[Unobtainable, NSW, ACT] 10% off $100 & $250 Vanilla VISA Gift Cards (Activation Fee $5.36/$6.75) @ Coles

Moved to Forum: Original Link

From the upcoming Coles catalogue for NSW/ACT starting February 8.

Total cost for -

  • $100 gift card = $95.36 ($90 for the card and $5.36 for activation) = 4.64%.
  • $250 gift card = $231.75 ($225 for the card and $6.75 for activation) = 7.3%.

Limit 5 Gift Cards per customer. 10% discount will be applied to the value of the card including the applicable activation fee. Total cost for $100 gift card is $95.36 ($90 for card and 55.36 for activation fee) and for $250 gift card is $231.75 ($225 for card and $6.75 for activation fee). Offer valid only in NSW and ACT only in store at Coles (excludes Coles Online. Coles Express and purchases via giftcards.com.au or coles.scanshoppay.com.au). subject to store availability. Excludes $25. $50 and $400 Vanilla Visa Gift Cards While stocks last, no rainchecks. Vanilla Visa Gift Cards cannot be used to purchase any other gift card sold at Coles. Offer valid from 8/2/23 to 14/2/23. Refer to individual gift card for terms and conditions. Vanilla Visa gift cards are issued by Heritage Bank Limited ABN 32 087 652 024 AFSL/ACLNo. 240984 pursuant to a license from Visa Worldwide Pte Limited.


Mod: Removed Mayver's Peanut Butter from the title, which was added to this existing deal the day after. Please add it as a separate post for visibility.

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Comments

  • +7

    Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this promo has been cancelled. Internal comms have just come through

    You’ll be happy to note that OzBargain was specifically mentioned in the comms

    “Q. I have been Online (likely OZ bargain) and seen 10% off Vanilla Visa Gift Cards, why is the promotion not running?
    A: A promotion that was previously planned has been cancelled due to unforeseen technical issues. We apologise for an inconvenience caused.”

    • +1

      Also removed from the upcoming Online Coles Catalogue

      Was showing on the Shopfully Catalogue at midnight, but the whole catalogue has been pulled.

      Before -> Now

      • +2

        Maybe they found a stack hidden in the freezer

        • +3

          Yea guess so, those cards probably caused accounts to be frozen, a technical issue they couldnt overcome…😀

    • +1

      No…was looking forward to this

    • +2

      Bummer although i am kinda relieved that i wont need to wake up early and hit all my local coles for $250 card now

    • But why is there no other gift card deals in other states?
      I can't find any in VIC catalogue

    • +1

      Probably there are too many reports about these cards have been magically disappeared from axles in the last a few days.

    • +1

      I'd love to know what the 'technical issues' were.

      • +16

        Having visited two Coles stores over the last couple of days, I have a theory.

        These two stores changed their gift card shelf layout to accommodate for more $250 Vanilla Visa gift cards, but I noticed some of the additional $250 Vanilla Visa gift cards added to the gift card shelves had 2024 expiry dates.

        It is a legal grey area whether Coles can sell such Vanilla Visa gift cards through this deal. You can argue that selling a $250 Vanilla Visa gift card for $231.75 is a case of selling gift cards at a genuine discount and is therefore exempt from the three year minimum expiry rule (as outlined by the ACCC). However, there are two problems with Coles attempting to do this:

        • Heaps of people will get cranky with Coles for selling a gift card with less than three years expiry, because they will think there is a blanket three year expiry rule (even though the rule has exclusions), or because they think gift cards generally should not have short expiry dates, regardless of whether gift cards are exempt or the three-year expiry rule.

        • Coles’ checkout system will not let you purchase a gift card with less than three years expiry, as you will get an error message if you attempt to do this. (I think this could be the “technical issues”.)

        Who knows the reason for these short-dated gift cards suddenly appearing at these two Coles stores. It could be that these two stores happen to go deep into their gift card shelf and suddenly found boxes of really old Vanilla Visa gift cards. However, considering the fact that I have not seen $250 Vanilla Visa gift cards with 2024 expiry dates at Coles for a long time, I suspect these gift cards were recently sent to these two stores, so there is a chance that InComm (the gift card issuer) sent heaps of short-dated Vanilla Visa gift cards to NSW and ACT stores ahead of this deal, which means that when stores run out of the existing stock of Vanilla Visa gift cards with good expiry dates, a lot of the replacement stock would be unsellable.

        Keep in mind that my sample size is two, but I am not travelling to more stores to investigate this (lol), especially since other stores probably have pulled most of their Vanilla Visa gift cards from the gift card shelf after Coles decided to call off this deal.

        • Instead of $250’s another store only stocked new $400 cards.

        • +3

          You're probably onto something WookieMonster, my local had $250 cards expiring 07/22 delivered for this promo…. The $100s were 2027 expiry though.

          • -1

            @Trance N Dance: I think it should be smart enough to remove expiry date by now, which makes the stock less likely to be written off. Expiry date can be found by balance check online so that it is not static, less vulnerable to hack as well. In-store purchase does not need expiry date anyway.

            • +1

              @Neoika: Having a set expiry date probably has something to do with the CVV code when the cards are first issued.

              edit: I'm not the one who neg'ed you, I agree that having the expiry date issued after activation will make stale stock less of an issue. (although will probably complicate things a lot more).

              edit2: After some light googling, the CVV1 code would have to be generated at time of card manufacture due to the information of CVV1 codes being stored on the magnetic stripe itself. So you would have to issue an expiry date when manufacturing the cards. For anyone playing along at home, the CVV1 code should be different to the 3 digit number printed on the back of the card (the CVV2 code).

              • +1

                @Trance N Dance: … and that explains the reason that physical Ultimate gift cards use a weird expiry date for purchases (12/29) that is separate from the expiry date used for the gift card balance (three years from date of purchase).

              • @Trance N Dance:

                I'm not the one who neg'ed you

                One of the hackers lurking here. He is already furious about the cancellation.

          • @Trance N Dance: Having checked a third store earlier today, I spotted a single $250 Vanilla Visa gift card with 2025 expiry. The others had “good” expiry dates. Weird!


            Btw, if you somehow managed to purchase one of those gift cards you saw with 2022 expiry and it was activated correctly, it would actually charge you a monthly service fee from six months after activation. This was only removed from Vanilla Visa gift cards with expiry dates of August 2023 or later, and is important to keep in mind if you purchase a Vanilla Visa gift card from another retailer. For example, The Reject Shop will happily sell you a Vanilla Visa gift card with less than three years expiry, and I once almost bought one that featured the monthly service fee! Luckily my OCD about getting gift cards with the longest expiry date allowed me to dodge a bullet there…

            • +2

              @WookieMonster: Did you try and purchase the good $250 card and see if the system applied the 10% discount? Sometimes what management does and what ends up being programed into the system are completely different things.

    • -1

      Thanks to all those whinging nally living in cheaper states with cheap electricity, rent, housing complaining about whe only NSW not in Vic or SA or QLD … :)

      Now negg my comments as much as you like… Baggers !

      • not available in Victoria either

  • +3

    Going by the terms shown in the picture, it's 10% off the fee too? So costs will be $95.36 (4.64% off) and $231.75 (7.3% off).

    • Yeah isnt it normally like this

      • Is that a question? Yes, this promo normally discounts the activation fee.

        • The post's been edited - it originally had the activation fee listed without the discount.

  • +4

    No Vic or too early to say?
    EDIT - read the T&C - looks like NSW/ACT only

  • Here we go again!

  • +5

    Nice. Heading there now to hide some in freezer lol

    • +1

      Vanilla can be hacked too. I can't find the comment yet, but pretty sure that someone said it in the Coles PMC hack topic.

      • +1

        $100 and $250 are already off the shelf in bankstown

        • There'll be new delivery from Wednesday like before.

          • @Neoika: And none in greenacre. They are on to us

            • @easternculture: I don't know how to be a head of this, I live in at both area @easternculture mentioned above but I never get any chance to get this promotion because they were gone before even started

      • If you are putting it in the freezer it will be ok!

        • +2

          I heard if you put them in the freezer they last longer, just like meat and bread.

    • +7

      I recommend hiding behind the extra small condoms

      • +8

        In our demographics, the majority would be using extra small condoms. I would hide them behind the extra large

  • Are we able to use these to pay off the council rates? I’ve got one that’s due in April, was hoping if I can use these to pay it off

    • Does your council accept Visa cards?

    • I was able to pay mine last time, depends on if your council accepts Visa

      • It says on the bill that I can go online to their website and payment by visa or MasterCard only.
        I guess I’m about to find out. Thanks everyone!

        • Should be fine! Just hopefully they let you do split payments to pay off the bill in $250 lots

    • +2

      I pay my $4k rates with them every year ‘in store’ at the council head office. And private school fees at this time every year at the office. Somewhat embarrassing and a bit of effort but since I buy the Visas using Coles/myer gift cards which I purchase at 10% discount, I save thousands off the $20k+ Charges.

      • Thanks. I thought you can’t buy the Visa cards using the Coles Group gift cards. Ik it works on gift cards to gift cards but not on the Visa/Mastercard

        • I’ve managed to do so. Can’t buy with Coles Mastercard in my experience

    • +4

      In my experience, the ATO, Council, High Court and other government bodies prefer payment with itunes gift cards.

      • Why would the average person have any cause to pay the High Court anything? Do you even know what the High Court is?

        • +1

          For various Sovereign Citizen proceedings. Sovereign Citizen matters are of national significance and as such the High Court has original jurisdiction.

          • @YesPleaseThankYou: If said citizen were sovereign unto themselves, shouldn't they have their own apex court? Shouldn't it ultimately come down to a bilateral negotiation between the High Court of Australia and the Are You High Court?

        • +4

          You're obviously neither a Medibank nor Optus customer.
          Just last week i had a call from the High Court (he had a strong subcontinental accent). He told me that i needed to pay a $2000 fine using gift cards, or they were going to issue a warrant for my immediate arrest.

          • @CacheHunter: Bugger. I hope you managed to do the needful and pay with gift cards, ideally ones that you'd pre-purchased at a discount.

  • +6
    • Spot on if you are in NSW or ACT lol

      • +1

        Yep, fortunately I'm in the former haha.

      • Any thoughts on when the next offer will be for the other states?

        • +2

          Most likely 21 June 2023 (and that would probably be a nationwide Coles Mastercard gift card deal).

    • +5
  • How hackable are these ones?

    • Very

    • +3

      The key is swap these with another Gift card straight away.

      Amazon, Wish, Aldi, Coles,

      Or pay other bills with them straight away

      • straight away

        Why ?

        • +6

          So you dont get hacked

        • +2

          Avoid the card being hacked

        • So you are the rightful owner of the card use the card funds before some hacker uses them

      • Is there a recommended best way to go about this swapping procedure?

      • Vanilla Visa Gift Cards cannot be used to purchase any other gift card sold at Coles…

        .

  • +7

    Hate this state discrimination

    • -1

      Aldi should do something similar……….

    • +2

      No discrimination here—just commercial decisions.

  • +1

    SA never got this Visa offer last time.

    Wonder why NSW and ACT only.

    • may be someone bought few million worth of card and then never used them :D :) or hacked then claim rejected by MC … lol :D … !

      • In every state but NSW or ACT?

  • Any idea if these Visa GC be used overseas?

    • They are fine to use OS.

      • Thanks @DrRalph

  • +64

    Time for a quick reminder for those not as familiar with the Vanilla Visa gift cards.


    These prepaid gift cards have no PIN associated with them.

    These prepaid gift cards do not come with a PIN at all when they are manufactured, and it is not possible to set a PIN after activation for card-present (i.e. in-person) purchases.

    If you are going to use this prepaid gift card in person, you will likely need to sign to “verify” the transaction. If you swipe the prepaid gift card on the EFTPOS terminal are asked to enter a PIN, press the Enter / OK / green key without entering anything, or press the Signature option on the screen (if that appears as an option).

    Although signature verification was phased out for Australian-issued debit and credit cards in late 2014, there still some circumstances where signature verification is still permitted in Australia, including magnetic stripe payments (which covers Vanilla Visa gift cards).

    However, if you are at a merchant that mandates you provide a PIN to authorise an in-person transaction, you will not be able to use this prepaid gift card.

    In my experience:

    • Woolworths and BIG W do not require signature verification when using these prepaid gift cards in their stores (and this goes for both purchase and refund transactions). If your prepaid gift card is active and has sufficient balance, your payment request will be approved without needing to provide a signature.1

    • Coles only requires signature verification for purchases if you are redeeming above a certain threshold (approximately $35). If you are above this threshold, the POS system will print out a small slip of paper and you will be asked to sign on the paper to verify the transaction. It will be at the discretion of the staff member at the self checkout or serviced checkout whether to accept your signature and permit the transaction. For refund transactions, you will always be asked to provide a signature.

    • Unattended terminals (e.g. parking meters with magstripe readers) should accept these prepaid gift cards without asking for any kind of verification.


    These prepaid gift cards are not accepted at some online merchants

    Merchants that do not accept these prepaid gift cards include Prezzee, Reward Gateway and Everyday Pay (Woolworths Group’s QR-based payment method).

    This is due to prepaid gift cards not being tied to a specific person and lacking the security features that allow a payment processor to ask for verification (e.g. a two-factor authentication code sent to a mobile or obtained from a token to check whether the verified cardholder is the person trying to initiate the payment).

    A workaround is to link these prepaid gift cards to a PayPal account, then use PayPal at an online merchant (where PayPal is accepted) and select the prepaid gift card as the payment source. I have done this many times at Prezzee to get around their restrictions on prepaid gift cards.

    Before anyone asks, these gift cards should be okay to use to to send payments to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) through their online portal. (I last used a Vanilla Visa gift card to on the ATO portal at the end of 2022.) These prepaid gift cards attract a 0.4% payment surcharge and ATO’s systems will only permit you to redeem five different prepaid gift cards in a 12-24 hour period, so remember to factor this in when planning to send any payments.


    These prepaid gift cards are (particularly) susceptible to BIN attacks (aka “hacks”)

    Although any Visa/Mastercard/AMEX/etc card is susceptible to bank identification number (BIN) attacks (where someone tests multiple potential combinations of card numbers, expiry dates and CVV2 values), prepaid gift cards are particularly susceptible, due to a limited pool of potential expiry dates, as well as the lack of sophisticated fraud prevention and fraud detection systems you usually find implemented at “regular” financial institutions (e.g. CommBank, Westpac, AMEX).

    If you notice someone manages to redeem part or all of the balance of your prepaid gift card, you can dispute transactions with the issuer (Heritage Bank).


    You may have up to 120% of a transaction value deducted from your prepaid gift card

    Some merchants will request a pre-authorisation amount that is up to 120% of the transaction value. However, when the transaction is no longer pending, the amount deducted from your prepaid gift card will be settled at the transaction amount, and the additional funds set aside to cover the pre-authorisation amount will be returned the available balance.

    I have noticed this happen at hairdressers and restaurants, and the terms and conditions also mention this potentially happening at hotels, rental car place, etc.

    This means that you may not be able to redeem your prepaid gift card at some merchants, even though you think it has a sufficient available balance. For example, I once tried to use a Vanilla Visa gift card with $34 on it to pay for a $30 meal at a restaurant, but the card kept on being declined. The card issuer later told me it was due to the restaurant wanting to use $36 as the pre-authorisation amount (not $30), so my transactions were being declined due to insufficient available balance.


    1. My assumption is that this is the same situation in-store at Dan Murphy’s, BWS and EG Ampol, as their POS systems are extremely similar to Woolworths’ and BIG W’s POS system. 

    • +11

      Thank you WM for being the encyclopaedia of gift cards.

    • So no Coles prepaid MC GC for Feb? Next ETA?

      • Probably 21 June

      • this deal looks almost the same as coles MC, not sure if stock will be also same (empty b4 1st day 9am :(

    • +1

      Usually the 120% issue is at hotels specifically

      The restaurant may have had their terminal setup as a hotel one similarly

    • +1

      Woolworth's only allows small transactions now without a signature. I tried a transaction of $98 a few weeks ago and it came up as over account limit, but worked fine for $5. I'm guessing the limit is the same as Coles of around $35.

    • Thanks for the detailed analysis.

      Do you know if these work at Post office to pay ATO ?
      Coles mastercard didn’t work late last year.

      • No idea.

        I called the ATO three times in the space of a couple of weeks last year to try and get a payment slip with the barcode that can be used at Australia Post, but every time I was sent a document, the barcode was missing! I wasted about four hours on the phone in total trying to do this, so I gave up and continued making payments online. I view the card surcharges that I pay for online payments as the cost of convenience.

  • +1

    last time I tried using this type of card for HCF reward then they allowed use of one card and then keep rejecting all remaining cards, they refunded money after few days but i lost the card discount deals… !

    same, tried to use this to buy discounted woolworths/bigw gift card through online woolworth mobile portal and they rejected use of this gift card… !

    there are many many many potential that they may not work on everywhere … !

    • +6

      In regards to HCF Thank You, that is probably due to their overall fraud detection algorithm kicking in. I suspect it is the portal’s way of trying to minimise exposure to potentially fraudulent transactions without them paying their payment processor extra to force 3-D Secure checks on a transaction.

      I once managed to have my account temporarily blocked after using three different prepaid gift cards in three different transactions in the space of a few days. It took a couple of emails and a phone call to get access to my account back, but now I make sure to not purchase more than two gift cards in the space of a few days on that portal.


      In regards to the Woolworths Group gift card portal you accessed via Woolworths Mobile, that portal has been cracking down on the use of prepaid gift cards for a couple of years now.

      The workaround is to link the Vanilla Visa gift card to a PayPal account, and then use PayPal as the payment method, ensuring you select the Vanilla Visa gift card as the payment source.

      • +4

        PayPal is great for the Prepaid Gift Cards

        • Too bad not all of them work

    • +1

      @SydBoy @WookieMonster Yesterday I was able to buy a Woolworths gift card on RAC WA website directly with a $100 TCN the grocery mastercard gift card. Not via PayPal.

      This grocery card is a new card from card.gift for businesses with a supermarket merchant category code.
      Woolworths gift card was listed on the transaction on the TCN app.

      The Woolworths gift card took about 13 hours to arrive after order confirmation. Normally would arrive within 10 mins.

      In Dec, I wasn't able to purchase Woolworths gift cards on RAC WA website directly with the Coles MC card.
      A second order was cancelled and refunded when I linked the Coles MC to PayPal.

      Perhaps this grocery card is new and the Woolworths system hasn't detected it yet.

      • +1

        Perhaps this grocery card is new and the Woolworths system hasn't detected it yet.

        That would be my guess too.

        I would have thought Woolworths Group would have been blocking prepaid gift cards based on a 3-D Secure check, but the fact that a lot of prepaid gift cards still work on the portal indicates Woolworths Group is instead probably blocking cards based on BINs known to be used for frequently-used prepaid gift cards.

        During the last Vanilla Visa gift card deal in September 2022, a few of us (including me) tried purchasing gift cards from the Woolworths Group portal using a Vanilla Visa gift card, but the checkout page did not process any payments. The PayPal workaround was the only way to use the Vanilla Visa gift cards on the portal. However, you do rightly point out that the PayPal workaround is not 100% reliable…

        • @WookieMonster I've another TCN the grocery card but wasn't able to add this as mastercard payment to my PayPal. Tried several times and got this message: The information entered is not valid. Check your entries or try a different payment method.

          PayPal is rejecting the new card.

          I was able to buy another Woolworths gift card on RAC WA/WW website with the grocery card as payment directly. Received the gift card straightaway.

          • +1

            @trixieb: That would likely be because the TCN grocery gift card is an MCC-restricted prepaid gift card, which means it only works at selected MCCs. PayPal should use a generic business services MCC is not usually associated with grocery stores, so I am hardly surprised that the PayPal trick did not work for that particular type of prepaid gift card.

  • +2

    Got excited until I realised it's NSW/ACT only 😭

  • +3

    to avoid hacking, i hope the cards by now should have placed some more security features on to it… ! unfortunately they are real threat to hacking as per all previous post here … so be careful what & how many you buy.. in my opinion… !

  • Am I correct to assume that, if prompted by the CC Terminal, we hit debit & not credit?

    • +2

      For EFTPOS terminals in Australia, select Credit (not Savings, not Cheque), because the Vanilla Visa gift card operates on the Visa network, and choosing Credit will ensure your payment is routed through the Visa network.

      At some retailers though (e.g. Coles, Woolworths, BIG W, Officeworks), you will never be asked to choose which network to route your payment through, as some retailers check the data on the magstripe to determine whether your card is a dual-network card; considering Vanilla Visa gift cards only support the Visa network, you will never be given a choice at such retailers.

  • wow. here we go again!

    Gratz from VIC

  • Really? No ViC this time.

    • +1

      Mexicans got the Australian Open :o) !

  • +9

    Bankstown Lakemba and punchbowl I’ve hidden them in the pork meat shelf

    I know it will be safe there and nobody will touch that 🤣

    • How about Auburn

      In Sutherland area, i just hide them in the halal section. Nobody ever goes there

  • In regards to hacking, Is it safer to add them to apple wallet?

    • +4

      to spend it asap, that is the best way to avoid hacking

    • +4

      You cannot add these prepaid gift cards to a mobile wallet.

      Even if you could, it would not safeguard your prepaid gift card’s balance, because adding it to a mobile wallet only means you are storing a virtual copy of it on your device. Anyone who knows the information on the physical card itself will still be able to redeem the funds off it.

      • +1

        Thanks!

  • Does anyone know the answers to these:
    - Can these cards be added into Apple/Google Pay?
    - Also, once these cards are added into PayPal, can we send funds to other PayPal accounts with these cards as the payment source?

  • Damm no SA? Ohwell

    Last time I had a 5x and 10x Flybuys boost!

  • +8

    Read heaps of horror stories about cards being drained before they were used https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/721415. Decided the small discount is not worth the potential stress and worry they bring.

    • +7

      Absolutely true, not sure who negged but with the current rates being provided by banks and loosing 250$ dollars at once erases all the gains made
      I just lost 228$ out of 250$ card and over a month nothing has moved, not sure even I would be refunded

      • +3

        That sucks. :( Hope you get refunded.

        From all of the stories I have heard on Ozbargain I wouldn't bother with this deal unless you are going to spend or transfer it to another gift card straight away.

      • How long did u get the card before its hacked? Wonder if its safe to get if im going to use it fast

    • +1

      I’ve discovered 2 hackings recently, in 1/1/23 and 3/1/23. Each for 4x transactions totally almost $200. From VM Games and TicTok! Filling in dispute resolution forms now. 1st lot to be hacked and I’ve purchased close to 100 over past 2 years

      • How long have you been holding these cards

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