Is the Verizon Smart Rewards Program Worthwhile?
Over the weekend Verizon emailed me about their new rewards program, Verizon Smart Rewards, and I finally got a chance to look over it.
At first it seemed like many other rewards programs offering Groupon-like discounts on a variety of products and coupons.
Then I started digging into the travel section and was pleasantly surprised. For hotels they give you cash & points options. They preset the number of points that can be applied, and you pay the difference from the rack rate. What appealed to me about this is your Verizon points are worth a penny a point when applied to hotel bookings.
And just to make sure the rack rate they were quoting was in fact accurate, I double checked the hotel website. 🙂
There are similar values on Car Rentals and Gift Cards — get a $100 gift card for $90 + 1,000 Verizon Smart Rewards.
I’m surprised, but this is going to be a great option for me when I don’t have or don’t want to waste hotel points at pricey properties, or when staying at a place where I have no status.
The Sheraton wouldn’t be a good option for me because I’d prefer to use 7,000 Starwood points and get stay credit towards elite status, BUT there are many trips when a Marriott is my only option and I don’t have enough Marriott points (or it’s a bad redemption value) and won’t stay often enough to earn status.
There’s no shopping portal you can go through to earn extra points, but you will earn 10 points per $1 on your monthly statement and get a 5,000 point bonus for signing up by November 1 and another 500 points for opting into Verizon Select.
There’s also some more time intensive options for increasing your balance:
Since there is no cost to sign up, this is one of those reward programs I think all Verizon customers should register for. Not something to invest a lot of time in, but definitely a good back up plan when you can’t find a good hotel deal through your usual channels.
Since my cable and phone bill are combined, I’ll be interested to see if I earn rewards points for the FIOS spend or just the Verizon wireless portion.
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Nice post, really useful. Was just about to do the same post, but I might just put up a link to urs since you cover it pretty well.
I am afraid you were miscalculating the value of points when using for hotel bookings.
From your screenshot I see that 15,100 points give you $151 (and 13,300 points are equivalent with $133). Which translates to exactly one cent per point, not ten cents per point.
And indeed, the value is the same in your gift card example. $100 = $90 + 1,000 points (1,000 points = 1,000 cents = $10).
But you are right that these may be interesting alternatives for using the points.
Thanks! I’ve corrected it (and will use a calculator next time 🙂 )
Verizon has been trying to get me to sign up for this program for months. After reading the participation agreement, I felt the invasion of privacy just wasn’t worth it. They force you to enroll in their “Verizon Selects” program where you have to agree that they can use all of your mobile usage information (web sites you visit, search terms, device location, apps usage, demographic information including shopping preferences, all of your voice usage, etc.) They will keep this information for 3 years. Details are here: http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/terms/products/verizon-selects.html
I just signed up after reading your post and found out I have like 24k points. Great find!
Thanks for the info! I couldn’t get their website to tell me the actual value of points anywhere.
They use your personal data to tailor ads for your but that’s no different than facebook already does.
Verizon has been pushing me to join this. They say I have 39,000 points waiting. I’ve been with verizon since they were GTE wireless. Well over 10 years probably. I read here that 15,000 points is basically $150? That’s a joke. I give them all my personal info for them to sell – they estimate just what you do yearly on google is worth $5000 so I can’t imagine what this info is worth for a lousy free fancy hotel stay a couple times a night? No thanks! Everything verizon does is sneaky. You knew it wasn’t going to be free and it sure isn’t! The NSA spying on me is bad enough, I don’t need verizon adding to that.
With a name like Dakir what should you expect?
Are you crazy? This program is garbage. Even if you accumulate a million points you can only use a few points toward each gift card, etc. It’s nonsense. NOT a true rewards program at all. REAL rewards programs let you redeem your points for the FULL amount of the item you choose…with NO cash outlay!!! Get real
Horrible Program! You can find better prices in retail stores and MUCH better sales prices. The auctions… just stink! Verizon needs to rethink this program!
Have you actually used the rewards program to book a hotel? I haven’t found any reviews about booking through Verizon.
I haven’t tried to use them for hotels. I may try that next time I need a hotel stay. I find myself sorely disappointed that I have over 300,000 points and can only redeem 1000 at a time and still have to pay the majority of the price of whatever. My husband’s military discount is more at most of these places and I don’t have to bother with the redemption process.
Agree with the opinion “horrible program”, the items they have to offer are way overpriced and you can only “redeem” a few points toward any one item. I have 250,000 points, seems like it ought to buy plenty, but with offers like taking $6.00 off a $29.99 item that Amazon sells all day for $10.99 is ridiculous!! Junk program!
I am having the same problem as others. Any loyalty program will let you redeem your points up to the full value of the gift (e.g. gift card) but with Verizon’s program I basically get a small percentage off any item I am interested in purchasing.
I just used my points to buy a $25 Regal cinemas gift card at Southwest for free just 3000 points. I cannot do this on Verizon. I have over 200,000 Verizon Smart Rewards points and they are just sitting there.
This program needs to be changed.