WOW Select Trolley Run

[Joshua]

The adage is make hay while the sun shines… so when you get an offer from EDR that is half decent go for it. Hopefully this will give everyone a bit of empowerment to do so next time you get such an offer.
Let me call this a mini trolley run, mini because in hindsight it could of gone much, much further. When there isn’t any well documented previous examples you do forever consider the fact you won’t get any points and someone at EDR is just laughing at you.

Inbox Offer

Early one Monday morning I wake up to check my email…

Half awake I think, “… that could work”.

2 hours later I wake up again. Okay this definitely could be interesting!

Onto AFF of course. A previous general offer gave 50 points for 2 WOW select items, so this seemed like a great in comparison. Best way to find out the cheap stock was to use their shop online function and search for “select” then sort by price.

$0.74 for Taco Seasoning or 1.48 cents / point. Lovely the next best was the small packets of cat food for 85 cents, so taco seasoning it was.
I may say this multiple times but, this isn’t the best value ever, sure – but at the time it was the best I could for QFF and decided it would work for me. If I’m redeeming for JASAs on sectors I need to fly, this sure beats the heck out of paying (often) more cash and flying Y. Particularly great for getting a one way J seat out and paying for the return. I know some of you had attacked the shelves for Taco Seasoning before so wasn’t expecting much left for a clearance item. I had hoped that the following week’s specials (the catalogue runs Wednesday to Tuesday, offers go Monday to Sunday), but alas it wasn’t to be.

Starting Off Slowly

I take a whole day (what was I thinking) before I got the time to visit some stores. I’m based in ADL at the moment and there are a decent number of stores but they often do cluster. So on Tuesday it started as “I’ll visit a few stores on the way home” and it turned out to be over a dozen stores in an indirect manner, only we are accustom to flying, plundering shelves of Taco Seasoning.

Buying in quantity you get many weird looks and of course questions.

“Do you run a restaurant?”
“Um, no though maybe I should open one.”

Most frequently:
“Wow you must really like Mexican.”

I practiced up saying with a straight face that I really didn't like Mexican food.

I got a few fantastic reactions with that, yes people do think your crazy.

Shopping for Wednesday:

Store	Quantity
NorthPark	23
Regency Plaza	25
North Gate	51
Gilles Plains	55
Marden	0!
Felixstow	16
Newton	45
Tea Tree Plaza	25
Para Hills	6
Mawson Lakes	44
Paralowie	49
Hollywood Plaza	22
Parabanks	36
Golden Grove	33

Which makes 430 packets of Taco Seasoning (4300-5160 servings), and it looks like:

What the hell am I going to do with all this seasoning…

Total cost so far $318.20 for 21500 points. I had also got an extra 10 items (500 points) for actual shopping I could use. So not bad, not bad. Already I had paid off my next flight, ADL-ASP that cost about ~20000 points + $150 for a JASA there where the BFOD (in Y obviously) was ~$400.

Clearly I could go further with this. I was unsure if I could find the time and was still concerned if I’d even get points to credit but my gut feeling was to go for it.

 

[PrincessK]

If you donate them to charity does that make it tax deductible?!

 

[flyingfan]

AFF now has the Taco Guy :!:

 

[TonyHancock]

Inspirational! Love it Joshua.

 

[LiamR]

hahaha love it!

 

[Joshua]

If you donate them to charity does that make it tax deductible?!

I'll get to that, but yes fundamentally you have the idea

 

[Joshua]

Well I already thought it was crazy but there were 5 days remaining!

-Wednesday-
I had hoped for a cheaper select product to appear in the catalogue however it clearly wasn’t going to be. So about ~1.5 cents/point was going to be as good as I would get. Now this isn’t terrible, it’s just annoying knowing there could have been better. I decided to be thankful I got the offer at all and just thought of the 5+ cents/point J flights awards it would eventually materialise as.

The following few days I again shopped exclusively for Taco Seasoning. Study and work get would get in the way so I was left to only a few stores each day but tried to cover the southern side of town.

One thing I decided on was using Woolworths gift cards in $500’s to monitor how much I was actually spending. All on the Amex Edge of course.

At the last store I decided to look around as it was nearly closing time. I felt stupid but I had found a new target. The local price of cat food was actually lower than the web price. $0.75/packet – well this suddenly changed things. There would be a lot more stock of cat food around!

Time to Decide
(Thursday & Friday)

At this point I had to decide, am I really going for this. I mean who spends >$1000 on groceries they don’t need!? You really start to wonder if it will pay off, no matter how many times you read the T&C of the offer it still wonder. Of course if you don’t have the funds to throw at it then you wouldn’t but who wants to lose money like that. Having missed out before on these offers I decided to not think logically about it and go for it.

Life was/is busy, so for Thursday and Friday I would only be able to visit a handful of stores. So lets not bore you with the details, this isn’t first class flying, it’s shopping a overly large number of suburban supermarkets – not exactly flashy stuff. The first few stores had few dozen packets of cat food but then I started to find much larger quantities. I had now upgraded to using a trolley.

A typical haul. Now repeat a few dozen times!

-Saturday-

I had agreed well in advance on picking friends up from the Airport so this meant a staggered attempt today. Starting from down south, I worked my way up to the airport. The airport store (Harbour Town) was crazily busy and after 15 minutes of looking for a park I decided to just head to the DJ lounge and relax. You need to take time out sometimes from such a vigourous shopping schedule. This left me until late in the country side. Racing back towards civilisation and the green glowing arches I made two more stores, the last by the skin of teeth. One of these pop-up developments, a Woolworths surrounded by a scattering of a few half built houses and many empty blocks. So after all the lost time I was able to scrape together a few hundred more packets, achieving nearly 20,000 points for the day.

Running total for the week:
Taco Seasoning: ~750
Cat Food: ~480
Points: ~63000
Cost: ~$950

With the rubbish weekend shopping hours in SA (5pm close) I went home to scheme. I knew I could make something out of this. I had printed out 3 A3 sheets with all the known Woolworths locations and plotted a course. I’d target as many stores as I could, fulfilling the dreams of Taco loving cats across the world.

 

[JessicaTam]

Brilliant! If you share a house with someone, I so want to know their reaction when you started unloading the boot.

Now waiting for the next thrilling instalment...

If you donate them to charity does that make it tax deductible?!

I believe it is if you keep the receipts showing what was purchased, and get a receipt showing what was donated. If they match then you should be able to claim that $ amount.

 

[samh004]

Absolutely stunning achievement!

I must say, I’d almost be tempted to do this myself, other than as I don’t pay taxes I’m not sure how I’d get money back…?

 

[ricee007]

If you can get a tax deduction for that $950 (rspca would love cat food, and *can* give receipts, AFAIK)..... if you are on 45% tax bracket.... that $950 turns into about $500.... for 63,000 points!!

Assuming a RTW trip costs 140k and $800....

It'll cost you about $2,000 in catfood/taco seasoning, and $800 cash. The $2000 tax deductible at 45% = $1,100 + $800 cash.... = $1,900 for a RTW trip. Nice, nice, nice.

Or, more importantly perhaps..... $1900 for half a business class RTW trip.

 

[Joshua]

Don't worry everyone, I kept the wad of receipts and cat food will be going to the RSPCA. It's sorted as far as tax deduction goes. Alas I'm not yet on the top tax bracket, a chunk of my income is tax free and I'm a full-time student but do earn 'a bit' (clearly or I wouldn't be spending thousands on stuff I don't want/can't use for points ), so will figure out how much I get back out of it at a later junction.

 

[Joshua]

A D-Day of sorts. It was now or never. I had emptied the car and would start early (well take a ‘positioning’ drive of sorts to get the best run). This time I wasn’t alone, it helps to have someone accompany you. In my case the GF didn’t even blink, but that’s what happens when she’s travelled in J & F around the globe with you, going from NB to WP in the last year. We would tag team to get through the checkouts as quick as humanly possible and being a Sunday, traffic was light.

Honestly I had dreamy ideas of getting to every store but it actually takes time, driving, getting in, demolishing shelves, running around like a self important idiot on the amazing race, going through express checkout with in excess of 100 items, getting back to the car and stack stuff in the boot neat enough that it’s under control. It turns out the best you can do is 4 stores an hour, though on average 3 an hour is more realistic. Obvious distance is a factor. Sydney traffic? Don’t even bother!

Goal: Do this x infinity.

Late morning start (they open late here too on weekends!)…

Elizabeth, one of the ends up town that is the butt of jokes (every city has them) but 91 items, that’s over 4500 points!

Salisbury/Parabanks: Quiet and sleepy this time of morning. No seasoning! Well somebody must of emptied them out a few days earlier… hmmm. 76 packets for 3800 points!

‘Hollywood Plaza’ don’t even ask why they made such an wannabe upmarket shopping centre here, wherever here is. 19 seasonings, 125 cat food! Fill the trolley up, grab the extras hiding on the top of the shelf. Run to check out, it’s empty. Quantities, quantities!! (I’ll explain in in the debrief.) “I have to scan them all individually…” ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!? My fault for picking the middle aged woman, at least the 17 year olds just can’t be ****ed and do it the quick way. Okay, breath, breath again. Run through Woolworths liquor like we stole bottles of… how many cats do you have? 0 cats, 7200 more points!

Paralowie, a few minutes away is this small corner store looking Woolworths. Much quieter outside of a big shopping centre. Also no seasoning “tacos at my house”, 77 packets of cat food, that’s another 3850 points.

Mawson Lakes, she dives out the car while I park. Meet up at checkout. 62 packets of taco crack and 72 fish smell in a packet. 6700 points!

Para Hills, been here before. Not much remains. 20 + 42, so 3100 points.

Gilles Plains, you get food I get petrol (Woolworths for QFF points of course). A few minutes later, tag I checkout and she’s running to the McCafe for our only meal we’ll get while on the run. A few minutes later and the boot is starting to fill up and she has something nearly as edible as the cat food. 20% and 2.5 QFF points / $ whenever we eat (another hack I should talk about one day, but privately). But who cares, another 3400 points.

North Gate, anther one close. Step aside ladies running a community BBQ, I prefer cat food. 38 packets to be specific. 22 packets of seasoning for added flavour, uhhh points. 3000 points!

Now to truly mess with the system. Drop her on the side of the road at one Woolworths, I drive to the next a minute down the road. I get 76 packets of cat food, she gets 58 packets of points simultaneously. 6700 points, move forward.

Here we have hit our run, because the next stores are a bit of a step backwards and sideways. But luckily the next spot is where we have and old and new woolworths operating together on opposite sides of the road (probably waiting for the lease to expire I presume). So that will keep the hourly rate up.

I hit Regency Plaza for 46 packets of cat food and 22 of taco seasoning. Meanwhile some 200 metres away in North Park, she’s hit a mini jackpot of 24 taco seasonings & 119! packets of cat food. Combined total: 10550 bonus points. Free trip to Woolworths at Airport West (Melbourne)?

Okay now where, keep driving the time has passed so quick there’s under 2 hours remaining…

Closest on the A3 x 3 map is Kilkenny, now I’m a bit lost but it’s basically straight. Not much seasoning left but 63 packets of cat food. About 3500 points.

Rapidly trying to figure out with the time whether to head up to Port Adelaide (and throw the towl in on the rest) or risk going further south for those around the Airport).

Findon is nearby, so lets head there and still be indecisive on the remainder. Lots of packets of everything hurray. Sorry guy behind us, we have no cats. 82 packets of cat + 55 packets of seasoning = nearly 7000 points. He’ll know a young DYKWIA WP couple next time he sees one at a Woolworths checkout? To be honest we were quite nice and everyone found it funny, but we really were rushing all the time.

There was now less than an hour remaining. The next closest store is West Lakes. It’s not until we get close we realise there is an AFL match on and the shopping centre car park is closer than walking distance from the stadium.

We were lucky, found the one and only park close & immediately. Only 18 seasonings but 55 packets of pet food. That’s another 3650 as we try to get out quick as possible – throwing stuff into the back seat.

The sun is now set and I had hoped to reach another two stores but it looks like I’ll have to call it one, so the airport it is. A reasonable 60 packets all up for another 3000 points.

So that’s it, 5pm close for SA stores on weekends. My biggest complain about this part of the world. Probably cost me a few thousand points this day too! We settle to enjoy a nice diner and drive down south to retrieve a dozen or so boxes of cat food I was forced to abandon the prior day.

So the totals for the final day were…

Hang on, BONUS ROUND!!!

Must be with the right person because there was not a single groan when mentioning that the country stores don’t shut until late

Mount Barker. Absolutely freezing outside. In addition to many packets of something or rather, we buy a dozen random Select items for the hell of it, including a cheese cake which didn’t last long. Another 100+ haul for 5150 points.

Murray Bridge, now we are definitely out of town. Another location with an old and new Woolworths that are nearly adjacent to each other. Well this is it, we finish off the day with an extra 4650 points. We have the time to ask if there’s any extra stock out the back but the answer comes back no.

So now, finally the days totals (I know you've been counting at home!):

About 370 packets of Taco Seasoning.
Not bad but thank goodness I went the cat food.
Nearly 1200 packets of Cat Food purchased in a single day. The car was full.

Some 12 hours of work. But it earnt ~80,000 points!!



MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I often post that everyone here is a little bit crazy.

You, on the other hand....

Who am I kidding I love this

However...is it seriously 50 bonus points PER item?! Not per transaction? Or only given once in the week?!

 

[Sprucegoose]

Sell it back to woollies and halve your costs and double your return!

 

[zig]

What a week! I admire your resolve Joshua, much as I love bonus points I was tired just reading your exploits, especially Sunday. Enjoy the upcoming JASAs.

 

[markis10]

Considering he has got another select offer this week, there might be a part 2.

 

[medhead]

You had me until you drive to Murray Bridge.


Sent from the Throne

 

[drross]

Such dedication.... Unbelievable

 

[cove]

And now part 2 is possible.

 

[Deleted member]

It's almost worth getting a cat