I have done this. Some stores may not like it though and try to direct you to the service desk.
Remember every card, whether it's 1 or 10, requires approval. Stating "Self serve doesn't even allow a single card now" is NOT correct.
In my experience "The new POS also spits out the approval notices a lot faster" this is also not correct.
I'll give you the first statement that I was not technically correct. You can still purchase cards at the self serve, but you do need to get approval from the staff. I've had a number of staff in a number of different stores across Woolies not give the approval and suggest I go to the service desk to purchase them.
The other statement, I do believe is true based on my sample size of 2 purchases - one purchase of 500 cards (30 each transaction) and another of 12 cards. The approval slips were spat out at such speed the check out person could not keep up; whereas previously it would be get a slip, wait a few seconds, get another slip, wait some more time, and so on.
500 actual cards or $500?
Did you have to pre-order?
My three local Woolies only have a few $50 OnlyVisa cards, no $100 ones. Do you get your Woolies to order them in for you?
500 actual cards. I pre-order by sending an SMS to the store manager with how many I want and by when (usually give him 3-4 weeks notice) and he sends me a message back when he gets them along with dates and times that he is not expecting to be busy. Then, I simply go to the store at that time and he processes them all for me at a counter that is blocked off for the duration of my transaction. He has no issue doing this - a sale is a sale and as long as he is ok that it is not a scam and a legitimate business that is purchasing them, he is fine with it.
How I ended up with this deal is that I was once was going to a number of stores looking for cards and I would ask the staff if they had any more and if I could order any in. Most of the people said no and they can't order it in - but this one time, the person I asked turned out to be the manager and he said he would try to help me. The first time he said he managed to get them in from other stores in the area; but after that he has been ordering them in straight from the supplier.
I'm not sure where you found 500 cards unless you went to multiple stores to collect them or you have a stockpile.
Also this was one staff member? And you paid with $500 Wish cards? That'd be more than 100 Wish cards.
I don't think I'm game enough to do it.
It was 100 Wish cards of $500, 6 wish cards of $476 and 1 wish card of $119. These were purchased in blocks of 20 cards. The details of all cards were pretty put nicely in a spreadsheet and then just ticked off one by one as I used them up. Once before, I had purchased about 50 of them in one shot, and the order got blocked by Woolies and I had to call a few days later to find out what was going on. They unblocked it and the cards were emailled immediately. When purchasing in blocks of 20, the cards have arrived pretty quickly; so I'm assuming that either the block is when its a large order or my email id is now whitelisted - don't know which.
