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Update 3/13/21: The 5,000 point bonus has expired, but the rest of this post exploring the Shop Your Way Max app might still be of interest.
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Shop Your Way has launched a new app called Shop Your Way Max and is offering some existing SYW customers with 5,000 bonus points for downloading it and signing in.
Even if you’re not targeted for this offer, this app has the potential to be worth paying attention to as a shopping portal.
The Deal
- Earn 5,000 points when downloading the Shop Your Way Max app and signing in for the first time.
- Direct link to app – App Store
- Direct link to app – Play Store
Key Terms
- Members earn 5,000 points upon successful download and log in of the SYW Max App.
- Points will be issued by Shop Your Way within 2 days of Max App download.
- Points valid for 1 year once received.
- Offer starts 03/05/21 at 12:00am PT and ends 03/12/21 at 11:59pm PT.
- Members must sign up by 03/12/21 at 11:59pm PT.
- Only members who receive the 5,000 point email offer will qualify for this promotion.
Quick Thoughts
As noted earlier, this is a targeted offer for existing Shop Your Way members who receive an email. Greg was one of the lucky ones and has already received his 5,000 points; those are worth $5 which can be redeemed for gift cards. He had to go through a couple of steps to earn the points – he used the link in the email to download the app and signed in. The points didn’t immediately show up, but clicking the link in the email a second time opened the app and the 5,000 points were there.
I was curious quite how targeted this offer was, so I downloaded the app to my phone from the Play Store and logged in using my SYW account. No points appeared, so the terms do indeed seem to be enforced that only members receiving the email about the bonus will receive it.
My immediate thought when logging in is that it’s a white labeled version of the Drop app. Having poked around a little more, I’ve a feeling that it has indeed been created by Drop for Shop Your Way, but with different functionality to Drop itself (I might be wrong on that though). The look and feel is very similar and some of the offers are identical – spot the difference:
Even if you’re not targeted for the 5,000 bonus points, the Shop Your Way Max app surprisingly has potential. It appears to be yet another shopping portal, but some of the rates I checked were far more competitive than I’d been expecting.
Shop Your Way Max is offering 70x points (7%) for Proflowers. TopCashback and Rakuten are offering 11% and 11%/11x respectively and so those are better, but other shopping portals have lower rates than 7%.
Subsequent retailers I checked were also better than expected. Champion is at 70x (7%) which is higher than all other portals other than MaxRebates, RebatesMe and 55Haitao. If you don’t use those other portals but are familiar with Shop Your Way, earning Shop Your Way points might be preferable.
Overstock is at 65x (6.5%) which is currently higher than every other shopping portal, so it could be worth checking the Shop Your Way Max app before doing any online shopping and comparing against the rates on Cashback Monitor.
The app allows you to choose one online retailer as your Loyalty Card. This boosts the earning rate and includes retailers like CVS, GameStop, Nike, Staples, Sam’s Club and more.
It looks like you can unlock more Loyalty Cards so that you can pick additional retailers at which you can earn extra, but the app doesn’t really explain how to do that. It says you need to level up to activate new loyalty cards, but doesn’t share what that involves. You can also change your existing Loyalty Card selection once per month.
Something important to remember is that Shop Your Way points aren’t as good as cash as you can only redeem them for gift cards. That means a 70x (7%) rate in Shop Your Way Max isn’t as good as 7% from a portal like TopCashback and certainly not as good as 7x from Rakuten if your account is set up to earn Membership Rewards.
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