Disclaimer: This post contains a referral. This referral gives both you and me (the referrer) a $5 credit into our Cashrewards accounts. More information can be found here (where I first knew about this promotion).

I will include a step by step guide on how to purchase these digital cards in a future post. Step by Step guide on how to purchase Woolworths eGift Cards for 5% off

Last Updated: October 22nd 2017

At Cashrewards, you can purchase “Woolworths eGift Cards” at any time for 5% off. For Sydney and any other cities in Australia where you can top up your Public Transport card at Woolworths, this is great because this is one of the few ways to get a discount off non-discretionary spending.

In addition to this, you can actually purchase this from certain members on Ozbargain for 7% off. However, this means you are unable to use your Credit Card to pay and there is an element of trust involved.

Pre-requisites:

• Membership with Cashrewards.com.au [Referral link/Non-referral link]
• Willingness to buy groceries from Woolworths/Big W, petrol from Caltex/Woolworths, Alcohol from BWS/Dan Murphy’s
• A credit/debit card which you can use for online purchases

Usable at:

• Woolworths
• Most Caltex/Woolworths (i.e. petrol) – If the station shows “save 8c/L”, they accept eGift Card. If it shows 4c/L or “Starmart”, they do not accept eGift Card.
• BIG W
• Dan Murphy’s
• BWS
• Thomas Dux
• Cellarmasters
• Masters – until they completely disappear

Key info:

• The eGift Card will be sent to you as an attachment to your email address within 48 hours of purchase (this is not a physical card)
• This usually arrives within 6 hours
• As this is just a bunch of digits with a PIN number, this can be shared with others. Handy for when you want your housemate/partner to grab milk on the way home and use your eGift Card to pay.
• The gift cards can be purchased at any value ranging from $5 to $500 (including odd values like $201.38)
• You do not have to use up the whole amount of the gift card at once. It’s like using up your own money from your debit card
• The eGift Cards have 12 month expiry (from the time the card is generated)

Instructions for using the eGift Card at Woolworths

• At self check-out, select “eGift Card” (bottom option): Photo
• At a manned counter/cashier, say “I wish to pay by eGift Card”
• If you only have $3.51 remaining, you can manually key that in via self check-out. You can also ask the assistant to type this in for you at a manned checkout.

To use the eGift Card at other participating merchants at a manned checkout, tell the attendant that you wish to pay by “e-Gift Card”

Stash of Info

• You can pay for these with Credit Cards including American Express (they will also be treated as Supermarket purchases, qualifying for 3pts/$ with the AMEX Platinum Edge card)
• These purchases are not charged as cash advances
• This is a good way to contribute to/meet the necessary spend threshold for “Spend $X and get ??k Points” Credit Card promotions
• You can use eGift Cards to top up your Opal Card, thus giving you 5% off your public transport spend in Sydney
• You may not cash out of these gift cards (I’ve tried so you don’t need to :))
• Can be combined with Staff Discount and Woolworths Rewards promotions (this is merely a payment method)
• The Woolworths Money [Android/iOS] app is really useful for monitoring your account balances and storing your balances. Although the rating on both app stores is not very high, I can personally attest to the Android version being really good and user friendly.
• The app allows you to view transactions made with the eGift card, expiry and balance (data connection required)
• The app also has a feature which allows you to add your Woolworths Rewards card and view expiry of fuel vouchers stored in your card
• Convert these eGift cards to physical WISH gift cards to maximise the acceptance at Woolworths/Caltex stations, as some stations only accept physical WISH gift cards and not eGift Cards

Other tips:

• Cashrewards is an extremely versatile website which offers cashback on many of your online purchases provided you “click-through” their affiliate links. This blog post is merely to highlight one of the most versatile deals.
• As with most merchants, refunds are supposed to go back to the original form of payment. As they cannot generate a eGift Card in-store for you, you will most likely be refunded on a physical gift card.
  • Sometimes the person working will just give you cash, but this is the exception rather than the norm
• You are technically not allowed to “convert” these to physical gift cards. However, from my experience, they are usually ok with it. Good reasons to use include:
  • My parents will be using it and they are not familiar with using eGift Cards
  • I am worried about the security of the digits sitting in my email in case I get hacked
  • I wish to give this as a gift to someone
• The advantage of having a physical gift card is there is reportedly (from Ozbargain comments) greater acceptance at Caltex/Woolworths
• Works in any state/territory of Australia, including, I believe, Tasmania

For the equivalent discount at Coles, you must be a customer of AGL, Red Energy or Australian Unity (Private Health Insurance):

• AGL offer it as part of their AGL Rewards Program for existing customers.
• Red Energy offer it as part of their Red Rewards Program
• Australian Unity offer it to their customers as part of their Wellplan Rewards Program.

Unfortunately, the Coles Digital Gift Cards are generally not as easy to obtain as you need to be a customer with one of the merchants. Additionally, Coles Digital Gift Cards tend to apply Credit Card surcharges upon payment, and there is no equivalent app to the Woolworths Money app to track Coles Digital Gift Card balances.

There was a good summary posted on Ozbargain on how to obtain Coles gift cards for 5% off.

Summary/TL;DR

Buy Woolworths WISH eGift Cards from Cashrewards (Referral link) at 5% off, at any time of the day, week, month, or year. This can be used on all your purchases at Woolworths, Big W, most Caltex/Woolworths, Dan Murphy’s and BWS. This includes topping up your Opal Card, cigarettes, mobile recharges, iTunes Gift Cards, and petrol!

Alternatively, buy it for 7% off from an Ozbargain member. This transaction will however be based on trust.