Plink announced a promotion today in which they are offering double Plink points for purchases at Sears through August 18th:
Those who have read my posts “Plinking Sears,” and/or “Gift card alchemy” may think that this would be a great opportunity to get 12% back in Plink points when buying $50 Sears gift cards online. Unfortunately, though, Sears’ online gift card purchases are processed by Kmart. So, it is very unlikely that you would get double Plink points for these. Here’s to hoping that Plink will run a similar Kmart promotion soon!
You could, of course, buy gift cards in person at Sears in order to get double Plink points. As long as you make each $50 purchase separately, you should get the equivalent of 12% back in Plink points (which can be redeemed for Walmart or Amazon gift cards).
If you’re interested in signing up for Plink, you can find the latest signup links on my Sign-Up Links page.
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Lemma: Thanks for the warning!
A word of warning to those who might be considering scaling this deal by buying lots of GC at a B&M Sears. I bought a large quantity of Visa GC in separate transactions on Sunday to take advantage of this deal on a CC that earns a category bonus there. I went back yesterday to buy some more and the cashier’s screen said my SYWR account had been suspended. You don’t earn SYWR points for buying Visa GC, but I always give my phone number because it keeps the cashiers happy. They, and the store in general, will get in trouble if the percentage of customers who use SYWR accounts is too low. So, when I was splitting my GC into separate transactions, they thought the store was manipulating the system. I called the toll-free number the cashier gave me and explained I had asked them to split the purchase into multiple transactions and they unsuspended my account but I’m not sure they quite believed me. They asked if I was a Sears or Kmart employee and didn’t understand why since I had bought GC there before, I was using my SYWR account since I knew it earned no points. I told them it was easier to just give my phone number than argue with the cashier who invariably isn’t aware they don’t give points. But I think they suspected I was an associate of an employee who let them use my account to manipulate their statistics.
I have bought very large amounts of Visa GC at this particular store with Sears GC, probably totaling in the mid five figures over time, as various deals have offered me good opportunities to buy Sears GC, and it never caused any kind of red flag with corporate until now because I never did so many transactions in rapid succession, I would simply put a bunch of $100 Visa GC on one transaction and pay with GC. I was expecting a possible CC decline and conversation with the bank fraud department over the repeated purchases but not this.
Last time I plinked at Sears, it seems like the promotion expiration date (i.e. Aug 18 in this case) is the day your transaction posted, not the day you shopped.
YMMV, but for me, I didn’t get plink point at promotion rate until I contacted plink support and they manually adjusted for me.