'My Coke Rewards' Program Grows Authentically Smaller, Less Rewarding
It looks like the end days may be approaching for Coca-Cola's point redemption program according to Matt, who watches for this sort of thing. He opines,
If you have a large number of points you better use them in the next few weeks, or be content with getting a large amount of Coke-branded clothing.
Among the changes just announced for My Coke Rewards:
- Weekly maximum point accumulation limit dropped to 120 (used to be 700/week)
- all items above the 2000 point mark are being removed
- Spanish version of site is being taken down
Still reading? Huh. Okay, here are more details directly from Coke's website.
"My Coke Rewards - The Beginning of the End" [Mattazuma's Revenge]
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Comments:
Drink Coke, earn points - redeem them for items to turn you into a walking Ad for us...........
Are they still offering small doses of Hg with their HFCS? How about tooth decay? Is that still on the list?
"Spanish version of site is being taken down"
Noooooooooo (Noooooooooo)
I just got the email that said daily point caps have been removed too, it was extremely annoying only having 10/day
Looks like they are taking advice from the airlines frequent flier miles program, chip away at the benefits, reduce the prizes, pillage and burn until nothing is left.
Please see fine print for details.
I haven't found their rewards program all that rewarding to begin with. We drink a bit of coke, but the rewards aren't worth anything before 1000 points, unless you like crappy magazine subs.
i've gotten several 14x20 and 18x24 prints through this program, so i've been mostly satisfied. i wish they would have made an iphone app to enter codes easier, but i guess if it's going away there's no point...s
the pepsi program is crap. one point for a 20oz bottle, or two whole points for a 12-pack.
@valarmorghulis: Last I checked, Coca-Cola wasn't tying people down and forcing them to drink anything.
If I want to consume a pound of Hg and then kick it back with a few dozen gallons of HCFS, that's my business.
At least Pepsi's rewards were more reasonably priced. Their site is no longer available (the promotion is over), but if I recall correctly, music downloads from MyCokeRewards cost five times as much as PepsiStuff (in terms of sodas consumed, not arbitrary point values).
Also, the old My Coke Rewards daily maximum was even higher than 100 points. Warehouse stores sold larger quantities than 12-packs which had a point value higher than 10.
me pueden explicar?
@putermcgee: The Pepsi program ended at the end of December. I liked this one better as I would always find Pepsi bottles around...I think Coke is less popular here. I got several free pairs of headphones, flash drives, etc. in no time.
I was at a convention last year in Boston where the marketing group that came up with this program were heralded as one of the great internet marketing idea generators ever.
Most of my group (Southerners) thought the entire concept sucked. That night one of the douchebags approached us in the bar and asked us what we thought. Someone pointed out some fundamental issues with it and the guy got defensive and stormed off.
@Corporate_guy: You know, they DO sell CANS of soda. That come in boxes. With the codes printed inside the boxes. Ya know.
You mean, I can get a poorly made shirt plastered with Coke logos and all I have to do is drink 2,000 bottles of watered down HFCS, spend an hour typing in codes, pay shipping and handling, and wait 4-6 weeks? SIGN ME UP!
@hewhoroams: Um.
Before, the limit was 10 codes a day. So if you had 10 3-point caps a day, that could have been 10x3x7=210 points a week. Or if you had 10 12-pack codes a day, that could have been 10x10x7=700 points a week.
Maybe my math skills are rusty, but 700 or 210 are both larger numbers than 120.
I guess you prefer "not annoying" to "more points".
Eh, what's the use, they aren't going to support Spanish much longer anyway.
Well,
En Ingles, por favor, o no mas puntos por ti.
@TheFlamingoKing: Quite right! That was more of a jab at the HFCS lobby than the carbonated sugar-water lobby.
Doesn't surprise me too much, seeing how the value of the points has been decreasing so much over the past year. In June you could get a free 12-pack of pop for 100 points. Now all that even 200 points will get you is a buy-one-get-one-free coupon.
it hasnt been bad. i got a fishing rod and reel. a backpack that fits my dell mini 9 perfect. a couple magazine subscriptions, a free month of gamefly, a couple of 1 gig thumb drives and a set of thick coke drinking glasses and icecream scoop (later found the glasses at dollar tree for $1 each lol)
no shipping and handling on any of it.
and the kicker is i dont even drink coke lol. i just had a few people saving the points for me.
I miss opening a bottle of coke and finding a "YOU WIN!" imprinted on the cap instead of some cryptic computer code. Takes all the fun out of it.
@Rene Murillo: My reply got misplaced. It was supposed to go here:
Eh, what's the use, they aren't going to support Spanish much longer anyway.
Well,
En Ingles, por favor, o no mas puntos por ti.
@mbz32190:
I, too, dumpster-dove for free codes. The thing I liked about Pepsi points was the free mp3 downloads from Amazon.com (no idea if Coke offers free downloads, since I give my Coke codes to my brother).
I've gotten a CD, quite a few game/movie rentals (lots, actually), some nice carbiner bottle holders. Best prize: 85 bucks worth of blockbuster gift cards. Second best: You can get free product. Buy 10, get 1 free. We like it with sandwiches, why not for drinks?
@cmdrsass: I'd like them to go back to that instant win game from the 1990s where, if you popped open a winning can, your prize money would pop out of the can with a spring-loaded mechanism. I found a reference to it on Snopes: [www.snopes.com]
Apparently, the more modern version (2004) of the instant win can concept had a GPS and cell phone inside: [www.hispanicprwire.com] and [www.engadget.com]
I just miss the old "One in X Sodas wins a free Coke!" under the cap contests... as while I was in college I figured out how to read whether or not a bottle was a winner just by looking upwards into the bottle...
...I bought one soda and then didn't pay for soda for months. It was awesome. :P
@spoco: Care to elaborate on what your group thinks the fundamental issues are? We can't agree or disagree without a little more info.
@JohnDeere: My best rewards were the card for a free movie rental at Blockbuster, one per week for a year. I had two full years of free rentals.
I just got an email from these jerks. They said they eliminated the daily limit on how many points you could enter. They didn't say anything about lowering the weekly limit.
"Oceania is at war with East Asia. Oceania has always been at war with East Asia."
@ribex: what he said, the supply company ships us two 12 packs glued together for every case we order. I order 4+ cases of diet coke/wk and 4 cases of regular coke every other week. after they stopped the game rentals, I just starte dusing the points in gift certificate contests but after 5 months didn't win jack. Though on my second week of registering contest codes for dr. peppers southwest contest I won two 25 dollar goft cards for southwest. I still have to sell about trading them online with someone.
@RandomHookup: thats something that movie gallery gave me for free every week anyway. just for being on the mailing list.
What do you mean "They Will be.".. They have been For about the last year the items have gotten cheaper or you could only enter a contest (by spending your points) for something good. We started collecting over 2 years ago, we finally got enough points to get something alright, but there hasn't been anything good listed. Last week we decided to dump the points, turn them in for 3 free passes to Universal Studios California. The problem, it would not let you change the number of tickets... it was forced at "1" ticket. So I e-mailed them if I could redeem my points for 3 tickets... not only did I never get a reply, but the tickets were removed from the site!
Boy, talk about a waste of time and falling for their marketing scam. Only way to make out is to steal the points and "purchase" something when they first start the program! I am so pissed at COKE, I may go back to Pepsi (switched during the syringe thing), Nah, they won't get the money either... DRINK WATER (or JOLT!)... EAT THAT COKE! Screw me on the points, I QUIT YOU!
I say drink the product because you like it, not because you are trying to earn some prize. The cost of the rewards program is probably built into the cost of the product. They aren't just handing out stuff here.
Of course if you get the points without having to pay for them then kudos to you!
I was saving up as well. I noticed last week (first time logging in to redeem a buncha points in a while) that they got REALLY cheap on the redemption items. They used to give 5 bucks for 100 points. That option is gone. They also used to have some really nice merch at the 500+ level. Now you can get a craptastic t-shirt if you're lucky. What a bunch of bunk. My image of Coke has now soured greatly.
@jeffs3rd: Take a look at the site, it's not worth ANYTHING if you have over 1000 points! 2 1/2 years, almost 3,000 points...nothing to get with them!
How the heck would you use a $50 E-coupon/E-gift Certificate (Electric code, good over the internet) for a resteraunt???? Virtual Food?
on "mycokerewards.com" under "rewards & Deals", Click on "Great Deals".. It comes up with ....wait for it....
"0 Great Deals Found!" HA!
@logicalnoise: I agree. I unofficially supply the office with soda I buy from Sam's. I get 36 can packs of cokes that have 25 points per flat. I turn around and sell them at cost to the office.
I remember when you could get neat stuff like a buy two nights, get one night free at a lot of national parks. I wish they'd do that again now that gas isn't nearly as ridiculous.
@ClutchDude: Forgot to add that the point inflation is horrible. Back then, that offer above that'd save you $120 bucks cost 800 points. Now, I can get $100 gift certificate for crappy merchandise for only 4000 points!
Too bad I've hoarded my 4400 points for something good. Guess I better get to spending.
Everyone seems negative about this. Could it be that they are trying to get rid of the scammers that are entering 1400 points a week when they don't even drink the product? That is 10 cases of soda a day! Normal drinkers of Coke drink less than a 6 pack a day. At that rate they drink about 91 cases a year to get 1820 points. Maybe they will also bring good prizes down (less than 2000 points) to the normal drinker because they are not sending Joe the Plumber a prize a day because he is out scamming them.
I for one say it is a step in the right direction. I get my point for drinking the product. They reward me for drinking their product. They are not rewarding me for begging everyone for codes or the vending machine guys who can get all the codes they need or want.
@jim @ Change Jar Savings:
I wish they would have got rid of the scammers in the beginning. We had gone to Costco last year and bought 3 "36 packs" of coke products for a staff picinic. When we got home, the underside of the cases had the points removed with an exacto knife.. obviously the costco employees. We were back there the next day (for more supplies), 3 pallets of coke products had EVERY last one of the points removed. Litteraly 10's of thousands... thousands of dollars worth of points. We notified Costco, who could care less, then I e-mailed coke rewards about the scam and which costco location.. I didn't expect it, but they gave me the points for all 3 cases (really nice) which had been removed and stated they were going to investigate it, since it jepordized the rewards program. Real quick reply... unlike those costco managers who care less if customers and coke are both being ripped off.
yeah, part of my daily routine is ordering and restocking the free soda in the office. I used to enter in teh coke points all the time and redeem them for free game rentals at block buster. They eliminated the free game rental prize months ago. I've stopped botehring with it ever since. on the otehr hand I never found Pepsi's solution a decent alternative either.