Walgreens Rewards Card pilot program ending

[kalmekrzy]

For those in the three areas that were the test market for the Walgreens Rewards Card, the program is ending Dec 31. Some sort of loyalty program will start once all the store have been updated to the new POS system. We were told in our managers meeting that customers can earn points until Dec 31 and have until Jan 31 to redeem their points. If a customer chooses to redeem their points for $5 certificates, customers have 90 days from the time they are printed to redeem them. Each one of the three test markets were a little bit different. Here in Portland you had to have a card to get sale prices and the coupons in the ad were clipless. It was nice not having to scan the coupons in the weekly ad and it'll take some time getting used to scanning the coupons once again. I imagine that there will be customers that aren't going to be happy that the program is ending but at least in the Portland market we will no longer miss out on RR that we got bonus points instead. That was one of the frustrating things about the program. We would get customers that would come in to get RR on a particular item that they had read about in a coupon blog and it wouldn't be in the ad as a RR instead it would be bonus points. The Lindt chocolate RR was like that this past week.

Customers enrolled in the program will be getting either an email or letter on or around Dec. 1st informing them of the change.
But I thought I would post the info to let people know. I feel bad for some of my customers who have been saving up their points for big
items like airline tickets. I have been saving mine up for
something big but I guess Ill be redeeming them for $5 wag certificates to buy Christmas
stuff. I have about 20,000 so that's about $50 in certificates. I'm thinking that I'll make that stretch more by using them during Jingle Cash time and towards items that I'd get RR for.
Happy Holidays All.

I just came across info on another site that tells about the program. Its on frugalliving.com
I was hoping this day would come! The Walgreens Rewards Program is scheduled to kick the bucket on January 1, 2012! Now how many of you just jumped out of your seats and shouted “Wahoo!”? Me too. Here are some unofficial details: As of January 1st, 2012 you will no longer need your rewards card to get discounted pricing. This is actually the only part that is disappointing to me because it means I will have to clip Walgreens coupons out of the ad again. As of January 1st, 2012 rewards points will no longer be issued. If you have 2000 points or more in your account, you can redeem them until January 31, 2012. This might be a good time to check your rewards balance and see if it is worth it to try to get to 2000 points before then. I probably wouldn’t worry about it unless you are at least half way there. I have 1670 so I guess I’ll have to be strategic and try to spend under $5 to get enough points to get a $5 reward. hanks, Brandon & Just a Couple of Coupons! If you want to tell tell Walgreens thank you, here are a few places to do it! E-mail: consumerrelations.bb@walgreens.com On-line: Customer service | Contact Us | Walgreens.com
I hope the custmiers contact corporate with their frustrations that take it out on the clerks. It happened when walgreens started the program and people didn't like at and it was not fun getting yelled an by a customer even though it was corporates idea.

[kbrock]

Re: Walgreens ending pilot program
This change could not come soon enough! I was never so "coupon-angry" as I was when it was initiated since we couldn't get in on the national deals. The little points were such a fraud I didn't go into a Walgreens for nearly nine months and I wrote a detailed letter to its corporate folks describing just how "unrewarding" I found the pilot. It also didn't compete well against Rite Aid deals. Now I feel vindicated. I hope W comes up with something better and not just different!

[MelInKansas]

Yes, I had signed up for a card because I occasionally shop in the Kansas City area which is one of the pilot markets. IMO it wouldn't bother me if Walgreens had a loyalty program (or loyalty card, although then they would be able to enforce limits), but the way they tried to test/implement it in those test markets was really dumb. They took away the best deals, you didn't get nearly as much back for your rewards points as the value of the RR they were not giving you (that the other markets got). The really great deals available at WAGS were mostly cut out. In order to get people to buy into it and make it worthwhile, they should have offered points deals on OTHER products instead and let Rewards Card users get the same great RR deals. One time I went wanting to get some RR deals and was sorely disappointed to find that I could not (I live outside of KC so at my local Walgreens I could get them, but we were in KC for the weekend so the last day to get those deals was Saturday and I could not).

I have very very few points so I won't be worrying about redeeming them.