Lately I've been getting a number of interesting offers from businesses. My high school reunion, for example, sent me a form letter - a form letter which required my high school name, mascot, and color. It even implied that we'd had a previous reunion. If I didn't know that my high school class is actually organizing a reunion, I would have pondered if it was a daring scam to steal my credit card info.
Meijer (groceries), meanwhile, is being very clever. They used to run a charity program where they would give a small amount (1-4%) of the amount of one's spending that exceeded $100 per month. I doubt I gave more than $12/year that way. Probably more like $2. But I happily handed over my Meijer every time to let them track my groceries.
Now they want me to re-enroll. They'll donate 0.5% of all my purchases to charity - if I pay with cash, debit card, or Meijer credit card. The debit card was not in the initial offer, but they "modified" their policy based on "customer input". Unfortunately, I also get 0.5% cash back on my credit card, which I could give to charity if I was feeling, well, charitable. Part of me wonders if the whole charity aspect was a ploy to increase Meijer credit cards: Try out the program, get people hooked, then encourage them to continue giving by getting a credit card. On the plus side, I don't really like Meijer easily tracking my purchases, and now I don't have to carry a key-fob around to identify myself. I just have to remember to drop a quarter in the jar from today's purchases.
In other news, I'm practicing my home-improvement methodology. I found a small draft in the basement of my new place, so I'm trying the "plastic sheet + duct tape" approach.
2 comments:
I don't know if the original intent of the program was to eventually change it to get more people to open Meijer credit cards, but that's definitely the idea now.
Also, it's 1% if you use a Meijer credit card and 0.5% if you use cash or debit card. (Just more incentive to open that Meijer credit card!)
I too have been annoyed by Meijer's change of strategy. I always pay with a (regular) credit card, and I refuse to get store-specific credit cards.
Also, duct tape is amazing indeed. It comes in handy for scientific research projects as well. :)
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