Gift card deals for the upcoming Coles catalogue sale starting Wednesday 14 September.
Vanilla Visa gift cards - limit 5 cards per customer. $5.95 and $7.50 activation fee applies for $100 and $250 gift cards respectively.
TCN Kids, Teen, Baby, Him, Her gift cards - limit 5 cards per customer.
Are there any account keeping fees with the Vanilla Visa?
?? LOL what world are you thinking about ??
Only account keeping fees related with such cards are
I had prepaid cards years ago that deducted monthly fees. And there are a few reviews for Vanilla Visa on productreview that mention a $2.5 monthly fee.
It has been outlaw since a few years ago so there is no more monthly fees on Vanilla card.
There's US-only card called Vanilla Visa with similar design and reviewers sometimes get confused about which card they have.
No, not for the Vanilla Visa gift cards in this deal.
You may find Vanilla Visa gift cards with expiry dates before 08/23 still stocked at some merchants who do not go through their stock so quickly (e.g. Target, The Reject Shop). It is actually illegal to sell such gift cards to customers, but (at least for The Reject Shop) the checkout will not stop you from purchasing it if the expiry date is less than three years.
Anyone tried using these to pay Zip?
Tried it with the cards from the last deal, unfortunately zip didn’t accept this type if payment.
10% off but there's a $6 or $7.50 activation fee why do people go nuts over such a tiny saving 🤣
It’s 7.3% try get that in a high interest account.
And btw, interest rate on account is per year, i.e 365days, unless you don't spend this card for the whole year, for correct comparison it is much higher equivalent annualised interest rate.
I'd be spending it asap before the scammers get to it.
You can use them to stack deals too and thus compound the savings. EG. NSW Seniors can use to buy 5% off Woolies GC.s
https://www.seniorscard.nsw.gov.au/discounts/homepageoffers/….
I also use them to buy Aldi Gift cards, sacrificing 0.5% fee, but which are very handy to keep in the wallet, and then smooth per transaction.
Does it work?
I cant seem to use it on the 5% off Woolies GC
Works for me but only using PayPal as the payment method. Using the card directly with Woolworths gift cards would decline.
Do we ever see gift card discounts greater than 10%?
Was thinking of buying something in particular but not until next year.
Depends what you want.
Recently Coles had Ultimate Him cards that could be used at Rebel or Supercheap among others. Bonus flybuys points worked out to be about 20%
Bet I’ve seen for TCN him (jb hifi) is 15% just before Xmas last year.
T&Cs for the TCN cards say only valid in NSW, QLD, SA, NT, WA.
Will just have to wait and see if they come to the ACT too 🤷🏻♀️
NSW and ACT are considered the same region by Coles, so I would expect the TCN gift cards to be discounted as per this deal.
If you punch in an ACT postcode on the Coles online catalogue webpage, the catalogue shown to you is a NSW Metro catalogue.
If you look at the EFTPOS information for the majority of Coles’ ACT stores (e.g. Tuggeranong/Greenway, Woden Plaza, Chisholm, Curtin, Belconnen), it will actually indicate you are at a NSW store. However, a handful of Coles’ ACT stores (e.g. Canberra Civic) will show that you are at an ACT store.
What’s the biggest denomination you can buy?
Just checked my local Coles, they didn't have any. We'll see if they get any in on Wed.
My local had a stack of 250s the other day but they are now all gone. Either a staff member or a customer has gotten in early and hidden them all. Unless Coles puts a new stack out on Wednesday then there will be no stock to buy except by those who have hidden them.
Go to counter and ask, they do sometimes hide it.
Turns out my store got a large delivery. Probably around 400 went on display today. They are all gone now though.
Hi ozbargainers
Been out of gc game for a while. Planning to get iphone 14 on jb. Rrp 1999. Can i purchase 500 x 4 (limit 5) amd then use ot om jb online or in store or is there no denomination for 500 in coles. Could any experience holder please assist.
Thank you
Which gift cards are you referring to? Vanilla Visa gift cards or TCN gift cards? I’m assuming you’re referring to the TCN gift cards, but I want to make sure before I give you the wrong advice.
TCN him it is
Physical TCN gift cards (i.e. the ones in this deal) come in different denominations, but the maximum denominations sold at Coles are:
That means you will need to purchase a minimum of 15 TCN HER/HIM gift cards to cover your planned $1,500 purchase at JB Hi-Fi. There are a couple of issues with this:
Coles’ checkouts will only let you purchase a maximum of 5 gift cards in a single transaction. Any attempt to go over will trigger error messages.
Coles staff can have wildly different interpretations of the maximum of 5 gift cards per customer rule. For example, in my experience, staff seem to think it’s 5 gift cards per household, or 5 gift cards per couple, or 5 gift cards per family, or 5 gift cards per person per day, or 5 gift cards per person for the entire deal.
Generally speaking, if you want to purchase more than 5 gift cards from this deal, your best bet is to either go to multiple stores, or go to one store and do your transactions through different checkouts (or even at different times of the day when there are different staff on duty). Staff will only be able to enforce the 5 gift cards per customer rule (if they want to) if they know you have already purchased gift cards in this deal (and that is usually because staff recognise you from earlier in the day or even earlier in the deal).
Once you have your TCN gift cards, the way you use them to make a purchase from JB Hi-Fi depends on whether you go in-store or online:
If you’re going to redeem 15 (or even more), my suggestion would be to go when it is quieter at JB Hi-Fi, and also “prepare” the gift cards before you get to the store (e.g. remove cardboard packaging, scratch to reveal the PIN). The last thing I want is too many people going to JB Hi-Fi when it is busy and taking a fat stack of gift cards with them; if too many JB Hi-Fi staff complain about this, JB Hi-Fi head office will enforce limits on TCN gift card redemptions again…
Btw, make sure you tell staff you want to pay by card, not gift card.
Keep in mind that there was a one month period late last year where the option to exchange a TCN gift card for a JB Hi-Fi gift cards was removed from the TCN website, so this is something that can change without notice.
@WookieMonster: Wow what a brief explanation. Thank you so much.
I live in regional nsw so just one coles around.i will try to take couple of friend and do 100 X 5 transaction each and exchange them tcn for more convenient at jb.
Thanks a lot again
@WookieMonster: I purchased the Coles Mastercards with a similar 5-card restriction in 3 Coles stores during the last deal. In one store the operator asked me if I had purchased any that day. At the same store at the self-checkout, the operator did not ask anything. There has been mention of other conditions set by different stores just be prepared.
Is 10% off the most we can get on these gift cards for use in jb hi-fi?
Do the TCN Baby only come in $50 & $100?
Was hoping to buy some things at Baby Bunting. Anyone know how many of these can be used in one transaction there?
Do the TCN Baby only come in $50 & $100?
I checked a Coles store earlier today and only saw $50 and $100 denominations of the BABY gift card.
Anyone know how many of these can be used in one transaction there?
No idea!
Is TCN Home included in 10% discount?
According to the catalogue, no.
The catalogue only advertises TCN KIDS, TEEN, BABY, HIM and HER gift cards.
The fine print in the catalogue very clearly states excludes all other TCN gift cards not listed above.
Can I buy the vanilla Visa card for 10% off and then use the same card to buy TCN him card for another 10% off
Which means 7% + 10% .. something like that right ?
Officially speaking, no. Coles’ policy is to now allow customers to use Vanilla Visa gift cards to purchase any gift cards at Coles.
Unofficially speaking, it depends on a number of factors.
I don’t think Coles has implemented BIN checks on Vanilla Visa gift cards when purchasing gift cards at Coles, so you should not get an error message as soon as you swipe a Vanilla Visa gift card.
The fact that Vanilla Visa gift cards do not support a PIN means that a staff member will need to verify your signature against the signature on the card for purchases of $35 and over. If a staff member is doing this correctly, they will check the signature on the back of a Vanilla Visa gift card and compare it with the signature you provide on the slip of paper printed out by the checkout (and if they’re extra thorough, also compare it against any signature you may have on ID you may be carrying at the time). If a staff member is aware of what is going on, they will look at your payment method (i.e. the Vanilla Visa gift card), instantly recognise that you are trying to use a Vanilla Visa gift card as a payment method for purchasing a gift card and immediately decline the transaction. Obviously, you could try to swap your Vanilla Visa gift card for a regular bank-issued card before the staff member comes over to review your signature, but the issue with this is that nearly all Australian-issued prepaid/debit/credit cards dropped support for verifying transactions taking place in Australia through a signature in late 2014.
I’m also assuming you’ll be travelling interstate during the promotional period to avail both offers, considering VIC/TAS only have the Vanilla Visa gift card deal during that week, and NSW/ACT/QLD/SA/WA/NT only have the TCN gift card deal.
Btw, the discount for the TCN gift cards purchased using a $250 Vanilla Visa gift card is 16.57%.
i went to local coles to check how many vanilla cards there are. no 250s and five 100s. lot of 25/50/400s though lol. I hope they stock up when promo starts. Does anyone know if staff at coles stock these up during promo or even hide them so they can buy?
It’s really down to pot luck, as each store seems to have a different approach to these kinds of deals.
During the last 10% off Vanilla Visa gift card deal:
Three stores in my area nearly always had heaps of $100 and $250 Vanilla Visa gift cards at the gift card shelf. One of them had almost nothing on the gift card shelf at opening time on Wednesday morning, but when I returned that evening, the front of the gift card shelf was replaced with a sea of $100 and $250 Vanilla Visa gift cards (and it remained that way until after the deal ended).
A few other stores in my area had no stock for most of the deal. To be fair, stock could have been hidden at the service desk at some of those stores and only sold when customers went to the service desk and specifically asked about the gift cards. (I don’t like asking the service desk about gift card stock, because I don’t want to be the 100th person who has asked that question that day.)
If you believe what one Coles manager told an OzBargainer recently, stores need to order stock ahead of a gift card deal if they want to have more stock than what may be usually on a gift card shelf. Hopefully the store(s) in your area have already ordered ahead of the deal?
i see. thx for all your commends in this thread @WookieMonster. Although it's 5 cards per customer, can you grab like 20 cards and buy 5 at a time if no one is watching?
The only way you will be stopped from purchasing more than 5 gift cards at a time is through staff stopping you. There is nothing in a Coles checkout (or the Flybuys system) that will recognise you from a previous gift card purchase and automatically block you from purchasing more gift cards.
There are two factors you need to be mindful of:
Staff must manually approve all gift card purchases made through a Coles self checkout.
A store manager or duty manager must approve any gift card purchases of $1,000 or over (regardless of wherever you are checking out at a self checkout or standard checkout at Coles).
You could walk out of a store, walk back in a few minutes later and attempt do another transaction, but there is always a chance any staff members who helped you with previous transactions will recognise you and alert store management to the fact that you are trying to purchase gift cards across multiple transactions (especially if you purchase 5x $250 Vanilla Visa gift cards in your first transaction and have returned not long after to try to complete another purchase of 5x $250 Vanilla Visa gift cards).
Think about it this way, the fact that you’re trying to do multiple transactions in a short space of time can be a red flag for multiple issues, including:
Depending on what your local store(s) do, you may not be able to even be able to get away with purchasing more gift cards on another day! At my local store, one of the service supervisors recognises me, and approved a purchase of 5 gift cards on the first morning of the last 10% off Vanilla Visa gift card deal. I returned to do my normal grocery shop a few days later, and the same service supervisor came up to me and said “Hi, I hope you’re not trying to buy more of those gift cards today.” (I wasn’t.)
However, if you get lucky, you may get a nice staff member who will look the other way. During the last night of the 10% off Coles Mastercard gift card deal, I went to a quiet store where there were about 20x $100 Coles Mastercard gift cards. I went to purchase 5x, and as the self checkout assistant came over to approve the transaction, I asked if I could buy more. They paused and eventually said “yes”, but they also made doubly-sure I was not falling victim to a scam when I did my second purchase a couple of minutes later.
Personally, I think you’re asking for trouble if you want to purchase 20 gift cards in one visit, especially if you are trying to purchase 5x $250 Vanilla Visa gift cards per transaction. If you can, I would instead go to multiple stores over multiple days and keep a mental note of which staff members are on duty when you go to check out (just in case staff recognise you from previous visits).
@WookieMonster: oh right. i didn't think about staff having to approve each transaction :(. thx for all the info dude. i'll just roam around other stores and get them :)
@WookieMonster: I think most stores just follow the limit of 5 cards/day, regardless of if there is a sale going on or not.
My local had no $100 or $250 at midday but was fully stocked later that day. Same thing happened last Mastercard promo.
Are Vanilla Visa gift cards - available in any other store like office works? big W?
Has anyone been able to use the Him/Her cards to purchase Nintendo eshop cards from JB-HiFi?
Looks like you can.
Went and hid $2k worth of cards. Now to patiently wait for Wednesday and hope no one finds them haha
I live in WA, can I take a pic of the GC and ask a mate in VIC to pay for it?
Can anybody confirm if you can still purchase the TCN gift card using a shopback superswap card converted to coles groceries card. Kind of like what this person did, https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/12490102/redir
I think you need to read that comment again, more carefully this time though.
Regarding VanillaVisa
"Can not make payment with this payment type"
Looks like coles finally got one up. Rinse and repeat dead.
Also card worked elsewhere so no 4 hour delay
@WookieMonster
Wait, how did you get that error message? I’m assuming it was on a self checkout screen, and not the EFTPOS terminal screen?
I’m slightly surprised there is no 4 hour delay to activation. There was a 4.5 hour delay to activation during the Feb 2022 deal, but when I purchased a Vanilla Visa gift card from Coles on the weekend, it was activated within seconds…
No normal register. Attempted to pay for 5 cards using split payment of $250 like previosuly done bwfore.
Just swiped the vanilla visa card and the register was prompted with that error, the lady read it out.
Walked outside and then paid my rates to ensure the card was activated.
No 4 hour delay, I'm assuming they found a way to detect the vanilla card as payment OR the staff member just selected gift card payment instead of normal eftpos
If you asked to pay by card, you should have seen on the EFTPOS terminal screen the EFTPOS logo, AMEX logo, Visa logo, MC logo, an NFC logo, etc, as well as the amount owed.
If you asked to pay by gift card, the checkout would expect you to scan a barcode, so you would basically see the READY message stay on the EFTPOS terminal screen until you scan a barcode. If the checkout assistant selected gift card as a payment method, I don’t think the EFTPOS terminal or checkout would even react if you swiped a card.
Coles can easily tell what kind of card you are trying to use by looking at the card’s bank identification number (BIN), then looking at what you are purchasing. This is what Coles already does for Coles Groceries gift cards, Flybuys Dollars and the (now-discontinued) Coles Gift Mastercards to stop you from using any of them to purchase any gift cards at Coles, so I would not be surprised if they started doing this for Vanilla Visa gift cards too (or even the Coles Mastercard gift cards).
@WookieMonster: Yea its certainly blocking the type of card, atrempted at both self serve and multiple registers
@MrrMagic: For future reference, if you see an Invalid Product Mix error pop up on the EFTPOS terminal screen as soon as you swipe a card (or scan a gift card) at Coles, that means that Coles has stopped you from using that specific kind of card (or gift card) for the type of transaction you’re trying to do (e.g. purchasing a gift card).
@MrrMagic: Was bound to happen sooner or later. Big corporations don’t like it when they get played at their own game.
@WookieMonster: Would the Only1 Visa gift card work to buy the Vanilla Visa cards? Since the inception doesn't work using Vanilla Visa cards, I was thinking of buying the Only1 Visa card elsewhere using the Vanilla Visa cards bought from Coles and then use it to in turn buy the Vanilla Visa cards from Coles. I understand this will incur an additional cost of $7.95 as part of the Only1 Visa gift card activation fee per $500 worth of Vanilla Visa cards purchased but that might at least allow rinse and repeat.
@dealsgrabber: Probably.
It worked for me in Feb 2022, but I have no idea whether it would work now, mostly because I don’t have any OnlyONE Visa gift cards on hand at the moment.
I would be surprised if Coles blocked the BIN for OnlyONE Visa gift cards for purchases of gift cards in their stores, as Coles does not sell the OnlyONE Visa gift card themselves. It makes sense for Coles to block other types of gift cards (e.g. Coles Grocerices gift cards, Vanilla Visa gift cards, Coles Gift Mastercard) as payment methods for any gift cards at Coles, as Coles sell (or used to sell) them.
I just attempted to buy 1 card at self service and tried both new and old card (expiry 2025 & 2026) no luck with either
If you used the card to pay for groceries at Coles would it work?
What I'm trying to know is if they blocked based on merchant (Coles this week), or based on cart (gift cards blocked but groceries are acceptable)
Where was it on sale last week ! Must have missed it
My local Coles in Brisbane expended self checkout area. Number of checkout machines more than doubled. They also refurbished the area which is a lot nicer. I got surprised when I went there to get milk. The staff said the machine have been reprogramed as well. I don't know what they meant by that. She did ask me if I was buying gift cards too. I said just the milk but I might need to do split payments. Then she said split payments were fine, just do the same as before.
So wouldn't be surprised they have finally updated their program to stop payment for giftcards with giftcard.
I am sure there would be more feedbacks soon here.
I got 10 so pretty happy, thinking about going back for more but don't think I can spend that many.
Went in early this morning only to be told they have "sold out" and are waiting for stock to arrive. Not sure if it's just to ration availability instead of running out on first day of the week's promo.
my local Coles told me there is no stock arrived prior this promotion except the posters.
typical Coles manner.
Sads I'd rather the TCN than the VISA in VIC tbh. Who shops anywhere other than JB HiFi anyway??? ;)
Do you pay your bills, buy groceries, and everything else that credit cards can do at JBhifi
wdym i get that all at jb… what are you doing with your life?!
Trying to pay my rego online for less than $250, it can’t go through has anyone has this issue? I checked vanilla balance and is activated
How are you paying it for below 250? I enter my details in and the full amount comes up.
Sign up for quarterly payments
Thanks. Legend.
umm… extra fees occurs for that
@lgacb08: FYI
Pay your registration for 3, 6 or 12 months
-A service fee of $2.50 applies for every 3 and 6 month registration renewal, unless you hold an eligible concession card.
You can use the same flybyys card for multiple lots. They don't track it.
Just an fyi for anyone that didn't know
Dropped into a local Coles in NSW, the GC shelf only had $30 and $50 for all the eligible TCN cards but had $100 for Thanks and Home…they seem to know what's up. Went with the EDR deal instead as there were heaps of variable Ultimate $50-$500 cards.
Vanilla Visa gift cards can work on Wollies GC online|
I cant seem to use it?
Can you stack multiple cards?
No of $100 and $250 in 5 locals
Prior weeks was plenty
Standard
Came in my local Coles at the right time. The staff was replenishing the 250 vanilla cards. I bought a few and redeemed immediately for rates. There are plenty left.
Hi Clover, you mean for council rates or?
I'm having trouble paying council rates by these cards.
Quite a few $250 ones were available 1 hour back at Coles Spencer Street Melbourne Service desk
What about the gift card row? I went yesterday and saw only few 100s at the gift card section. Didn’t think about the service desk. I’ll check there lol
There were no $250 variants at the gift card row, only $100 variants on display when I checked. Hence I asked at the service desk. They had $250 variants available.
Anyone able to get me 2x$100 TCN HIM giftcards, just realised its not on sale in Vic
I was about to check my remaining balance and the vanilla website seemed dodgy asking for all the details including expiry and cvv of the card to login. Will make a note everytime i spend instead.
I think it's standard practise for websites to ask for cvv to login, same applies to the Coles prepaid Mastercard also.
You're also required to enter PIN of other gift cards when checking balances.
oh thanks for that, I haven't tried with the Coles Mastercard as I usually just finish all the amount in one go before. you're right about the normal giftcards, what am i buzzing haha
All gone in Geelong except a couple of 100s.
Has anyone tried to purchase eGift cards at Woolworths' gc portal with VanillaVisa? The waiting cycle keeps spinning once I click pay.
I suspect it has something to do with Visa's validation process.
I'm trying to do that right now. It's been loading for over 30 mins. first I tried with Firefox twice, and after 5 mins each time, I logged out and tried again with Chrome. This is on the Woolies Mobile site where I can get an extra 4% discount but it's going down for maintenance at 8pm today until 6am tomorrow! :-(((
On the previous page someone said it works if you load the card in Paypal and then use it to pay.
Thanks! :-)
![[VIC, TAS] 10% off Vanilla Visa Gift Cards (Activation Fee Applies) | [Elsewhere] 10% off Kids, Teens, Baby, Him, Her GC @ Coles](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/18/724018.jpg?h=d267df63)
@Peck: Yes, if you use your flybuys card.