The Slow Decay Of Reward Points

Way back in January of 2009 I explained how I used my PNC bank / VISA rewards points to get a WII. For every $1.00 in purchases I made using my check card in a credit transaction, I earned two reward points. For every check I wrote, I got 25 points. It was a wonderful thing.

Then, in July, it all changed. I reached a NEW EARNING LEVEL. I leveled up as it were. But instead of getting more, I got less. Where I used to earn two points for every one dollar of purchases, I now had a straight one to one relationship. Still, for gas, food, or drug purchase I made, I got double points. It was still a pretty decent thing.

I recently just checked my account and now I earn one point for every $2.00 I spend.

If I were to use my VISA credit card… which has no balance, I’d earn one point for every dollar. If were to use it as a debit purchase, I’d get a point for every $5.00.

I just don’t understand it. I was getting a lot of rewards for using my bank. I was being REWARDED for being a customer. So, what happened? Oh yeah, that’s right. Credit card companies became the bad guy and the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights was enacted. That meant the nefarious practices that were going on for years to bilk more money out of customers with ridiculous fees and interest rates had to stop. So, since companies couldn’t offset the giving away of money to its customers by stealing it somewhere else, they had to reduce their costs the only way they were allowed. They stopped showing the love in rewards points.

I shouldn’t bitch though, right? After all, I was never obligated to make any purchases in order to gain rewards. VISA was nice enough to give me free money. The fact that they can’t afford to keep giving me free money should be a reason to stop doing it. I mean they only pulled in close to $1 billion dollars of profit last year. There are mouths to feed. I get it. It’s OK, VISA. You go take care of your own shareholders. Us customers will be just fine.

If that seemed a little sarcastic, then I apologize. Oh, wait, I’m not actually obligating anyone to listen to me, so I don’t need to offer an apology. Readers are here of their own free will.

See how that works? When people bitch about something offending them, others say, “Hey, you shouldn’t bitch. They don’t have to offer that.” To which I say, “I never asked them to offer it. They just did it. Now they can’t continue to do it and I’m supposed to be completely OK about it?” I am a consumer. I was being given a service in return for my continued consumption and now that service is gone. Will I quit using the bank that offers that service? Maybe. My bank deals with VISA not MasterCard or any other company, so if I choose to vote with my wallet, that’s what I should do.

A blogger may sound like a whiny gnat that keeps getting in your screen door during the summer nights. We may be annoying while being an insignificant creature but we’re drawn to the lights. Turn out the lights and we’ll go away.

Until then, we bug, we blog, we buzz around your salad, looking for a place to call home. I’m just here to tell everyone else that someone out there changed the game.

I've Reached a New Earning Level

Oh goodie. I’m so excited. I got a message from my bank that I had reached a new level of earning on my National City Visa rewards program. That would be the utmost awesomest kick ass w00t^* thing ever. Let’s open the message together, so you can share in my good fortune. Just give me a second to log into my National City account. While I’m doing that, I will share with you why this means so much to me. You see, back when I first started earning rewards I envisioned my wife and I going on a cruise or flying to Hawaii on our second honeymoon. All I needed to do was keep using my card for everyday things and the rewards would add up. After earning enough points, I could redeem them for airline or cruise tickets saving me on cash. But, it seemed like that would take forever.

Then, I decided that as much as I would love to do this, I didn’t want to wait that long. I redeemed my points for cash and bought myself a Nintendo Wii. Almost there... the anticipation is excruciating. Anyway, after redeeming my points for cash, I thought, “Just keep doing that.” Every time I earned enough points to redeem for cash I did. 2000 points = $4.00. Now, that doesn’t seem like a lot but over time I would see the benefit. I do all of my grocery shopping, bill paying, buying of gas, and practically everything else with my check card. It’s not hard to rack up the points… Hold on….what’s my password? Oh, yeah.

Where was I? So every couple of weeks I redeemed my points and got cash directly into my account. It was great. Okay, here we go. Open messages. Click on unread. I can’t wait. This is going to be so…

You have reached a new earning level

As of 07/20/2009, your earn rate of 2 points for $1 has ended and you will now receive 1 points for $1. Refer to your points from National City Terms & Conditions for details.

good… I’m sorry, let me read that again. My earn rate of 2 points for $1 has ended and I will now receive 1 point for $1.

I don’t know about this being positive. Usually, when I see something that says you’ve reached a new level of earning, I would think it means it would go up. I mean, this looks like I went down. It's like being told you won a million dollars and the tax on it is 105%. It’s like beating a level in a video game only to find out your princess is in another castle, oh and by the way, we’re taking one of your lives and half your score to boot. Well, let’s not get ourselves down over this. Let's go and redeem some points. That will make me feel better.

I have 2500 points, so I can redeem 2000 of them for $4.00. Go to catalog. Pick point levels 2000-4000. Click on $4.00 reward. Add to cart and order…huh? Insufficient points? What’s that about? Let’s go back and take a look at the number of points needed. OK, click on $4.00, again. 3000 points needed! Wait, so that means that not only did I cut my earnings in half, they’ve now raised the amount for redemption, too?

Well, doesn’t that suck?



^*quota of contractually obliged use of internet slang reached for this post.