Do Those Book Reward Programs Really Pay?by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 22 Dec 2006 11:17 AM
So is the reward program a good deal? I think it all depends. One part of the reward program allows you to earn points for your purchases. When you reach a certain number of points in any given month ($50 worth of purchases), you get a sale day. You can choose which day you want to shop, and on that day, you get 10 percent off any books you buy. I found that having that extra 10 percent helps a great deal when buying clearance books, as it adds to my savings. For regularly priced books, however, I could usually find them online for the same price or less even with that 10 percent sale day. I also found it hard to justify the $50 a month in book purchases to earn that sale day. I did make it one month, when I decided to buy gifts and stock up on some cookbooks I knew I would use for years. A second part of the reward program is earning a dollar amount from your purchases that you can then spend in credit for additional purchases during the holiday season. You must earn a minimum of $10 in order to redeem any of this reward. So while I earned $7.03 by the deadline, I was not able to use any of that reward. I would have had to spend more than $70 in additional purchases in order to get the $10 credit. The danger, here of course, is going on a book buying frenzy just to earn enough rewards to make the limit by the deadline. The third part of the reward program was the most useful to me. The book store would e-mail me coupons and notify me about discounts. Coupons ranged from 20 percent off a book to 40 percent off a DVD boxed set. Occasionally, I would receive a 30 percent off or a $20 off coupon. The coupons often had a limited shelf life, sometimes only good for a day or two. Still, when there was something we really wanted, I could wait for a good coupon to purchase it. For those interested in best sellers, there were some good deals on specific newly released books, CDs and DVD, usually 30-40 percent off. My conclusion: If you are a big book buyer, then the reward system would definitely pay off. If you are very selective about book buying, then the reward system can still work for you, as long as you don't fall into a trap of buying more books then you normally would, just to earn more rewards. Related Articles: Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantdealsblog tags User Comments  Julie Gentry (5915) 22 Dec 2006 11:36 PMI'm too cheap for the reward programs :-). Have you ever tried the paperbackswap? It's not just paperbacks. You pay only postage out.  Mary Ann Romans |
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I love books, but being frugal, I usually borrow my books from the library or a friend, or buy them at yard sales, thrift stores and library sales. But when a famous chain book store offered a reward program for free, I got excited and decided to sign up.
