Hip Hip Hurray! GREAT NEWS! It’s official! The Walgreens Test Market Program is coming to an end! For those of you who are in a test market this is GREAT news and for the rest of us it’s great news too. Since Walgreens obviously figured out the program was a flop and NOT something they’d want to roll out nationally.
The bottom line is the program was horrible, everyone hated it. I actually traveled to Richmond, VA over the summer to check it out. The Walgreens I stopped in could best be described as a wasteland. It was empty, I was the only customer there, it was depressing. And the feedback from all of you was just as terrible!
For those of you who are in the test market you can learn more about the end of the program HERE. The last day to earn points is January 1st and the last day to redeem your points is January 31st. You will no longer need your key fob, you can toss it, run over it with your car, cut it up, whatever you’d like to do to celebrate the end of this awful program! 😉
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
This is great news! Although I don’t live in a test market there was a cloud of dread that it was coming. I even had a few unfriendly cashiers sneer that there won’t have to deal with register rewards and couponers much longer due to this program. Thank goodness Walgreens saw the light!
Were they trying to create something like CVS has?
Not exactly, that would have been ok. They replaced most of the Register Rewards with these low value points. So we’d get a $5 RR and they’d get the equivalent of like $1.50 in points. Totally YUCKY!
Oh, wow! That is yucky! Happy for them! 😀
Even worse though if you used RR or coupons to pay down your total you got even less points. I would get my total to 99 cents or under and would get no points. You had to have $1 to get 10 points.
It was horrible. I stopped shopping there after Christmas last year.
Also, it looks like they still want to do something, they are just discontinuing THIS program. Hopefully it will be as good as they say.
You might want to change your title…when I got the email, and saw that you were celebrating a Walgreens official being dead, I was really confused. I assumed you meant to say “offcially” 🙂
LOL. No I would not be celebrating anyone dying! but the test market… you betcha! 😉
what did I sleep through? since our insurance changed and we are only allowed CVS or direct mail-and we don’t get a real Sunday paper I’m not in the know and I am a nosy
Wahoo! I have loved this news for a little while, but I love seeing it in print!
I stopped shopping at walgreens once I figured out the points were a joke but, I did go in on Black Friday the lady in there offered up the information that altough this program is coming to an end in January another program will begin in September…. It always shocks me that the employees take it personal that the points program bites!
I can’t wait to get back to saving at walgreens too!
Yes, I have had e-mails about it ending but I didn’t want to post until Walgreens made the announcement – just to be sure. Very happy for all of you in the test market!
I’m in Kansas City, which is another test market. This program literally drove me across the street to CVS. Every Wags in town has a CVS nearby, usually across the street. I printed out my certificate for $5, which is all I earned in 2 years because I stopped shopping there. Excited for the return of Register Rewards. Maybe I’ll go back. Now if only all the coupon unfriendly cashiers would quit!
I hope they don’t replace this with something worse. Like some other program and doing away with RR completely.
I’m in Portland, Oregon, another test market. I too am glad that we’ll be able to get the same Register Rewards as the rest of the country. But since Walgreens isn’t saying what the new program will be like, I’m not going to get too excited yet. I’ll wait and see what plan they’ve come up with now. I hope for the sake of everyone, it isn’t as bad as the test market was. It was really depressing to see the great deals the rest of the country was getting, and often all we’d get were some measly points that weren’t worth nearly as much as the Register Rewards. Time will tell.
I’m totally agree with you! I’m thrilled that they are getting rid of the points, but wonder what the heck they will come up with next. I’m trying to stay positive until we hear…I just hope that it will be the same for everyone. That’s what made the point system even worse, knowing that everyone else was still scoring the great deals!
I AM SO HAPPY TO HEAR THIS NEWS!!! Honestly, not to be selfish, but at least if the new program sucks, it will such a relief to be able to look at the Walgreen’s deals and know I will be getting all of them!! It is such a disappointment to read all the deals the rest of the country gets, and then, since the test market deals did not come out early, I’d get my coupons all ready and have 6 or 7 deals I want to get, then the Sunday paper comes and I realize we are not getting but one, or sometimes NONE, of the deals the rest of the country gets. At least if the new program is not good, we’ll know not to get all excited about Wags for the week. But I’m certainly hoping that Wags will keep the good deals coming, for us all, no matter what program they set up!
From what an employee told me what they are going to do is come out with a rewards card kinda like CVS therefore we will no longer be able to get rewards for the same items more than the amount they want us to unless we have more than one account.