Staples sent out an email with some changes coming to the Staples Rewards program. The changes take effect July 1, 2017.
For reference, these are the new terms and these are the old terms. Here are the changes that I’ve noticed:
- No more rewards earned at all for online purchases. Thoughts: This is a big hit which they swallowed inconspicuously within the email.
- No more Plus level. It used to be that Base level gets 2%; after spending $500 you are Plus and get 3%; after spending $1k you are Premier and get 5%. Now we remain Base until spending $1k and become Premier with 5% benefit. Thoughts: no big deal, makes sense to simplify the program. (Note: This understanding is based on my belief that there is some misinformation in the Membership Levels section due to copy-and-paste errors.)
- All Staples Rewards members get free next-day shipping on orders $49.99 or more. Thoughts: The few times I’ve ordered they deliver fast, usually with their own truck, not the postal service. Certainly good to know it’ll always come next-day for all Staples Rewards members; makes the store more reliable and even faster than Amazon.
- No more free shipping without a minimum. This negative change they almost pulled right past me, but if I’m not mistaken Staples used to offer free shipping for all Staples Rewards members. Looks like there’s now a $49.99 minimum. (Oddly, when I add a $25 Gap e-gift card to my cart, it gives me free shipping even on less than $49 order.)
- Signup for a Staples More Account and get 5% back both in-store and online. This gets you 5% online, and it also helps you skip the Base level straight to the Premier level. Thoughts: Most importantly, those who signup for a More credit line will be eligible to receive 5% Rewards for online purchases.
Final Thoughts
The biggest news is that you won’t earn Staples Rewards online unless you signup for the More account. The More account looks to be like a line of credit for businesses, and I imagine it comes with a credit check process. Personally, I don’t order much from staples.com, but those who do might consider signing up for the More program. Hopefully, it won’t count against 5/24, and will just appear as an inquiry.
[Update: Staples support makes it sound like it’s an ordinary credit card, which means it’ll likely count toward 5/24, and you might need to actually pay with the Staples card (and lose your Chase INK rewards) to get the 5%. In that case, it’s a non-starter for most of us.]
The new $49.99 requriement for free shipping will mean I probably won’t be ordering anything from Staples any time soon.
I’m probably missing some analysis of the change, drop a comment below if you notice anything else or different.
I too was “plus” status — and bummed. Yet received curious email promo from Staples yesterday, pushing an apparently new business rewards membership program (which has two levels). Base level requires $49 membership fee (don’t like that), yet also does automatically grant 20 per month recycling privilege. Appears too significant product discounts will be available to “business” members.
Be curious to see more on this… Worth it?
I love how i finally reached to plus member and they took it away. Never even get to recycle 20 inks.
Same here… I earned the PLUS status in June, and now they’ve just taken that status tier away. I told the Cust Serv Mgr by phone that I will take my $500 spend over to Amazon. It is horrible to change a program AFTER a tier has been obtained and not honor the terms of the tier (ie., 12 months of recycling 20 inks per month). Sure, I’ll purchase my $30 in ink 2x a year and then drop off 10 inks a month as I had been doing. But for all my other spend… Amazon can ship directly to my house via Prime. See ya Staples, your buildings will all be for sale soon.
this shows how the retail sector is hurting badly. No one can compete with WM/Amzn. Sad. And WM offers free pickup in any store and Amzn has lockers.
Both Staples and OD/OM are on their last legs. One of them will go under after Sears… Many retailers will not survive next downturn. It will be glorious.
Why will companies going out business and many people losing their jobs be “glorious”? Do you experience schadenfreude?
footnote: I too though have been mystified as to just why they’re cutting out reward benefit for on-line purchases….. Only explanation that comes to mind is remembering the ghost-town / Sears like scene I witness every time I enter a Staples — more employees than customers, lots and lots of empty aisles….But then explain why they’d cut out buy on line, pick up in store purchases?
Ya’all fret about Sears surviving….
I think they want to become business-centric with the new acquisition who focuses on that end.
But they already have the Quill brand that is biz centric.
Not sure what the major fuss is here. I never much benefited from STaples rewards themselves. The two big benefits for me have been (and will continue to be?):
1. Earning 5k Ink points on purchases of VGC’s — on-line and in-store (especially when the recurrent rebates come around). That’s not changing is it? (Couldn’t get staples rewards on gift card purchases anyway — so no big deal)
2. The $40 / month “free stuff” (everything from paper to coffee to anything in the Staples catelog) each month for recycling 20 ink cartridges per month continues. (only slight change in the middle category spend — though my purchases of gift cards seem to have kept me in the top category — even if no cash discounts) Learned this all from Shawn at M2M long ago…
Am I missing something
I thought GCs don’t count towards Premier status?
For the sake of clarity, there are three variations of the Staples More Account (all credit/charge cards backed by Citi):
1. Personal Credit Card
2. Business Credit Card
3. Commercial Charge Card
Since these new changes have not actually gone into effect yet, I cannot comment on whether online purchases will actually need to be made on the More Account to qualify for 5% back in rewards. I can only say is that up until now, More Account card holders have always received 5% back in rewards regardless of their payment type.
Based on other Citi business cards, signing up for a Business or Commercial More Account card should not affect your 5/24 count.
I hope that helps.
Ah, good info, makes me optimistic that it won’t need to be spent on the card so it can stack with INK. And doing the biz version will get around the 5/24 issue. Thanks.
i think this is a bad move. A lot of office admins elect to spend money at staples for the rewards they personally reap. This is going to kill that group of loyal buyers.
Thanks for the run down! The email made it sound like everything was kinda staying the same, it was so confusing.
The elimination of the plus category actually is significant. I was anticipating getting to $500 spend this year, but not $1000. That means I could recycle only 10 cartridges a month instead of 20. That represents a loss of being able to recycle an additional 120 cartridges next year, or $240 of Staples money. And I’m not the only one.
Yup.