Well, it appears that the Craftsman Rewards Program is undergoing major changes as it is absorbed into the Sears Shop Your Way rewards program. This is both good and bad, depending on how you look at it.
If you recall, when we first discussed the new rewards program, we noted that the first $249 spent on Craftsman tools earned 2% in rewards, the next $500 earned 3% in rewards, and all purchases beyond that earned 4% rewards. Since the Craftsman Rewards program is being absorbed by the Shop Your Way program, all purchases will only earn 1% back in rewards.
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Let’s repeat that: enrolled members now earn 2%, 3%, or 4% rewards on Craftsman tool purchases, depending on their reward tier. Soon, purchases will only earn 1% in rewards.
On the plus side, if you purchase a lot of non-Craftsman tools from Sears (as we often do), you will be able to earn 1% rewards on those purchases as well. Another plus is that this means future rewards can be used on any brandof tools, not just Craftsman.
We don’t know when this will go into affect if it hasn’t already. All we know is that we went to check our own reward status via the Craftsman Club rewards home page, and saw that there were now links to enroll with the Shop Your Way program. Taking a closer look at the Shop Your Way program, we see that enrolled card members will be able to use their cards to take advantage of Craftsman Club member discounts.
We recently redeemed some Craftsman Rewards vouchers (3 $5 ones), and it was… less than pleasant. First, only one could be used per online order. Sure we could have printed out the vouchers and taken them in-store, but each coupon would have required 3-4 pages and potentially some confusion at the store. Second, the Sears.com website could not process orders less than $1. Third, the coupons are only good for one item each up to their face value.
In other words, say you have a $5 voucher and want to purchase two Craftsman tools that cost $3 and $1 respectively. The voucher will deduct $3 from one item and $0 from the other item. Your order will total $1, and you would have lost the remaining $2 value of the voucher. If there was a 10% promotion going on, the $5 voucher would deduct $2.70 from the $2.70 item, and there would be a $0.90 item in your cart. The checkout process would then fail and finally present you with a warning that orders less than $1 in total cannot be processed.
Who’s to blame for these changes? Perhaps it is a consequence of the recent Sears-Ace Hardware partnership that places Craftsman tools at Ace stores?
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lametec
If you’re shopping online on Sears.com you might as well use sites like fatwallet, cashbaq, bing etc. that offer cashback.
Current cashback offers are:
Fatwallet.com offers 5% (until 3-31, normally 2.5%)
Cashbaq.com offers 2%
Bing.com offers 8%.
lametec
I should also mention, you can use evreward.com to find current cashback offers.
The Sears.com link for evrewards is http://evreward.com/store/go/1938
Stuart
I have personally used Bing before, but sometimes (occasionally) run into issues with Sears cashback. Coupons will sometimes invalidate cashback, and other times the %cashback earned isn’t the same as stated on the site. Other times, one must search for the product via Bing, and find the product(s) that way to be eligible for cashback.
I have seen that other site before, and noted that almost every single link on their site is an affiliate link, even those linking to credit card reward offers and whatnot. This is just a reminder that such a site could be used as a reference, but it is up to the consumer to do their own independent research.
i.e. if you take interest in “Discover Card Rewards” head on over to Discover’s website separately for comparison as there might be a better deal than the one linked to by the aggregate site.
lametec
I’ve never had any issues combining coupons with sales prices and Craftsman club discount and Bing/Fatwallet cashback. According to the official rules, coupons may invalidate cashback, but like I said, it hasn’t happened to me yet.
I’ve also never (on Bing) had to search for the exact product I’ve bought. Any keyword that brings up the cashback link does the job. As an example, “HDTV” brings up the cashback link for Sears now. Search for it, click on link, then buy a tool! 🙂
As for the affiliate links.. Just don’t click ’em. Just find the best cashback offer and then manually go to the site with the offer.
IndyEngineer
I’m going to be disappointed if Craftsman Club Rewards changes their reward tier to reflect only one point per dollar spent. I can hardly see how that would be worth it. If they keep the amount of points to earn a coupon the same and change the amount of points they give you per dollar spent on a purchase, that will mean you will have to spend $2500.00 to earn a $5.00 coupon. That would hardly be an incentive to buy Craftsman tools.
Maybe I am just misunderstanding what you have explained Stuart. I sure hope that is the case. If not, Sears will hardly get as much of my tool budget as they do now.
Stuart
If my conclusion is correct (there has been no formal announcement as of yet, but it looks as if the Craftsman Rewards is definitely being seamlessly absorbed into the Sears Shop Your Way program), then $500 will be required to earn a $5 coupon.
The current Craftsman Rewards point structure is 10 points per each dollar spent for the first tier, 15 each for the second tier, and 20 each for the third tier. In all cases, 2500 points is needed to redeem for a $5 rewards voucher.
At 10 points per dollar, it takes $250 spent to earn a $5 voucher. At 15 points per dollar, it takes $167 to earn a $5 voucher. At 20 points per dollar (tier three), it takes $125 spent to earn a $5 voucher.
As mentioned, translating the Shop Your Way 1% rewards to the current Craftsman tiers (which will probably be dismantled), it will take $500 to earn a $5 voucher. The point structure should be ignored, instead focus on the percent rewards. As stated in the post, tier 1 earns 2% rewards, tier 2 earns 3% rewards on purchases made at that level, and tier 3 earns 4% rewards on all purchases at and beyond that level.
Basically, the Shop Your Way reward program will yield lower rewards than the Craftsman reward program. However, it will also offer rewards on non-Craftsman tools, which may offset the loss by a bit, depending on individual shopping habits.
I hope I’ve clarified this. If I did not succeed in clearing this up, please let me know and I’ll try to rephrase this in a different/better way.
Oh, there is also one more thing I greatly dislike about the Craftsman Rewards program that I forgot to mention – the vouchers have expiration dates of about 8 weeks!!
handymanc
Interesting article. I also use cashback rewards for all of my purchases. It’s nice that you can get up to 8% cash back on Sears.com but note that Bing doesn’t allow coupons to be used.
I really like cashreporter.com when checking for cash back: http://www.cashreporter.com/merchant/617/sears/
Stuart
I have never heard of that one before, but the site looks okay.
It is also worth mentioning that cashback rates tend to fluctuate. At one point, Sears’ cashback via Bing was “0-2%”.
IndyEngineer
Looks like you nailed this one on the head, Stuart. I got an email notice today that says changes to the Craftsman Club membership. They totally took away the Craftsman Club Rewards program. Now you only get 1% cash back added to the Shop Your Way Rewards card. WOW! Sears is really disappointing me lately.
Stuart
Interestingly enough, on the bottom of the email, it says “special bonus reward orders on Craftsman products”…
If these “bonuses” are only earned on select Craftsman products, I will be VERY disappointed. I would much rather see an extra 5% discount on certain products than 5% extra in rewards. Other retails play these games, and I am really hoping that Sears does not follow their example.