Just a quick reminder that it’s almost the end of the month which means there’s not long left to max out your allowance of 5 discounted gift cards per month from AARP Rewards.
Daily Deals can be a good way to use up that allowance, but if you’ve missed out on those this month then here are some other good options that are still available. Note that although Daily Deals are available to anyone, these other discounted gift card options are only available to AARP members.
Here’s a list of some of the best remaining deals, some of which are good for reselling and others which are only good for personal use – you can see all available deals here. AARP Rewards sometimes offers different discounts for the same brand depending on the denomination, so be sure to check the price/discount before buying.
You can access these deals here.
8% Discount
- Albertsons & its affiliate brands
13% Discount
- Staples ($15 & $30)
20% Discount
- Rainforest Cafe
- Columbia Sportswear
- Spa & Wellness
- Landry’s
- Jamba Juice
- Peet’s Coffee
- Shari’s Berries
- White House Black Market
- Famous Dave’s
The DOC doesn’t seem to want to maintain this resource. It would be great if you can take it over as a resource. https://www.doctorofcredit.com/list-of-merchant-gift-cards-which-can-be-loaded-into-your-account/
Thoughts?
I’ve got several other things I’m working on at the moment and so don’t have time to research this right now, but I’ll definitely add it to the to-do list – thanks for the suggestion 🙂
That would be great since we’re not all GC resellers! To get it off the ground, I think you should crowdsource the info. Get the DOC’s permission to use his list as a startpoint, maybe reaffirm his info and crowdsource the rest. For example, I think Chipolte and Wine.com can be added to the list.
Could be a useful, ever changing resource. (and wildly confusing too…. Note DoC’s caveat: “most retailers allow you to load a gift card into your store app or online account. This is not what we are discussing”
*tilt. Never mind. An unstated insidious “third category” would be gift cards like Advance Auto, where from time to time you can buy them at seeming great discounts, only to find out you can’t use them on-line, app, or anywhere except IN THE STORE. (in effect meaning, you can’t use ever dwindling AAP on-line discount codes in combination with (discounted) gift cards. Shrewd, but non-starter for sharp shoppers. Wonder how common that model is?
ah yes, good reminder. (yet sooooo much effort for so little gain. Still, if you can keep track of it all…. fine. for those months when we don’t manage to snag enough of the limited odds, limited gain daily deals. I’ve railed about those before — though have generally figured out how to “win” each day– and keep mouth shut lest we further lower the odds of “winning.”)
But while we’re here, is there any sane, simple, easy to figure out way to redeem accumulating AARP rewards points for cash and/or gift cards? Less than reliable third party (OMG!) sites claim AARP points are worth about a penny each…. ok, so how exactly can we cash or card them out? (and noo, I’m emphatically not interested in throwing them away on these these insulting Vegas style “sweepstakes” (as you have little chance this side of hell) and/or “instant wins” — which btw, are a lie, nothing “instant” or “winning” about them. Astonished AARP sullies its reputation with such crap. AARP really treats its members like aging, half-brain dead AZ patients.) ps, yes I get it, ‘merika, all corners, is going over to a casino culture…. Shrewd way to raise taxes from the masses, sever seniors from their savings, and have ’em beg for more. Soma. And so it goes.
AARP sets itself up as an advocate organization for seniors; what they’ve long needed here and elsewhere is an independent watchdog that doesn’t get paid (by the watcher) to watch the watcher. *tic
On the first of each month AARP Rewards offers several deals like ‘Redeem 15,000 points for a $5 gift card for x brand’. Those seem to sell out fairly quickly, so it’s best to check on the first of the month for those kinds of deals.
Curiosity question: do you find any value in AARP Reward Points? The easy redemption options appear that the rewards have very poor value? Just curious if I’m missing something.
AARP Rewards points provide poor value when redeeming for gift cards. The best value option is to redeem for local deals here https://www.aarp.org/rewards/redeem/local/
Those deals vary by city, but one potentially worthwhile near me at the moment gives $10 off $75 at Safeway by redeeming only 250 points.
Oh wow. I never knew about local deals! I’ve just been letting my points expire because I couldn’t find anything I thought was worthwhile to use them on. Thanks for this tip!
I use the Kroger and Albertson’s regularly for shopping, not resale. Kroger is so easy to use, print it out, use it at self-checkout. Albertson’s is a pain!! Our Safeway does not accept these at self-check, and 1 out of 4 times with a cashier, they can’t figure out how to use it and a manager has to be called over to extricate them from whatever they did.
Anybody else get this when trying buy a gift card: “There was a problem with your payment. Please try again or contact AARP Rewards Support at 1-866-451-6305.”
There are several posts about this on the AARP forums and nobody seems to have a solution.
This has happened to me on and off over the years. I’m not sure what causes it though, but changing the payment card eventually seems to help.
Is anyone else having trouble making gift card purchases at AARP Rewards in the last couple of days? Tried to buy Safeway cards on Sunday and again on Monday, on two different accounts, first with a VGC and then with a regular credit card. Got a weird confirmation message without an order number stating that they have received my order and would communicate about it within 24 hours — but card was not charged, gift card was never sent, and 5 card/month limit was not reduced.
Of course as soon as I posted this, order finally went through.
Hi, i’ve got some gift cards i need to sell at a cheaper rate. Any recommendation?
Cardcash
@Stephen Pepper We have lesser time this month.
Reward purchases will be temporarily unavailable for year-end maintenance starting from 5 PM EST on December 29th until January 2nd.
Thanks – I’ve just updated the post.
I forget about these so thank you for the reminder!
Has anyone successfully used a Vanilla card on AARP recently? My attempted purchases are erroring out and I am not sure whether this is a temporary issue or whether AARP does not accept Vanillas. (I usually use GC.com VGCs, but I have some Vanillas I would like to liquidate.)
False alarm: Vanilla cards working now.
Not sure whether anyone else is having this issue, but I thought I would put the DP out there. Today (5/28/24) I have been unable to make gift card purchases on AARP Rewards with MCGCs from GC.com (517169 BIN). The card gets charged (or at least there is a pending hold on it), but the purchase is not reflected in the transaction history and the gift card is not sent.
VGCs from GC.com (451129 BIN) are still working fine.
More payment issues to report on the AARP website. Tried to pay with INCOMM MCGCs (BIN 512856 and 545660). These are Vanilla-type UFan cards where you cannot input your address information. These cards had worked on AARP previously, but I got an error on 6/29/24 and on 6/30/24. A pending authorization was placed on each card, but the transaction then errored out. Very annoying, as the funds are now unusable for 2 weeks until the hold falls off.
VGC from Staples (BIN 435880) worked fine.
Kroger and affiliate ones have disappeared for a while.