Hi all. Here in the OzB community we all maximise the use of Gift Cards for all our purchases, right from Food (Uber, Doordash) to Groceries (Colesworth) to Essentials (Bunnings).
However, I haven't found out a way to recharge my Go Card using Gift Cards. Eg: Go Card recharge is not available at Coles, Woolies, BigW, Target (but we do have gift cards available). Go Card recharge is available at 7-eleven, NightOwl, IGA, etc (but we dont have their Gift Cards).
Is there a way to recharge Go card using Gift Cards? Where?
I'm going to tackle your question from the perspective of someone who knows a thing or two about gift cards, but had to Google what a Go Card was…
I had a look through 600+ recharge locations around Brisbane, and I didn't find much relevant to you:
Honestly, your best bet is to cross your fingers and hope Coles or Woolworths or BIG W run a reasonable prepaid gift card deal in the future.
Coles
Coles runs two types of prepaid gift card deals:
Coles historically ran bonus Flybuys points deals on every six weeks or so, but these deals have nearly dried up in the last six months. They usually have Coles Gift Mastercards in these deals, but Coles Gift Mastercards have a bad reputation on this site.
On the other hand, Coles usually runs relatively popular 10% off prepaid gift card deals every four months or so. They have featured Coles Gift Mastercards and Vanilla Visa gift cards in previous deal, and the last deal (which was exclusive to NSW/ACT) was in Feb 2022. Expect the next 10% off prepaid gift card deal in early Jun 2022.
Woolworths
Nowadays, Woolworths (and Woolworths Metro) only run bonus Everyday Rewards points deals on prepaid gift cards. They have previously featured:
OnlyONE Visa gift cards: these gift cards have bonus points deals every three or four months, but only the $50 and $100 denominations attract 10x bonus points. The issue is that the value of the bonus points was lower than the gift card purchase fee for the $50 or $100 denominations, so barely anyone would be interested in them. (I cannot even find a recent deal to link you to!)
Perfect EFTPOS gift cards: all denominations attracted 10x bonus points, which meant that loading $500 onto the variable load gift card earned you 5000 bonus points, which was higher in value than the gift card purchase fee. However, Woolworths seems to run this deal every six months or so, so expect the next deal around Sep 2022.
Westfield EFTPOS gift cards: Woolworths rarely runs semi-decent Westfield EFTPOS gift card deals, but they recent ran one where you got 2000 bonus points for purchasing a $100 Westfield EFTPOS gift card. Considering the gift card purchase is $5.95, that meant the bonus points had more value than the gift card purchase fee.
BIG W
BIG W haven't run any decent prepaid gift card deals recently, but they have in the past run a semi-decent bonus points deal where you earned 2000 bonus points when purchasing a $100 Perfect EFTPOS gift card deal (which had a $6.95 purchase fee). Considering that was Mar 2021, who knows when BIG W will have another semi-decent prepaid gift card worth mentioning.
An alternative is to find a recharge location that accepts AMEX and hope that AMEX runs another Shop Small campaign (where AMEX encourages you to shop at small businesses). You may find that a lot of the recharge locations accepting AMEX are part of the Shop Small initiative, due to the fact that a lot of these recharge locations are small businesses.
This approach was probably more appealing when Shop Small deals were along the lines of "spend $10, get $5 back at 10 different locations", but considering the last Shop Small deal was "earn 3x bonus points per $1 spent", I don't know how appealing this approach is going forward. That, plus it assumes you have an AMEX.
This comment wasn't the reply you were probably looking for, but I guess it shows the difficulty in getting your hands on decent prepaid gift card deals these days!