USAA has recently added wording to the terms and conditions of their credit cards to exclude gift card purchases and cryptocurrency from earning rewards:
USAA is committed to providing excellent service and delivering on our mission to facilitate your financial security. We are writing to tell you about a change to your USAA REWARDS CREDIT CARD – VISA credit card. Effective September 14, 2021, we are making changes to your account regarding transactions that earn rewards. At that time, in accordance with your reward program terms and conditions, cash-equivalent transactions that previously may have earned rewards will not qualify. Examples of such transactions include purchasing gift cards and cryptocurrency. To view your reward program terms and conditions, visit usaa.com.
What’s not clear is how strictly this’ll be enforced – if at all. The cryptocurrency exclusion will be easier to enforce, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the gift card exclusion is only enforced on an ad hoc basis, perhaps if there’s quite clear manufactured spend activity occurring. It might be that they exclude purchases from Simon Mall (like Amex) or obvious gift card purchases from sites like GiftCardMall and GiftCards.com, but I’d be surprised if they even did that.
However, this is definitely something to be aware of if you ever buy gift cards using any USAA credit cards.