Coles gift card offers

[RB001]

I have the NSW Metro catalogue - it is only 16 pages!

They've been handing out abbreviated catalogues instore for a while - oftentimes it includes the gift card offer, occasionally not.
My local (World Square) is very hit and miss with when they stock the new catalogues, so I refer to the online one (usually after 5pm Monday to plan for the next catalogue week).

 

[Chicken]

I have the NSW Metro catalogue - it is only 16 pages!

Firstly, the catalogue above is for the week starting 1/1, not the current week. Secondly, the catalogue for this week in NSW has 47 pages. You can download here

 

[kpc]

Is this offer on? I didn’t see it in the catalogue. I am in NSW.

Here you are

 

[SydneySwan]

Firstly, the catalogue above is for the week starting 1/1, not the current week.

That is not correct. My catalogue is 25 Dec to 31 Dec.

 

[RB001]

Firstly, the catalogue above is for the week starting 1/1, not the current week. Secondly, the catalogue for this week in NSW has 47 pages. You can download here

As linked above, the next catalogue, starting 1/1 won't be available until 5pm Monday, so another 4 days time. This is one area where the communication directly from Coles is clear and consistent.

 

[Chicken]

From Wed 1 Jan 2025:

That is not correct. My catalogue is 25 Dec to 31 Dec.

I think you got mixed up between two different promos: the original post is Apple only and x20, but you are talking about this week which is Mastercard + Apple 2000 points flat

 

[TripleB]

I've been buying Coles MasterCards every promotion for a few years now. I've never had one not activate. But I've had 2/9 not activate this week.

 

[FlyingFiona]

I've been buying Coles MasterCards every promotion for a few years now. I've never had one not activate. But I've had 2/9 not activate this week.

I see that as an excellent thing because they will refund you the money and you still get the points (at least that's what happened to me when I had one not activate).

 

[ramamba]

I've been buying Coles MasterCards every promotion for a few years now. I've never had one not activate. But I've had 2/9 not activate this week.

14/14 for me, but nil points yet even for Friday purchases

 

[Pele]

14/14 for me, but nil points yet even for Friday purchases

I bought some on 26th December. Bonus points didn't post until 29th December.

 

[get me outta here]

Just bought 5 x $200 cards and two did not activate and they found that hard to deal with and nicely refused to refund so gave me two replacements.

 

[markis10]

Just bought 5 x $200 cards and two did not activate and they found that hard to deal with and nicely refused to refund so gave me two replacements.

Hopefully you get the correct bonus points

 

[lahlee]

Apologies if this has been noted elsewhere, but this morning I paid an ATO bill with a Coles purchased Gift card and noticed the transaction fee for Mastercard debit payments and Visa debit payments has been reduced to 0%. Must be a 2025 improvement, I thought it was a glitch but it's there in 'black and white' :
1.45% for American Express payments
0.72% for Mastercard credit payments
0% for Mastercard debit payments
0.80% for Visa credit payments
0% for Visa debit payments

 

[markis10]

A law was passed in Nov to eliminate debit card surcharges across the govt.

 

[lahlee]

A law was passed in Nov to eliminate debit card surcharges across the govt.

Ah, nice! It will be simpler being able to use the full debit card amount instead of having to factor in the surcharge.

 

[lahlee]

A law was passed in Nov to eliminate debit card surcharges across the govt.

Do you think it will apply to all levels of government - eg Council Rate payments?

 

[Chicken]

Do you think it will apply to all levels of government - eg Council Rate payments?

They have to, and likely for all card types:

"It is a common law principle that government cannot collect a merchant fee or a fee for service unless it has a specific statutory authority to do so"

But you still have a problem of, most personal credit cards do not earn points when paying government entities, so you may still need to wash through gift cards.

 

[TripleB]

They have to, and likely for all card types:

"It is a common law principle that government cannot collect a merchant fee or a fee for service unless it has a specific statutory authority to do so"

But you still have a problem of, most personal credit cards do not earn points when paying government entities, so you may still need to wash through gift cards.

The new Qantas pay debit card offers 1 point per A$4 spent. You just load money into it by BPay or bank transfer (or via another debit card but that costs money). The Ts&Cs say no points for gambling but say nothing about government payments. I've made a couple of $20 test payments to my ATO accounts to see what happens re points posting. I'll report back. But for people who aren't PAYE taxpayers and have no hope of buying enough gift cards to cover their tax bills then this might be an interesting option for whatever can't be washed through a gift card when it's on sale.

Also I've noticed that Officeworks has a $1000 prepaid visa card with a $9 activation fee. It's never on sale but depending on how you value frequent flyer points earnt on cc spend this is a way of washing cc spend into debit cards for ATO/local council spend.

 

[Happy Dude]

Had a new one the other day. Went in to purchase 5 x $100 MCs (purple ones).

Cashier said can only process 4 cards per person. Showed her the receipt from the previous day where I purchased all five in one transaction at the very same store.

Also showed the T&Cs that states I can buy 5. Didn't care and was adamant that "that person shouldn't have processed more than 4 as that what was she was told by "management".

Sigh. Fine.

So she did the first 4 in one transaction ($420), then tried to do the 5th one. GC scanned but receipt said declined even though my Amex app said payment ($105) had gone through. Much discussion about what to do etc etc and the old lady behind us starts getting lippy.

A higher-up comes over and says it's fine to do all 5 in one transaction and doesn't know where the "4 cards pp" comes from. Scanned the GC again and it comes up as a "fresh" card, ie I was expecting it to say "card already purchased" or some such. So I pay again ($105) and she says the first $105 transaction will be rejected. A few days later all three transactions are on my Amex card (ie not pending) so I toddle off back to the store where the same higher-up happened to be working and remembered the kerfuffle and after I haded her the "declined" receipt, handed me $105 in cash in 30secs. All FB points have posted as and when expected.

<redacted>

 

[Chicken]

A higher-up comes over and says it's fine to do all 5 in one transaction and doesn't know where the "4 cards pp" comes from.

I feel sad to hear about this. I did years of check out when I was a kid, at this industry where you would work on your own with no store manager, I, nor anyone I was on shift with, would do something like this. As long as the customer did or requested something on good faith, and it would not cause losses to the business, we would do it as long as we could make the cash register computer to do it. Why disappoint a customer when there is no need to?

Other than copping a spray from a wrinkly, to which I smart-coughdly replied I was sorry for wasting some of her valuable remaining minutes, it was a good ending to what could have been a nightmare.

I am glad that you got the manager to 'correct' that staff member. As someone who spent nearly 10 years doing check out, a retail staff should stand their ground when a customer is being unreasonable; but a retail staff should also be called out when they try to put a barrier in front of a customer where there is no reason to do so.
I am not sure if this is true, but I have noticed that there are more and more people working in retail who are only there to be on a power trip. They peev customers off when they should not. Then there are the rest who don't stand up to customers who are abusive to them, because they are too scared.

It's just 5 gift cards, why make it a power trip.