshire Brothers

• Denominations Available – $25-$500.

Similar to H-E-B, Brookshire Brothers is a grocery chain with stores throughout Texas, although they do have a handful of stores in Louisiana and Arkansas too. As a result, paying with a credit card that offers bonus points when using the card at a grocery store is the best payment option.

Cumberland Farms

• Denominations Available – Vermont: $50
• Denominations Available – Other States: $25-$500

Cumberland Farms is a gas station chain with locations in a number of states. It’s not going to be worth buying Gift of College gift cards from a Cumberland Farms store in Vermont due to the $50 limit.

It could be a good option in other states though due to them carrying the variable load cards which can be loaded with up to $500. You should be able to pay with a credit card that earns more at gas stations to make this more rewarding, but do a test purchase in-store first to make sure that it codes as gas rather than a convenience store or something like that where you wouldn’t get bonused spend.

Stripes

• Denominations Available – $25-$200

Stripes is another gas station/convenience store chain, but the $200 limit makes this a less enticing offer. Similar to Cumberland Farms, paying with a card that offers bonused spend on gas purchases will be best, but again – do a test purchase first to make sure it does actually code as gas.

Kinney Drugs

• Denominations Available – Vermont: $50
• Denominations Available – Other States: $25-$200

By other states, I believe that means New York as I think Kinney Drugs only has locations in New York and Vermont. Some credit cards offer bonused spend at drugstores, so one of those cards would be a good option if you live near a Kinney Drugs store.

Fleet Farm

• Denominations Available – $25-$200

Fleet Farm is a retailer with locations in several states (Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota). I’m not sure what it codes as because it looks like some of their stores are hardware stores, while others might be gas stations. It’d therefore be worth making a test purchase to see how it codes before buying a significant number of Gift of College gift cards so that you know which the best credit card will be based on bonus categories.

Alternative Option – Gifting To Someone With A Gift Of College Profile

If you know someone with a Gift of College profile set up, you can gift $25-$500 in a transaction without having to actually purchase a Gift of College gift card. (See the FAQs section here under the heading ‘How much can I gift to the account of an individual who has established a Gift of College profile?’)

That option carries a 5% fee, although the fee is capped at $15 per transaction. If you gift $500 (the limit per transaction), the $15 maximum fee means you’d be paying 3%. While that means you’d come out behind when paying with the vast majority of credit cards, it might make sense when trying to meet the minimum spend requirement on a new credit card.

(h/t reader Andrew for alerting me to this option and providing the screenshots.)

Other Gift Of College Retailers?

These are all the retailers listed on the Gift of College website, but have you ever seen Gift of College gift cards in other stores? I know they were available in select Barnes & Noble stores in the past, but I don’t know if they’re still a partner retailer – they’re certainly not listed as one anyway.

Let me know in the comments below if there are any other retailers to add to this list.