Your Complete Guide to Giant Food Stores

So, you’ve just moved to the Keystone state and your closest grocery store is a Giant Food Stores. All your life, you’ve been accustomed to your Safeway or your Piggly Wiggly. There is a certain tragedy in having to learn a new grocery store, especially when you don’t know where to start.

What is the ad cycle? What is the coupon policy? Do they have a points system and how does it work? How do I get a bonus card? It can be quite overwhelming.

Don’t worry, I’ll answer all those questions and more in this complete guide to our well-loved Giant Food Stores.

The Three Giants

In some parts (the best parts) of Pennsylvania, we have Giant. The logo looks like this:

In other states, such as Maryland, Virginia, or Delaware, they also have Giant. Their logo looks like this:

If you live in Western or Northern Pennsylvania, you have Giant Eagle. Their logo looks like this:

What is the most annoying part about all this? None of these are the same company.

They carry the same products and the same store brands, but they are not the same company. Your customer loyalty card from Giant Food Stores will not work at Maryland Giant and vice versa. It’s all very confusing and unnecessary, if you ask me.

This is a guide to Giant Food Stores. There’s not much reason to read any further if the logo on your Giant does not look like this:

Unless you really like reading guides to random grocery stores. I won’t stop you.

Customer Loyalty Card

Giant Food Stores does have a loyalty card you can easily sign up for and I strongly suggest that you do. This is the card you scan during checkout to get the sale price, gather points, and get exclusive offers.

In order to get a loyalty card, waltz on into any Giant Food Stores and find the customer service desk. Ask those lovely customer service people for a loyalty card and they will be happy to give you one.

You should be given three separate physical cards: one wallet sized and two key chained sized. They all have the same loyalty number and can be used interchangeably.

To make your life easier and really take advantage of all this card has to offer, register it at Giantfoodstores.com or in the Giant food stores app. This will link the card to your phone number, allow you to keep track of all points you earn, and use digital coupons (I’ll explain those last two later).

Giant Food Stores Weekly Ads

Like almost every retail store in existence, Giant Food Stores has a weekly ad. Unlike almost every retail store in existence, their ad drops on Friday. I’m not sure why it isn’t released on Sunday like everyone else, but maybe they just wanted that edge.

You can access their ad a few different ways:

• Online – You can go to Giantfoodstores.com and navigate to the Weekly Ad page.

• App – If you decide to use the app, navigate to the “Savings” tab at the bottom of the page, then click “Weekly ad”

• Mail – If you live close to a Giant, they should send you a paper ad in the mail sometime during the week.

• In store – On the day the ad drops, it will be available in store. There is usually a stack available right as you walk in the store, but you can always ask Customer Service if you don’t see them.

If you are online or using the app, you can see a preview of Friday’s upcoming ad on Thursday of that week.

If you really don’t want to wait till Thursday, you can find a preview of the ad at For The Mommas. She posts the upcoming Friday ad on the previous Sunday.

Giant Food Stores Choice Rewards

The Giant Food Stores Choice Rewards program is a points accumulation program. On the most basic level, $1 spent is 1 point earned. The more you shop, and the better you pay attention, the more points you earn.

There are several ways to use points to your benefit.

• Grocery dollars – 100 choice points is equal to $1 off your grocery bill. You can redeem these on the Giant website or in the app.
• Freebies – You can cash in points to earn various freebies. The most common one these days is cashing in 5 points to earn a free small item, such as a yogurt or a drink. This can also be redeemed on the website or in the app.
• Free Turkey – Around Thanksgiving, you can cash in 400 points to earn a free turkey or other specified item. A cashier or customer service member will have to print you a coupon that you can then use for purchase.
• Gas points – 100 choice points is equal to $0.10 off per gallon of gas at any Giant Gas station. You can get a maximum of 25 gallons of discounted gas. Unlike some stores I could mention, Giant does not limit your discount on gas. This means that you could get enough points to get an entire tank of gas for free.

As a couponer, the Giant Food Stores Choice Rewards program is my bread and butter. If you take the time to pay attention, you can get some pretty sweet deals using Choice Rewards.

In the interest of length, I wrote a completely separate article about how to use your Choice Points.

My short warning is that points do expire. They will expire on the last day of the following month from which they were earned. For example, if you earned them any time in October, they expire on November 30th.

Saving at Giant Food Stores

Some time ago, what I can only assume was a competing grocery store started this awful rumor that Giant is a more expensive grocery store to shop at. This may be true for some places and some people, but overall, I have not found this to be the case.

The trip to the grocery store can be as expensive or as budget friendly as you want it to be. If you want some clues on how to save at the grocery store without using coupons, check out some of my favorite grocery store hacks.

Giant has a variety of ways to offer you savings, which include but are certainly not limited to:

• Bonus buy savings (basically just what’s on sale)
• Saving X dollars when you spend Y dollars
• Buy a quantity of X, and save Y dollars
• Choice points (discounted gas, c’mon)
• In ad coupons

Giant is a grocery store that forces you to pay attention in order to reap the benefits of their savings. Some people don’t want to do this, and some people simply don’t have the time. Whatever your reasoning is, make sure to give Giant a little time, and maybe a little bit more of your attention, before you write them off as expensive.

Couponing at Giant Food Stores

Giant Food Stores does have an official coupon policy and you’ll want to make sure you read it thoroughly. Giant is one of my favorite places to coupon but there is a lot to cover. I get into all the nitty-gritty details in my post about how to coupon at Giant, but I’ll give a very brief summation here.

Giant Food Stores will accept several different types of coupons:

• Manufacturer Coupons: these can be from the Sunday paper, Coupons.com, or any other coupon provided by a manufacturer.
• Digital Coupons: Giant Food Stores provide coupons through their app or website. You can load them directly to your loyalty card and they will come off during checkout.
• In ad coupons: these are coupons that are found within the physical ad. They need to be cut from the physical ad and presented at the time of purchase.

You can usually combine coupons with any of the savings listed above, as well as rebates from Ibotta or Fetch.

Giant Direct

Giant Direct is another great service that Giant Food Store offers. There are two ways to use it:

• In Store pick up – Go online, fill up your virtual cart, check out, then drive to the store and park in one of their designated spots. A store associate will shop, bag, and bring all your groceries out to your car.
• Grocery drop off – Go online, fill up your virtual cart, check out, then put on your comfy pants and wait. Your grocery items will be shopped, bagged, and delivered to your front door. There are fees involved in this unless you have a subscription for the Giant Choice Pass.

If you’re someone who is known to be an impulse buyer at the grocery store, this may be a helpful service for you. It’s a way to ensure you get only what you need, and you don’t walk out with the Doritos that were looking at you like a lost puppy that needed a new home.

I’ll admit, I don’t use Giant Direct much since I get a weird serotonin boost out of grocery shopping. But every now and then, I’ll catch a good online deal that I can’t pass up.

For example, this Huggies deal:

By ordering online through Giant Direct, you save $20 when you spend $60. In addition, you get the in-store deal of $10 off two boxes. $30 saved on diapers!? YES PLEASE.

Giant Direct is a great service for those that are too busy for the grocery store, those that don’t like the grocery store, or those that always go in for one thing and leave with a $200 bill. Whatever your reasoning, remember that this can definitely be an option for you.

Final Thoughts on Giant Food Stores

Learning a new grocery store is always a bit of a hassle. Not only do you have to figure out WHERE THE HECK your favorite salsa went, you also have to learn all the new rules, policies, and savings system.

By reading this guide to Giant Food Stores, I hope you’re not a bit more prepared for your next trip under the big, red G.

Happy shopping and happy saving everyone!