Reader Matt reached out to let us know that physical Walmart gift cards are now being sold outside of Walmart. CVS has been spotted with the variable-load ones ($15-200) on the gift card racks, and that likely means these gift cards are found at other stores too.
Walmart gift cards value isn’t the highest at the moment due to the ability to buy these on Pepper (even at a nice discount). This new store availability is another way of getting a good deal on Walmart gift cards if you can find worthwhile angles (AmEx Offers, Chase Offers, Rakuten in-store, Dosh, fuel points, credit card categories, etc).
Walmart gift cards can be used at Walmart, Walmart.com, Sam’s Club, Samsclub.com, and on Walmart gas.
My guess is they’re trying to copy Amazon here and increase the presence of their gift cards. This will likely suppress the resale value of Walmart gift cards in the long term.
Been to a couple don’t see them in Northern NJ….
I just hope they’re sold at OD/OM or Staples. 5x on Chase Ink Cash.
Best deal now for their cards is to buy with Paypal and use the 5% offer and then stack with a Chase Freedom. You have to order physical cards and have them delivered. Digital won’t work with paypal.
You can literally buy digital WM giftcards directly from PayPal’s own giftcard store. They’re capped at $100 increments though
Any suggestions for websites where to buy the Walmart gift card for an exact value or discounted such as Pepper, GCX, Raise, TCB gift card page, etc? I don’t shop at Walmart that often, but getting an exact value card or a discounted card could be a benefit instead of buying a full value card and having a carryover balance.
Also, what is the difference between the GCX app and the Raise app/site?
Since the Walmart gift cards at CVS are variable, you can get them there. I got a few using the Chase offer for 10% back up to $5.
I use Pepper for exact value gift cards. I have had no issues.
As I understand it, Raise is now GCX.
Can you get Walmart giftcards with more than 5% discount though?
I’m already at 5.25% cashback at W+ with BofA Online purchase category.
CVS isn’t nationwide. I see what you’re saying, but we don’t know exactly where these will be available yet.
Does anyone know how to pay with Paypal at CVS? WOuld be awesome to spend Freedom Flex there.
Reportedly, trying to buy VGCs with Paypal at CVS no longer works.
No idea about other gift cards.
You definitely can pay for things with Paypal at CVS by presenting the QR code from the Paypal app in-store.
Use the Paypal app. At the top of the screen next to the person icon is the icon to get to QR codes. After you’ve tapped it, tap on show to pay. If you’re planning to use this to buy gift cards, you’re late to the party. Last year I could get 7X when I bought Vanilla Visas, but this year only the activation fee gets charged to Paypal. There’s a discussion of this elsewhere in DoC. I find that CVS is so overpriced that I have no use for this method for anything other than gift cards.
I saw these at Sheetz around a year ago. The two local Sam’s club near where I live its a pain to use Walmart gift cards. They stopped taking them at Self Checkout and the people at the registers sometimes don’t even know how to take them.
It pisses me off that there is no gift card option in the Sam’s Club scan and go app
There is, but it’s only available n the checkout screen. PIA to use, but works.
Hmmmm interesting. I’ll have to look closer next time I use the app to scan n go. I guess I’m just used to the Walmart app where you can load gcs on it to use in store.
The very reason I don’t use Scan and Go at Sam’s. I tell them that every time they say I should.
What kills me is that Sams does not take Walmart pay (or apple pay). I do not understand the logic of it
What makes it a pain? I mostly use Walmart cards at Sam’s, mostly at SCO. They just run like Sam’s GC. Mixed and matched as well.
The two local Sam’s club’s where I live stopped taking Sam’s Club and Walmart Gift Cards at SCO for whatever reason. When you try to go to a normal register, half the employees don’t even know how to ring up gift card….. The employees told me they stopped taking them when SCO had errors after trying to pay with them.
Sorry to hear that. Hope it doesn’t give other clubs that idea.
If you are not very very very very very very organized, buying gift cards will likely cause you to lose more than win. Why? You’re going to forget to use one of them, the value of which will blow away any savings you made out of the other 99 gift cards you previously purchased! Right under your nose, you won’t even know. The good is that you won’t feel bad about it LOL
You don’t have to be that organized. You just need to only buy gift cards for places you frequent.
Skill issue.
Simple solution. Never make a mistake.
Speak for yourself, grandpa.
A wise person told me you will be old one day, too.
Not necessarily, especially with an attitude like that.
I always use the same email address when purchasing gift cards, and put all gift card emails in the same folder. After a gift card is redeemed, I move the email into another folder. (You could even create automatic rules based on sender email address or email titles.) This way I can precisely keep track of any unused gift cards.
Another way is to redeem the card immediately after purchase. This does not work for all merchants (e.g. Fandango) and has the risk of losing credit if your account is banned for some reason (Apple, Uber etc.)
Is it work? Yes. But it is manageable and mostly worth it.
Of course, there are always some downsides with gift cards, e.g. missing out on credit card purchase protection/extended warranty and buying more credits than you can spend. That requires judgment and discretion.
Recently, I decided to double-check the balances of some MasterCard gift cards that I thought I had fully used up. To my surprise, I discovered that a few of them still had some remaining balance.
So, I think this could potentially be an issue, as it’s easy to forget about leftover funds on these cards.
Awesome- I hope this doesn’t make Walmart as expensive as Amazon.
I stopped buying Amazon GCs from in store offers as Amazon’s unreasonably high prices defeat the whole point of this buying GCs at discount
anything non groceries I see Amazon is pretty much inline with others. Tarjay though always 2-3% or few cents more than Walmart across the road in my area.
I disagree. Amazon has an “Amazon tax” which is noticeable compared to other third parties for non grocery. Especially for all of the made in china household knick knacks which are also being sold on Aliexpress for much less.
Amazon is the lowest price 95% of the time and usually the most convenient. Most people aren’t buying stuff on Aliexpress
Comparing Amazon to Aliexpress is comparing apples to oranges. Sure you can buy cheap knock off products on Amazon or Aliexpress, but any company is going to charge you more to have your product to you in 2 days instead of 45 days.
Even Aliexpress charges you more to ship faster.