Lessons Learned at the Coinstar Machine

January 6, 2016 By Rob Gavin - 23 Comments

Maria and I have this coin jar that we put all of our change into (like many of you, I'm sure). We slowly fill it up with coins and when it finally reaches the top, we get to cash it in. The first time we filled the jar was a few months ago. Maria and I decided to take it to our grocery store and use the Coinstar machine.

I'm sure you've seen these green boxes in your local grocery store; they're pretty much everywhere. We've had a few experiences with Coinstar (and we love the ability to cash in our change for something more useful), but take our word for it: you definitely want to know all of your options before you cash in your coins. Here's everything you need to know.

Lesson #1 – Coinstar will charge you 11% to redeem your coins for a cash voucher.

This first lesson is the main point of Coinstar: they'll sort your money for you so you can get cash, but they want to charge you to do it. The first time Maria and I went to Coinstar, we knew they charged something, but we didn't know how much. We were a little surprised to see that it was 11%. That's quite a chunk of change (pun so intended).

But we also learned something else that first time we went to Coinstar. A little trick to get around that 11% fee:

Lesson #2 – You can opt for a gift card instead and receive 100% of your coin value.

The first time we used Coinstar, we saw there was a menu option to get a giftcard. Not wanting to fork over over 11% of our change, we decided to give it a try. When we saw that Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic was one of the places you could get a giftcard from at 100% of the value of your coins, we were sold. Maria and I both supplement our wardrobe with inexpensive essential items from both of these stores. This choice was a no-brainer.

We recently filled our coin jar to the brim once again, and we couldn't wait to trade in our cash for another Old Navy gift card. Little did we know, we were in for an adventure (ok, I may be exaggerating a little bit).

Our first stop was Kroger, to the exact same Coinstar machine we had used the first time we emptied our coin jar.

We had already started putting the coins into the hopper when we decided we should probably go through the menu options and select our giftcard. And then, confusion set in.

Where was the giftcard menu? It had vanished. After a moment, Maria looked it up on the Coinstar's website. And that's how we learned Coinstar lesson number three.

Lesson #3 – Not all Coinstar locations offer gift cards.
Not even the same machine that provided gift cards a few months ago.

My lovely wife was seriously disappointed.

Thwarted, we decided to look up other locations on the Coinstar website to see which ones near us did offer giftcards. Maria quickly glanced at the Find a kiosk information on her phone and we headed to our next destination: Walmart!

We checked the menu first to see if this kiosk offered gift cards. It did!

Maria was happy.
For about 20 seconds.

We clicked on the giftcard icon to see all the options available. And there were only six, none of which were useful to us.

Don't get me wrong, the options were nice, but they weren't going to help us dress well on a budget. After two unsuccessful attempts, disappointment set in once again.

In all fairness, the Find a Kiosk feature did list all of the gift card options for that particular machine. We just didn't know we had to pay close attention to the list.

And so, we learned our next lesson:

Lesson #4 – not all Coinstar machines offer the same coupons.

This knowledge in hand, we checked the Coinstar website again. If you look at the “Kiosk Details” for the kiosks that come up in your search, it tells you what giftcards are offered at that Coinstar machine. I searched for another Coinstar machine in our area and knew exactly where to go to get a giftcard that we actually wanted.

When we pulled up to our third (and hopefully final) store, Maria could hardly contain her excitement.

There it was. Our holy grail of gift cards. Also known as “Gap Options.” Don't let the Old Navy logo fool you. It's actually good at all three stores in the Gap family.

Now that we actually had what we were looking for, we started using the machine. Coinstar kiosks are very simple to operate. First you dump your coins in the hopper, then you tilt the hopper up to dump the coins into the sorter.

It sounds like a big drum is spinning inside and you hear the coins clattering and clanking about as they are sorted. While that's happening, you can watch the dollar amount and the coin counts on the screen increase.

And after that, the machine should spit out your giftcard on a paper receipt.

Except, ours broke.

Which sounds bad, but it turned out to be great news.

And so we learned the greatest Coinstar lesson of all:

Lesson #5 – When Coinstar fails to issue you a giftcard, it gives you a cash voucher AT NO CHARGE.

We went to Coinstar hoping for a giftcard and walked away with 100% of our cash!

What You Need to Know Before You Use the Coinstar Machine

A few weeks ago, Maria and I thought we knew everything about Coinstar and how the service works. As it turns out, we learned a few extra lessons last week. Here's what we now know:

Lesson #1 – Coinstar will charge you 11% to redeem your coins for a cash voucher.
Lesson #2 – You can opt for a gift card instead and receive 100% of your coin value.
Lesson #3 – Not all Coinstar locations offer gift cards.
Lesson #4 – Not all Coinstar machines offer the same coupons.
Lesson #5 – When Coinstar fails to issue a giftcard, it gives you a cash voucher AT NO CHARGE.

Our weekend started off with a really simple task that resulted in three trips with many ups and downs. I guess it really was sort of an adventure. Regardless, we will definitely use the Coinstar kiosk again. It's a great way to add a little bonus money to our budget.

Comments