Walgreens Balance Rewards Program - Experiences, Discussion, How-Tos

I've read about some people having more than once Balance Rewards card, and was wondering what the advantage to this is. Since deals don't (yet) seem to have a limit per card, is there something I am missing?
I can be incredibly, amazingly dim sometimes, but I've been thinking about this for a week now and still can't figure it out!

Quote from NicholeNJ : I've read about some people having more than once Balance Rewards card, and was wondering what the advantage to this is. Since deals don't (yet) seem to have a limit per card, is there something I am missing? I can be incredibly, amazingly dim sometimes, but I've been thinking about this for a week now and still can't figure it out!

There's a limit of how many transactions you can do per day with the card. In my experience, it's been 20 per day for me. I like to do more than 20 transactions per day sometimes, so I have 4 cards.

Quote from chasingdealz : There's a limit of how many transactions you can do per day with the card. In my experience, it's been 20 per day for me. I like to do more than 20 transactions per day sometimes, so I have 4 cards.

GOTCHA. I'm not a big Wags shopper, so that was the part that wasn't obvious to me. My store is REALLY great about multiple transactions though - the first question they always ask is, "is this all together?" - so maybe I should start looking more closely!

My wife entered our home phone number (registered in my name) for the Balance card sign-up. The PoS showed her my name, address and DoB. WTF!!

Where did Walgreens get all my personal info? And, why is it available for anyone to see who bothers to enter my phone number? And, why is the cashier able to look at all this information? Sounds like any Walgreens employee and customer can easily access this information.

Anyone complained to FTC, State AG office yet?

Have you ever filled a prescription at Wag?

Same thing happened to my Mom...but then she remembered that Dad joined the pharmacy club thing hence they had all his information.

Wags aside, most of our personal info is already out "there" anyway. I'm not happy about it either, just stating a fact.

A couple of years ago we had a friend that worked for Homeland Security and I was shocked ... SHOCKED!!!!... at the amount of personal information he had access to on his computer. Everything from name, DOB, relatives, former addresses, right down to every penny in every bank account the person had their name on.

Quote from mkmattingly : Personally, I like a little bit of a high hurdle to entry and this rewards program is one more hurdle to entry in the coupon world. When the deals are too simple, and too easy, stock disappears. When it takes a bit of logic, some hard work, some reading skills, the experts win out. Also, besides the DD on Saturday, the other big advantage that I don't think people are thinking enough about is the fact you don't need fillers to use points. When you do enough transactions, that can be HUGE! That can easily save you 25 to 50 cents a transaction, if not more. Multiply that by 20 or 30, and soon enough, you're talking serious money.

What I don't get with all this is what people are using to pay for the points deals. There aren't too many RR deals to roll back and forth with the points especially going forward. I don't see why anyone would put out actual cash to keep this going unless you resell. Am I missing something?

I don't mind the high hurdle if there is actually some payout somewhere. All I'm seeing is turning RRs into points and if, and ONLY if, Wags decides to offer some RRs are they worth anything. Otherwise they waste my time, logic, and coupons for points to buy some overpriced item that I can get at either of the other drugstores with less effort.

I am trying to keep an open mind, so any tips here or by PM would be appreciated. I can only see irritations or problems with this new program.

this program is made for the casual shopper... you know the ones who drop $60 at wags every week on a bag of stuff

not for you and I
And yes, it is as frustrating as hell

Have avoided Wags since this balance system started. Bought 3 listerine - got 5000 pts and 4 RR. Can I do this transaction again and redeem the 5000 pts? Will I still get another 4RR and 5000 pts? TIA

Quote from cobini : Have avoided Wags since this balance system started. Bought 3 listerine - got 5000 pts and 4 RR. Can I do this transaction again and redeem the 5000 pts? Will I still get another 4RR and 5000 pts? TIA

The wiki has your answer

Quote from sjsd : My wife entered our home phone number (registered in my name) for the Balance card sign-up. The PoS showed her my name, address and DoB. WTF!! Where did Walgreens get all my personal info? And, why is it available for anyone to see who bothers to enter my phone number? And, why is the cashier able to look at all this information? Sounds like any Walgreens employee and customer can easily access this information. Anyone complained to FTC, State AG office yet?

I found a site (and I'm sure there are tons) where I put in the name of a person and their approx location. They gave me address, phone, year of birth, and associated family members, #years at that addy, etc. I know so much 'personal' data is now public domain, and those aggregating sites take it all to the next level.

This maybe obvious, but just want to confirm that when you redeem points it acts as a store coupon, so it removes tax on this amount (if you have a mixture of taxable and nontaxable items it does proportional allocation?) And that this happens in both pre-coupon and post-coupon tax states.

Quote from z390z : This maybe obvious, but just want to confirm that when you redeem points it acts as a store coupon, so it removes tax on this amount (if you have a mixture of taxable and nontaxable items it does proportional allocation?) And that this happens in both pre-coupon and post-coupon tax states.

I am in Texas, a post-coupon tax state. When I have redeemed points, it does NOT reduce my taxable total like a coupon does. The tax is charged just like it is a cash payment. I agree that it SHOULD act like a store coupon and reduce the taxable total but that is not what I am seeing on my receipts.