My Coke Rewards - The Beginning of the End

Well, Coke did it again.  In the past two years, they have cut the relative value of a point significantly, remember the 10 point 2 liter bottle coupons? Now it is 24 points for a 20 oz. bottle coupon.

Today Coke sent out an E-Mail that I think is the beginning of the end for the program.

Starting on February 16, Coke is now limiting people to entering 120 points worth of codes each week.

Currently, Coke limits people to entering ten codes a day, with no limits on points.  A 20 oz. bottle cap is worth 3 points while a 12 pack of cans has a code worth 10 points.

It used to be possible to enter 100 points a day for a total of 700 points in a week.

Coke has reduced the number of points you can enter in a week by 83%, which is a pretty dramatic reduction.

Even if you were only entering 10 bottle cap codes per day, your total # of points per week has been reduced from 210 to 120, which is a 43% reduction in points per week.

I know, most people won't be affected by this, but it is still a dramatic reduction.

I wonder if Coke is planning on ending the program this year.  They are also getting rid of all of the prizes above 2000 points and they are killing the Spanish version of the program.

If you have a large number of points you better use them in the next few weeks, or be content with getting a large amount of Coke-branded clothing.

Here's the link to the details of the changes.

Comments

[Scott]

I only found out about this when Coke sent me an email today. What a disgrace! They've tried to market it as freeing us from the restriction of 10 codes a day (which was an admittedly unpleasant restriction). I guess they're counting on all of their customers being bad at math. Thank you, O benevolent sugar water masters!

Pepsi's rewards were a far better deal anyway. They didn't offer as much stuff, but the ones they had weren't overpriced. If I recall correctly, Pepsi's cost for music downloads was one-fifth that of Coke's. Sadly, that promotion ended in December.

[AMetamorphosis]

Yeah,

Phuck Coke!
It used to be that you could use 100 cocke points for a free 12 pack of coke.
Now 35 points will get you a dollar off. 200 points will get you a BOGO.
Shirts & other items started out cheap too.
Then they raised points repeatedly.
As to reducing the amount of inputs per day that is aimed SPECIFICALLY @ people like me who work in an office where there are tons of Minute Maid Bottles in the trash & I used to be able to input 10 a day or 30 points.
Coke has consitently gotten higher in price.
Thanks Coke ! Crive your loyal drinkers like me to Root beer or RC ...

[kyle]

I have 9000 point and have been waiting for something good. Guess I'd better quit waiting and buy something. But seriously, this is crap.

[Marsha Fielding]

They had coke on sale at our local Safeway the other day 4 12packs of cans for 7.99. Not a bad price.

[Bruce]

I'm a diehard Coca-Cola fan, and they've really pissed me off with the way they've treated this awards program. I've written then multiple times and never received a single response. I plan to cash in my points and then boycott all Coca-Cola products.

[r]

i hav 672 and that not counting the throw away every were i go i ask for coke or it tea knot pepsi and i have wait along time for us diet coke driker to be invode in a game now but if they dont care about us

[MplsVala]

Actually, the 24-packs have 20 point codes, so under the old system you could have entered 1400 points per week, not 700. Assuming you are attached to a group that could drink ten 24 packs a day.

[Dejiko12]

I need some codess T_T I dont have any :(

[spooge]

Has anyone had problems redeeming points? I usually use Firefox but that doesn't work and have been told that Internet Explorer will work to get the rewards. When I click on my choice for coupons it gives me a link and sends me to a site that never comes up, it just times out. This is really frustrating! Has anyone else noticed how sucky the site is?

[Carla Dudek]

I have almost 24,000 pts and was hoping to get the TV. That is now out the window. Then I thought I would purchase the hotel card and have a nice vacation. Seems you can only use one card, $50.00, per stay with a minumum of 2 nights. Shot that down. Plus they have to be used by August. Coke really put the screws to those of us that have been saving for a big item.

[Diane]

The cost of a Coca Cola is going up and the rewards they are offering is going down. Is this Coke's version of the recession?? Saving coke points can be challenging. Coke is going to see less participation in their program by adults. This is probably the overall goal. Point values range from 3-25 points and it is possible to enter 1550 points a week. After February 16th, the limit will be 120 points a week. After over 40 years of loyalty - water is beginning to look and taste better every day.........

[Coke_Fiend]

How dare you criticize Coke and its products. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. You most of all, Mattazuma.

[Disappointed]

I complained, and this is what they had to say:

Thank you for contacting MyCokeRewards.com. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us regarding this issue.

More than 97% of our members enter fewer than 120 points per week. For these members, the new weekly points limit gives them more flexibility to enter the codes in a single visit if that works best for them.

Less than 3% of our members enter more than 120 points per week, yet these members take over 30% of our rewards. Many of these members enter way more points than any household could possibly buy and drink, so it's clear that they are getting codes from other means. We want to reward the people who are buying our products, so we had to fix this inequity. Keep in mind that 120 points is the same as 40 2-liter bottles or 12 12-packs every week. That's a lot of product for even our most loyal families, and if someone is buying that much of our product, we need to ensure that we have rewards available to reward them.

We thank you for your honest feedback and will share your comments with our team.

If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us again.

[FL Loyal Coke Drinker]

Disappointed hit it on the head with the question from MCR. The 3% that MCR is talking about, I am sure that I am included. I have several groups of friends and family members that DID NOT WANT to save and post. So we grouped our points together under one email address. WOW. Think of that. Rather that maintain several sites we would make our requests and work TOGETHER. And as for obtaining points from other means, the ONLY WAY I KNOW to get POINTS is to BUY THE PRODUCT. Once again, this is AMERICAN SOCIALISM at its BEST. Don't REWARD the hard working or thinking outside of the box, BUT reward everyone for doing nothing. MCR IS NOW A JOKE!!!

[Screwed?]

I won a prize in a sweepstakes on November 17, 2008 and still have not received my prize. I keep emailing and all I get is a return email saying they are investigating the issue. Has anyone received a prize they won?

[lisa]

um - can anyone else log in lately???

[edward j sapp]

on feb 23 2009 coke rewards has 7 items that you can redeem this program is a joke the prizes terrible

[trafdal]

I received the same "SPREAD THE WEALTH" BS response as Coke_Friend. I am switching to Pepsi. Coke Rewards really sucks.

[Alison Koons]

I have over 3000 points - and keep waiting for the Sephora e gift certificates to come back but have no idea if they ever will. I do the "suggest rewards" thing every day and ask for Sephora. probably fruitless. I have even suggested e gift certs for Amazon.com, CVS, Walmart.
Who the heck would want a crappy plastic inflatable American Idol couch?!

[Spitfire]

In response to FL Loyal Coke Drinker 18 Feb: Yes, I won a prize on 15 Dec 2008 and have not received either. I can not get a satisfactory response either. We were all excited. I wonder if they understand that this is worse than not winning a prize. We've been avid coke fans, but this could turn our heads. I wonder how many others that haven't received their prize are out there.

[Alex Suydam]

I signed up for mycokerewards and know it won't let me sign in to the website to enter codes. Then i tried to make anew one with the same user name/ password as before, and speak of the devil, it says i already have that name in the website.

DONT USE MYCOKEREWARDS, THEY LIE.

[jen]

i have over 2500 points, and have resigned myself to free soda coupons.
only the bottles as they mail them out.
i have been searching for my digital reward for 2 months and still cannot find it

[Alida in Maine]

I am a Coke drinker and I am adding points to the MCR. I feel for those who have not received their sweepstakes prizes. Just reading your postings makes me angry. I was playing the My Pepsi Stuff since the other members of the family are avid Pepsi drinkers. They didn't want to waste the time to put codes in so I took them. I put in points towards several prizes one of them being the Flip video camara. I was never notified that I had won anything. About 4-5 weeks after I put the points towards the Flip I get a package. Knowing that I did not order anything from Amazon I was a bit perplexed as to what the package contained. Imagine my surprise when I opened the package and found the Flip video camera and just 2 days before for my trip to Florida. This is the way Coke should respond. They really should not mess with us avid Coke fans. I will most probably stay away from the sweepstakes part of this contest. I redeemed some coke points for a magazine 4 weeks ago and yesterday received my first issue. Why can't Coke be just as quick with the sweepstakes prizes that you poor folks won.

[John]

I wonder how many of the big rewards Coke actually redeemed. Perhaps they changed the prizes before anyone could get them. Maybe the attorney generals of some of the states should look into that. I'm sure Coke would love a few lawsuits over a loyalty program.
In any case every cap is paid for by someone and Coke has no way of knowing who.
Obviously they built into this promotion that most people throw the caps away and they are not redeemed. The sweepstakes are a great way to use up a lot of points with little possible reward. One prize and lots of entries. It is not like they give out a prize for every 100,000 caps entered. Might better give the points to charity. At least then someone gets something out of each point instead of a losing sweeps entry. Could cost Coke a lot of money.

I prefered the Pepsi program also. You could at least get something reasonable for your points. The clothing was not bad although poorly sized.

[Smith]

We have not been able to sign in for over 3 weeks, receiving message stating "error" #unable to process your request at this time, please try again later". Anyone else familiar with this problem? We also have in excess of 9000 points! Screw coke!!! Drink