Do Liquor Stores Earn a Grocery or Dining Bonus?
This guide explains why liquor stores miss those bonuses and how to earn on alcohol anyway.
Why liquor stores miss the bonus
A standalone liquor or package store is coded as a liquor store, a category of its own, not as a supermarket or a restaurant. So a grocery card or dining card sees a liquor store and pays only its base rate, even though you are buying food-and-drink adjacent items. It is the store’s category code, not the product, that matters.
Where alcohol does earn a bonus
The same bottle earns differently depending on where you buy it. Alcohol purchased at a grocery store rings up under the grocery code and earns the grocery bonus, and drinks at a restaurant or bar code as dining and earn the dining bonus. So if earning matters, buying wine with your groceries beats a separate trip to the liquor store, at least for rewards.
How to earn the most
For a standalone liquor store, a flat-rate card avoids the base-rate hit, since no category bonus applies. When you can, fold alcohol into a grocery run to earn the grocery bonus, or enjoy it as part of a restaurant meal for the dining bonus. It is a small optimization, but a clear example of coding deciding your reward.
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