Target Circle Bonus
You all know that I love myself some Target, even if their RedCard deal isn't an amazing win like it used to be. Their programs offer a lot of opportunity for people that like to maximize things and their Target Circle bonus is one such instance. This isn't a one off deal either, every month or so your Target Circle account will be targeted for a new bonus offer. I wanted to set up a post to alert you to when these Target Circle bonus offers are happening and explain why I love them so much.
Update 3/26/24: New offers have come out and I have bolded my latest one below.
What Is The Target Circle Bonus?
In your Target app, or when logged into your online Target account, you can pull up the Target Circle deals. These will often be digital coupons, or offers on specific goods for purchases online or in store. Every month or so you will also get a targeted (pun intended) Target Circle Bonus offer. This is kind of like a catch all offer.
It is a spending offer and it can be different for everyone. Some months it will be very rewarding and other months it won't be so great. I have had offers that required one spending trip and others that required two or three. A spending trip is just a checkout, you can do them back to back at the self checkout.
My offer this time around is spend $80 twice and earn $15 in Target rewards. You do need to activate these offers before using them. The rewards are loaded to your Target Circle account and you can redeem them at check out by scanning your the barcode in your Target app or by entering your phone number at check out. You need to select to redeem the rewards before scanning to use them, or you can save them for later. They pair up with any Target Circle earnings you get from your normal shopping.
Link To Target Circle Offers
Some Previous Offers I Have Had
Here are some Target Circle bonus offers I have had in the past:
- Spend $90 on time get $10
- Spend $90 on time get $10 (secondary offer this month)
- Spend $70 three times get $20
- Spend $40 get $5 in Target Circle Rewards
- Spend $50 twice get $10
- Spend $60 three times get $15
- Spend $110 once get $10
- After spending $80 2 times get $15 in Target rewards
- Spend $60 3 times get $15
- Spend $60 3 times get $10
- A purchase of $75 or more gets $10
- Spend $50 3 times get $15
- Spend $60 3 times get $20
These amounts all talk about one checkout, so it isn't a cumulative goal. You can't spend $20 one trip and $40 the next trip to trigger the $60. You can go to self checkout and break up your purchase, assuming multiple items, into different transactions and that will count.
What Makes The Target Circle Bonus Extra Sweet
You may be thinking this sounds decent, but I don't really shop at Target much. That is okay, because there are ways around that. Target sells a lot of different third party gift cards. While the selection of options is not as vast as you will see at Kroger or Staples etc., it is decent. They have a lot of restaurants, Uber, Disney, some stores and other regional cards. The cool thing is buying these work to trigger the requirements.
Let's say you have a Disney trip upcoming, you could buy $60 worth of gift cards on 3 separate transactions and trigger $10 or $15 back. That is like getting 5.5% – 8.3% off, if you value Target bucks at face value. Wait, it gets better!
While the front facing discount may not be worth jumping on all the time, which will depend on your offer, there is a way to make this better. If you have a Target RedCard you can stack the discounts. That is because the Target RedCard gets 5% off at Target. If you have one of those debit or reloadable cards from their promos you can use this. You could have that RedCard credit card collecting dust somewhere from before miles and points too.
The interesting thing with the RedCard is the 5% discount is taken off at the register. Normally with credit cards you get that as cash back you can redeem later. That seems like it could create an issue, but the Target Circle bonus does not take the discount into account. So, if you buy $60 worth of Disney gift cards it will only bill your RedCard $57 but it will still trigger the $60 requirement. That is because the system looks at the total before the discount is applied.
Crunching The Numbers
Let's take a look at the $15 back deal on 3 $60 purchases above. This is the offer I get most often. If I make those purchases with my Target RedCard I am billed $171 (5% off $180) across three transactions of $60. That will net me $15 in Target Circle rewards, which post pretty much automatically.
I can then use those rewards to buy toilet paper, paper towels, chips etc. People that say they can't buy anything at Target are lying to themselves by the way. Moving on!
When you account for the $15 discount that is like getting the gift cards for $156 or 13.3% off. Now we're cooking with gas! The other awesome thing is you can do this in one trip and just break up the gift card purchase into 3 transactions at self checkout. This is one of the ways I save on my YouTube TV cost every month.
RELATED: The Taste Of Sweet Victory! My Results After Living Off Of Gift Cards All January & Lessons Learned
Target Rewards: ToP Thoughts
I love quirky little wins like this. I drive by Target stores often enough that this is pretty easy to do but you should be able to do it online as well. Check out your current Target Circle bonus offer and share the details with us over in the ToP Facebook Group. Then leverage it to get a nice discount on something else you find more useful. Or, you could just earn it shopping at Target I guess. What a novel idea!
