American Express Plenti Loyalty Program Overview

American Express new multi merchant loyalty program has finally launched. Full details of the program can now be viewed at Plenti.com. We’ve already reviewed the new Plenti Rewards from Amex card here and it’s really quite terrible. Let’s see if the actual loyalty program is any better.

The idea behind Plenti is pretty simple, you can earn Plenti points with multiple different businesses and redeem those same points at these different businesses. This means you don’t need to sign up for the loyalty program at each business to enjoy the rewards. You could make a purchase at Rite Aid and then redeem the rewards at Exxon (both participating partners). This is often known as a coalition loyalty program and they are quite popular worldwide, especially in Europe.

Plenti have put together this promotional video to explain the program as well:

Earning Points

There are four different ways to earn points with Plenti and they are as follows:

• Plenti Partners. Present your Plenti card at any Plenti partner and you’ll earn points on eligible purchases.
• Partner Offers. These allow you to earn Plenti points for completing certain actions or purchasing specific products.
• Household Offers. Household offers allow you to link Plenti with other eligible supermarket store loyalty cards. When you make certain purchases you’ll receive Plenti points.
• Shopping portal. This functions the same as any shopping portal, you’ll receive Plenti points for making purchases at specific merchants. The amount of points you’ll receive will vary merchant to merchant.

Plenti Partners

We already knew all of the participating partners that would launch with the Plenti program, but here is that list again:

• AT&T
  • Earn 1 point for every $1 spent on eligible products and services on your monthly AT&T wireless bill. Requires paperless billing
  • Earn 1 point for every $1 spent on eligible devices, accessories, and other products at participating AT&T-owned locations
• Exxon
  • Earn 1 point for every gallon of fuel
  • Earn 2 points for every dollar on eligible non fuel purchases
• Macy’s
  • Earn 2 points for every $1 spent on beauty and fragrances and 1 point for every $1 spent on qualifying purchases when you pay with your Macy’s Credit Card
  • Earn 2 points for every $10 spent on beauty and fragrances and 1 point for every $10 spent on qualifying purchases with other payment methods
• Mobil
  • Earn 1 point for every gallon of fuel
  • Earn 2 points for every dollar on eligible non fuel purchases
• Rite Aid
  • Earn Plenti points on rotating product offers at Rite Aid
  • Receive wellness+ benefits including special pricing and store-wide discounts
• Direct Energy
  • Earn 5,000 points when you sign up for a new qualifying energy plan
• Enterprise/Alamo & National Car Rental
  • Earn 1 point for every $1 spent on car rental rates with Enterprise, Alamo and National. Additional fees and features not eligible
• Hulu
  • Earn up to 1,650 points when you activate the Hulu offer and sign up for a new Hulu subscription. Stay on your Hulu plan for at least 6 months to get all 1,650 points

Partner Offers

Partner Offers seem a bit like a worse version of Amex Sync offers but a bit more flexible in that some don’t have a spending component. You’ll receive Plenti points for completing certain actions, for example:

• Earn 500 Plenti points when you sign up for paperless billing
• Earn 300 points after you spend $15 on eligible Rite Aid Brand products in a single transaction at Rite Aid or riteaid.com
• Earn 200 points after you buy at least 10 gallons of fuel in a single visit at a participating Exxon or Mobil branded service station

It’s only possible to do each of these offers once.

Household Offers

Household offers really remind me other grocery apps like Snap by Groupon, ReceiptHog & Walmart Savings Catcher. Personally I don’t find much value in these offers as they are almost always for expensive branded products (e.g cleaning products) where there are cheaper unbranded solutions instead. Here are some examples of some of the current offers available:

• 500 Plenti points when you spend $30 on any SC Johnson Home Care Products
• 100 Plenti points when you purchase two or more Ziploc® Bags and Containers
• 55 Plenti points when you purchase when you buy any ONE (1) Drano® product

Online Marketplace

This is similar to any other shopping portal you might be familiar with (e.g Topcashback). You basically earn a set amount of points per dollar spent, the amount of points that you earn is dependent on the shop and often changes frequently. Here are some of the offers Plenti currently has (in brackets is the top cash rate according to cashbackmonitor):

• Macy’s 3 points per $1 (8%)
• Sears 5 points per $1 (6% or 10 miles)
• Vitamin World 4 points per $1 (12%)

As you can see Plenti isn’t even remotely competitive with the top site.

Redeeming Points

Points can be redeemed at Exxon, Macy’s, Mobil & Rite Aid according to their how to use points page (which seems to go back on their “points can be used at any partner” philosophy). You can redeem points for as little as 200 points and 1,000 points will give you a minimum of $10 in savings.

To redeem points you simply go to any of the redeemable points partners and scanning your card at check out. At Exxon and Mobil stations, there is a maximum of 2,500 Plenti points that can be used per purchase. 

Final Thoughts

Much like the Plenti credit card, this new coalition loyalty program is such a disappointment. There doesn’t seem to be any real consistency between the launch partners, some only offer partner offers, some offer spending bonuses, you can redeem points at some partners and not others.

The whole idea behind a coalition loyalty program is to make it easier for the consumer to understand and use, that way you’re able to build data about each of those loyalty cardholders and better market to them – whilst also providing a loyalty benefit.

The earning rates at participating partners is absolutely terrible, Mobil/Exxon is probably the best and that’s only effectively 1% cash back As chuck pointed out in the comments, it’s not even 1% cash back, it’s one Plenti point per gallon. Some of the partner offers (e.g enrolling in paperless statements) are decent, but that’s not enough to keep people around for long.

Household offers has been done before and in my opinion, done much better. The shopping portal isn’t even close to being competitive, you’d have to be an absolute mad man to use it. Hilariously you can even transfer American Express membership rewards points to Plenti, I thought this might be a not-terrible option for those looking to cash out their membership rewards points but you don’t even get a 1:1 exchange rate (it’s 500:400, which would make American Express membership rewards points worth 0.8 ¢ each). Before you even think about it, no you cannot transfer Plenti points to membership rewards points.

What do you think of the Plenti rewards program? Will you be signing up? Will you be using it? Please let me know in the comments below – maybe I’m being too harsh on this new program.