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Citi has been sending notices to their 5% cashback cardmembers informing them of a reduction in cash back benefits, from 5% at Gas/Grocery/Pharmacy to 2% at Gas/Grocery/Pharmacy/Utilities/Convenience stores. So lots of folk are switching to Chase's similar 5% card, the Cash Plus Rewards MasterCard. The $50 sign-up bonus doesn't hurt.
In the event that link dies (like many 5% cards these days), try the Chase Rewards Plus Visa (no $50 bonus).
Have a mini-LED keychain/flashlight? Not as bright as it used to be? Then you need replacement CR2016 batteries like I did! For less than the price of two batteries (the number most flashlights of this type require), you can get 20 for under $5!
AG13, AG3, CR2025, CR2032 batteries for similar prices.
Since the items ship from Hong Kong, delivery takes ~2-3 weeks.
David,Nice of them to respond. Too bad they didn't really speak to my chief complaint - that they tried to pull the wool over our eyes!Thank you for taking the time to send us your email below. We appreciate your feedback.
When we began discussions on possibly changing our Rewards program, we did a complete evaluation of the retail industry and compared our Reward Your Style program to other loyalty programs. We found our program to be extremely generous. No other retailers were giving a 10% payback (spend $250 and receive $25). We also learned it took the average customer about 2 years to earn a $25 Rewards Certificate.
Taking into consideration these learnings as well as many others, we designed DSW Rewards to meet the needs of our customers.
You are correct, the payback on the DSW Rewards program is now less but it is still better than many of our competitors. And, with the addition of the double points days (2 per year), our customers will have the opportunity to earn twice as many points for every dollar spent. It is hard to beat this payback.
We also established a Premier Membership, which gives the 50% bonus points on all purchases. This too increases the payback.
We hope you take into consideration our thought process.
Thank you,
Tiesha
DSW Customer Relations
Also, if it takes the average person 2 years to earn a reward under their old system, that means an average spending of $125 per year. Under the rules of the new program, I don't expect the average shopper to actually be at DSW on the day of these magic double points days. I don't expect the average person to buy no clearance items either. So, assuming the average person spends at the same rate ($125/year), and buys 60% regular, 40% clearance, it will take 1.5 years to earn the $10 credit. (The quickest would be in 1.2 years, for purely regular purchases; the slowest would be in 2.4 years, for someone purchasing only clearance items.)
Yay ... what an "improvement"!
I don't even remember signing up, but...
Congratulations, you're in!Who am I to complain?
THANK YOU for enrolling in Staples Speak Easy! We're just as excited about this pilot program as you are. And if you think you'd like to talk about it, we'd appreciate it. Your friends might too.Your first, free easy office product should be arriving by mail in the next few weeks. And once you get it, it's yours — to keep. Don't worry, you don't have to send it back or give it away. Unless you think your free product is the greatest thing in the whole wide world and you want to share it!
The remote for my car alarm has been acting up. No, it's not a low battery. Rather, the unlock button just doesn't always work (the LED light doesn't even turn on). I have yet to actually be stuck outside my locked car, but it's been a concern of mine for quite some time. I had considered switching the lock and unlock buttons, but never got around to it. Now I'm glad I didn't, as the lock button is now worse than the unlock button.
So I resigned myself to buying a new remote. In the real world they they generally run roughly $60-$70. Lots of used ones are available online for around $30-$40, but as I want a new one, I couldn't find anything less than $60 plus shipping.
I found an eBay auction offering two(!) remotes plus a brain (receiver module). The starting bid was around $30, with a Buy It Now option at around $50. Either way, it was better than $60, but I didn't want to blow more than necessary. I set up a snipe, and won the auction at around $31.
They came today, and the guy sent the wrong remotes (or listed them incorrectly on eBay). I sent him an annoyed email. I'll try them anyway, but I don't expect them to work. In theory, I can try to find my current alarm's brain and try swapping it with this one. That would, of course, require extra work, and would eliminate the possibility of installing it in a second car. (Installing a compatible brain in a second car ought to allow one set of remotes to work for both cars.)
The mailer read:
Inside: New Benefits. New Rewards.What it meant was:
Inside: Worse Benefits. Smaller Rewards.DSW used to have a program called "Reward Your Style" that rewarded shoppers with a $25 certificate upon purchasing a total $250 worth of merchandise (value: 10%). (I actually thought it used to be $25 per $125 (value: 20%), but I have yet to confirm it.
The new program, DSW Rewards, assigns points to each purchase - 10/regular purchase dollar, 5/clearance dollar. $10 rewards are issued at 1500 points (equivalent to $150 [value: 6.7%], assuming regular purchases, or $300 [value: 3.3%], assuming clearance purchases). This represents a reduction in value of 33 to 67%!
Presumably to make up for the reduction in value per dollar spent on purchases made before the switch to the new rewards program (9/7/06), the conversion rate for past purchases seems to be higher than 10 points per dollar. For example, my current balance is $20, but that will be worth 300 (15 points/dollar) after conversion, according to their website.
The whole promotion of the new rewards program is sneaky. They've made it sound like an improvement, and worked hard to hide the details. From the mailer to the FAQ, the pertinent information was either not available, or masked. For example, where in the following explanation of "Why is it changing?" do they say anything about saving themselves money?
We replaced the old program (Reward Your Style) with DSW Rewardssm because of member suggestions. For example, many members told us it took too long to earn reward certificates; now it's possible to earn rewards faster.
One improvement, if you can call it that, is that they will have two double points days per year. They haven't announced when they'll be. Also note that double points translates to an increase of only 3.3% for regular purchases over the old program, and a decrease of 3.3% for clearance purchases!
In a recent Popular Science issue (Aug 2006), they posted a link to a handy online utility called ePassportPhoto, a free way of automatically cropping your photos to meet US Passport specifications. This makes the process I described, and actually tried twice, much easier.
I gave their system a try. It's quite easy. Once you've taken the photo, as I have, you just need to upload it. They do try to trick you into buying a print of 6 from them, but instead you can just download the 6 picture image and print it yourself at home, or at your corner photo printer.