Shop Your Way

I will give the redeem your rewards a 1 star as I can't go lower than that! If you have 2 hours of free time and the patience to be transferred a half dozen times, this is up your alley!

I used the Citi Shop Your Way MasterCard for a few weeks before I tried to make airline reservations. It was declined. I had to use another card which was accepted immediately.
Then I called the telephone number on the card and waited between five and ten minutes. The rep told me that she could see that my purchase had been declined, but she could not help me. She would have to transfer my call to another department. I waited about fifteen minutes on hold listening to three messages that said that my wait time was five minutes. I disconnected the call.
I called again the next day, waited five or six minutes, and went through a similar process. However, this time the rep took my information and said that he would return my call soon. I still don't know why my card was declined or if this issue will persist.
This card is going into the back of a drawer and will be used as an emergency backup.

Cancelling this card that I did not open is tedious. Sears selling my info to SYW, and then opening an account in my name should be illegal. I called to cancel and explained several times to the agent that I want to cancel, do not want their promotion money, and do not like how this account was opened. I had to disconnect the call when she transferred the call, I do not have time to chat with these crooks.

I can't get a hold of a human to report charges I never made and their robos keep harassing me. I have tried to contact them a dozen times. Do not sign up for this headache of a card.

It is amazing that you can put in accurate information and 100 percent of the time SYW MC will say it's inaccurate! I have 120 dollars to redeem in rewards and 4 different customer service reps can not solve my issues. The last rep told me I couldn't have been on the phone for an hour because they just opened 10 minutes ago... really? I'm lying? Wow

The best rewards program for saving money, by far, easy to earn points from sears, kmart, or their online partners, FREECASH gives you extra discounts too. I've gotten several thousand dollars in points from them in the last few years. It's legit.

This started in October. There was a charge on my account which I did not make nor authorize.
It was clear I did not make given there was a foreign transaction fee attached. I live in NC and the company was located in Delaware, so how on earth could I have possibly purchased the service since it was made overseas? There have been several calls made to Shop Your Way and 3 letters I have received saying I am responsible for the charges. (Which I have already paid by the way.) And they are refusing to give my money back.

In my first review, I complained that the Shop Your Way program had so many limitations that it was as good as useless. You could only use points on a few useless items on Sears' website.
Today, in addition to those useless items, you can use your points for anything on the website, either sold by Sears or second hand merchants. Best, you can exchange your points for a wide array of gift cards (sorry, Apple is not one of them).

Citibank MC uses Shop Your Way for their "rewards" program but there seems to be little to no coordination between the sites so I'm not sure which company to criticize more. Citibank site shows we have over 11,000 "points" that can be redeemed but the Shop Your Way site shows zero. At any rate, my experiences with Citibank MC has forced me to move our MC balance to a CC company with more reasonable rates for folks with very good to excellent FICO scores and one who knows how to build a more useable website with real rewards.

Makes shopping very enjoyable with Sears and Kmart! And the savings are out of this world! I don't know anywhere else that rewards shoppers like this!

This is the worst rewards program I have ever seen. States I have over a hundred dollars in rewards but I can find no way to redeem them and can't get any help online or elsewhere. This is a SCAM!

It is so annoying that everything I try to buy gets a fraud alert. Doesn't matter if its $25 or $2500. I can't use a credit card that declines me constantly.

I had a Sears card for many years and they switched me to Shop Your Way. Seems like a normal credit card until I go to redeem my points. I can't redeem my points. The checkout never works. I just get the message "There is some problem now, please try to checkout after some time ". The message is written like a fraud message, I think it might be a scam. Very disappointing.

Unable to use on initial purchase despite having info. -- items removed from cart as soon as put in. Inquired on promotion after received card with no information on it, answering in past tense will not confirm promotion through chat. Told me to call, they won't even confirm when the account was opened. Terrible people, totally unprofessional. They are scamming.

This card sucks $#*! they are the worst I paid my balance off every month they cancelled me because of a outstanding medical bill they can go to hell!

The Shop Your Way model essentially bribes SYW members to shop more often. To do so, SYW members have to put up with online orders that are too often incorrectly fulfilled with wrong items. They have to put up with returns to a non-local Kmart or Sears that can cost a huge amount in return shipping deductions because of per-item ship label deductions that are taken even if all items fit in the same (original) shipping box and come from the same order.

SYW members stand to save money but the perks of the rewards program comes with a growing share of headaches. If, for example, it becomes necessary to update the name on a SYW account, customer service reps will insist on speaking to whomever is named on the Membership Card even if all linked payment information and contact information are linked to yourself and/or are incorrectly linked to someone else due to death, divorce, marriage or clerical error. Logging into the SYW website isn't any better because there is no way to see, short of choosing to print a new member card, who in your household SYW actually regards as the member. (This is problematic if the information in their database is incorrect as they don't allow for joint members and will not change the name even if the person listed calls them as my own spouse has done many times in the name of getting my SYW membership to correctly reflect that I am the only one actually making use of the account.)

Sears and KMART recently made a change that diminishes the benefits of SYW membership. SYW points were formerly redeemed like cash. Now the presence of discounts of any kind, including earned Points, will mean that many customers miss the minimum order target to qualify for free shipping. SEARS also instituted a higher order minimum to qualify for free shipping as compared to competing retailers, which makes them less competitive and attractive to shop. This also makes SYW Points redemption into a mathematical ordeal at checkout.

The entire SYW program flies in the face of the old KISS axiom: Keep It Simple, Stupid. In contrast, I am also an Amazon Prime member and thus far I don't need to meet ANY minimum to get free shipping with Prime whereas now I have to spend $59 above and beyond any redeemed Points and applied discount codes to qualify for Free Shipping with SYW. Worse, the high Minimum Order Requirement applies even though I am a MAX (premium) member!

On one recent attempt to check out with a Sears online order I was just 13¢ shy of meeting the requirement for free shipping so I reduced my Points redemption by about 20¢ because I had already "stocked up" on numerous things I wasn't planning on buying to qualify for the free shipping in the first place. Frankly, I was tired of bouncing in and out of my shopping cart for nearly TWO HOURS to accomplish what Sears' minimum order requirements have made overly complicated when SYW Points are also at play during checkout. Backing off my redemption of Points by less than 20¢ should have put me in position to spend just over $60 after redeeming my Points at a lesser-than-eligible amount --- but Sears nonetheless slammed me with an additional $21 of shipping fees on a sub-$100 order, which falsely implied I had redeemed enough Points for my subtotal to fall under the minimum order! (As a MAX member they advertise Free Standard Shipping so for the life of me I don't even know why I'm being forced to pay shipping fees to begin with!)

I share this to make the point that the Shop Your Way program has become too complicated to continue on as a consumer-facing program. Because prices at retailers such as Sears and Kmart are already low to begin with, my proposal is that Sears and Kmart return to basics and focus on NO GIMMICKS PRICING and Quality Customer Service driven by an incentives program aimed on improving employee performance. Employees will perform better if they stand to earn quarterly bonuses and/or In-Store Credits providing their real-time Customer Feedback Score merits the "perks". (One of those ranking criteria would be tied, as an example, to the accuracy with which employees fulfill and ship online orders, which sadly has amounted to a lottery in recent years as to whether Kmart/Sears shoppers will even get what they ordered online in the size, color or item they expected. Incorrect order fulfillment is perhaps THE single biggest disincentive for people to continue to shop the Sears and Kmart brands.)

My proposal would simplify shopping for consumers, meaning everyday low prices sans the SYW gimmicks, and it would give employees incentive to provide top tier service because they would be on the target end of the "bribes" (incentives) that are currently aimed at SYW members. Better yet, it would allow Sears to par down their operating costs by getting rid of their cruddy overseas SYW customer (no) service team and all related overhead.

BOTTOM LINE

If Sears management, who has control of SYW but treats it like a separate entity, has any sense, they will take my feedback under advisement and restructure the entire retail operation around customer-incentives to provide feedback on existing transactions as opposed to a bunch of over-complicated Points redemption rules, exclusions and the like at the Point Of Service. As an example, supply every Sears and Kmart with in-store customer kiosks or a web link on the receipt and treat the entire Feedback Solicitation System like Vegas Slots. The customer is informed up front that a low ranking of their in-store experience or online order will NOT impact their ability to "win". (This is so customers will provide HONEST feedback.) In effect, the only way customers can "earn" Cash Bonus and Discount-Off offers is if they participate in a feedback lottery with a guaranteed discount or bonus point "payout" for their trouble. Under my proposal, there would be no more SYW Points awarded solely because a customer shopped a store or placed a website order. Customers who obtain discounts will have obtained them not for shopping but for each and every FEEDBACK they submit on a transaction-by-transaction basis, which in turn would track the employees they interacted with in a store or the employees who fulfilled or processed online orders (and returns). My model --- and folks, you read it here on SiteJabber first! --- appears in the hope Sears and Kmart will rediscover their A-game and begin to deliver where the retail rubber meets the consumer spending road: Competent Customer Service. If CEO Eddie Lampert wants to save SEARS and KMART, it's going to come down to out of the box thinking. And that's just what this review is all about.

Mr. Lampert, if you are interested in an out-of-the-box, college-educated Gen-X thinker, this Sears shopper is available to talk.

I will never use this credit card again in my lifetime and I encourage everyone to do the same! First off, I have NEVER disputed a credit card charge until this past December. I submitted a dispute in January regarding a charge from December. Went back and forth with the cc company, provided everything they asked for and pictures to support my claim. Received dispute letter from cc today and they have "no recourse available to recover the funds" so dispute is closed on their end. You, the customer means nothing to these people, use your credit lines elsewhere

I paid off balance a $2. Bill was sent to me. I called they agreed it was a mistake. Bottom line they sent to credit bureau as missed late payment. My score went down 97 pts. I called wrote letters for over a yr. Nothing resolved. They gave me the run-around. Horrible people in resolving problems that is their fault.

Got an e mail today: "An important document regarding the subject line above has been posted to your Document Center.

Because your letter may contain information that could impact your account, please review it as quickly as possible." But, can't get into my account, and their so-called customer service is non existant! Just a phone tree taking you to a hang up...

Been trying for weeks to reach their Customer Service to cash in my points. Automatically get put on hold with music then after ten minutes get a message "nobody available to take your call, please call back at a later time". Calle at least a dozen times.

I'm wondering if they're still in business. I have about 100,000 points to cash in.

This is the worst program you can get into too. I was trying to use my points to book a hotel and that was impossible. The website doesn't work and using the points at check out had some technical issues on their end. There is no one to directly speak to. I am over it. I will not sure this credit card anymore to use points. This is wack.

Cute hoodies / jumpers.
Most things are at a good price..

This card is the worst. They give you offers without interest so you can make the purchase and then they charge you interest, they make strange accounts on the statements