Safeway's New Gas Rewards Are the Real Deal!

If you ever shop at Safeway it would have been hard to miss that they've changed the way that Safeway Club members earn gas discounts. After all, they issued all of their employees new red t-shirts advertising the program, spent weeks handing out brochures about the new program both in the stores and at their gas stations, and posted huge banners and flags at all of their locations as well. However, awareness does not always equal understanding, so I figured I'd share with y'all just how great this new program is.

Old Safeway Club Card Gas Program

Up until September 30, 2008 Safeway offered a $0.03 per gallon discount to all holders of their loyalty card. Additionally, when shoppers purchased $50 or more of "qualifying products" in a single transaction they would receive an additional $0.07 per gallon discount bringing their total discount to $0.10/gallon. "Qualifying products" included everything except liquid dairy products (ie. milk), CRV (California Redemption Value aka recycling fee), tobacco, alcohol, gift cards, postage stamps, gasoline, lottery tickets, commuter passes, money orders, event tickets, and most prescription medications. The bulk of these exemptions (and I may have missed a few as I'm working from memory here) are actually a matter of state law and not Safeway's choice.

When a shopper had earned one or more discounts and visited the Safeway gas station they would receive the $0.10/gallon discount instead of the $0.03/gallon discount. Regardless of how many $0.10 discounts earned, the maximum discount that could be applied to a single purchase was $0.10 per gallon.

New Safeway Club Card Gas Program

As of October 1, 2008 Safeway still offers a $0.03 per gallon discount to all holders of their loyalty card. Additionally, every time a shopper spends $100 on "qualifying products" they will receive a single $0.10 per gallon discount. This discount supercedes the standard $0.03/gallon discount. The amount spent is recorded with each, individual purchase and stored. Thus, although the amount of spending required to earn the discount has been doubled the removal of the single transaction requirement makes the goal much more easy to reach.

Even better, when the shopper visits the Safeway gas station they will have the choice to use their current Power Pump Rewards discount or to continue to let it grow. There is now no limit on the number of $0.10 discounts that can be applied to a single transaction. Well, other than the actual price of a gallon of gas.

What This Means For You

In the past if you didn't regularly spend more than $50 in a single transaction you might be tempted to buy a few extra things (and spend extra money) just to earn the higher gas discount. Of course, as nice as $0.10 per gallon sounds it doesn't really add up to much - $2.00 on a 20 gallon fill up. But with the new program allowing spending to "roll over" from one transaction to another there's no need to buy additional items. Additionally, since the savings rewards are also cumulative you can earn a much greater disount on your gas as well!