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Through December 30th, Sears is offering 100% back in points on many items in-store. The trick is finding them.
I received an email from a reader who had bought $275 worth of items, and walked out of the store with $285 worth of points. She wrote up her find here: Massive 100% Back in Points, In Store Only – YMMV (read the post to see photos of items she found).
On Friday I went to my local Sears and hunted for these items, but couldn’t find any. I did find a few fixed amount awards, but they weren’t 100% back in points:
Finally, I asked a supervisor. She went to the back and returned with 10 pages of tiny print showing items that are included in the deal. She wouldn’t let me take the pages with me and so no to taking pictures. So, the list didn’t really help except to give me a general idea that these deals were all over the store.
She told me that they hadn’t put up many of the signs yet and that it would still take them several days to do so. I suggested that I could come back in a few days when the signs are up. She nodded in a non-encouraging way. I took that to mean that it would likely take them much more than “several days’ to get those signs in place.
Your store may vary
The same person who tipped me off to this also posted her experience to SlickDeals (found here). At this point it seems that stores vary in whether or not they’ve posted signs and in which items are available for 100% back.
Finding items
The supervisor that I spoke with said that she thought they had put up some signs in the linen department. That turned out to be a good tip:
Which items count?
Do all of the items on the shelves behind those big blue signs count for 100% back in points? I don’t think so. I found these small blue signs on several specific items:
Here’s an up-close view:
Is it a good deal?
Not necessarily. If you don’t actually want the junk that’s on sale and you don’t have plans to sell it or donate it to charity then all you’re doing is replacing cash (or Sears gift cards) with points that expire in 30 days.
If you do want that stuff and if you’re sure you can use the points effectively before they expire, then yes it’s a great deal.
You can enhance the deal with Sears coupons and with the current Amex Offer: Spend $50, Get $10 back. For details on maximizing the latter, please see: Extreme Stacking the Sears Amex Offer. The short answer for those who don’t want to bother reading another post:
- Go through the best online shopping portal for Sears
- Reload an existing Sears gift card with $50, pay with your Amex card that is enrolled in the Amex Offer
- Use that gift card in-store to buy these items.
One way to get coupons is to sign up with a Sears personal shopper. The same person who wrote up the original post about this Sears deal says that you can select her as your personal shopper and she’ll send you coupons such as a $15 off $150 purchase.
Reasons to wait
You might want to wait a bit before going to buy these items, for a few reasons:
- Your store might not yet have signs in place
- Sears may offer a bonus gift card deal that can be stacked with this.
In the next few days I’ll publish a new post with more info about stacking Sears deals.
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[…] Huge Sears 100% back in points deal on dozens of items. In-store only. […]
anyone know which stores have this promo in Chicago area
You might have to test things. My store knew nothing about and did not post any signs. I knew a few items included so I tried them out and they worked. So, it can be slow and painful, but buy a few test items and return if it does not work. I did about 800 total. Half useful stuff, half hoping to resell. As far as I can tell from doing multiple transactions at Sears with this deal, it takes the value of the coupon off of the reward points. So, you get a few more items with the coupon, but no extra points. So, you have to decide if doing a large transaction is worth it to use a coupon. Since there is no way to see what qualifies, you don’t know if it worked till the end and you may have just wasted your coupon if you return things. I bought a lot of single test items two at a time that were different prices so I could check my receipt and know what triggered it. Then, went back and bought all they had of the ones that worked in one giant transaction so I could use my 10% off of a 499 purchase.
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Just be wary of any current Sears promos as the company itself might not be around much longer. Several high-up C-levels just departed this week, and their suppliers have all but stopped shipping them goods for fear they won’t get reimbursed –
https://goo.gl/FVcdul
[…] Huge Sears 100% back in points deal on dozens of items. In-store only. by Frequent Miler. Personally I’m not a big fan of Sears free after points deals, but I know some people do well out of them. […]
@Greg
I am at a loss. I can find the purchase egift card, but cannot find this purchase reload function on Sears. Can someone help explain where this is located?
Many thanks
Go to the gift card page and look for “Check balance & reload”.
Got it thank you!
Can I purchase any first egift amount, ie a $15 card, and then reload with a larger, ie $50 card, amount? Or does every reload need to equal the original size?
You can reload till your card balance reaches 500. You can add any whole-dollar amount that wouldn’t push the balance over $500.
If you have empty physical gcs hanging around I’d choose to reload them over an egc. It is *so* much easier to swipe than have a clerk type in all the numbers from the egc.
i spent 214.00 and got back 225.00 – manager said tomorrow might have a $30 limit so becareful. If anyone know if this is true would appreciate a reply. Also
The $30 limit was for a different 100% back promo that I wrote about here: https://frequentmiler.com/2016/12/04/sears-offering-many-10-items-100-back-points-catch/
I don’t think there’s a limit to the promo discussed in this post
Cruised around my local store, didn’t see a single sign, even the exact display you had in the picture (same price and everything).
Can you roll points?
By the way your Sears store sounds abysmal
I don’t think so, but I didn’t try it.
Greg are there any recent data points or experiments that prove which portals do or do not work to click through and buy gift cards for either points or cash back?
Yes, check the Lab. In general I believe that reloading Sears gift cards works, but buying e-gift cards does not. I haven’t tested buying by-mail gift cards recently because that won’t trigger the Sears Amex Offer.