VIP points confusion

[hatcher]

Anyone know anything about this?

I don't have a LEGO store near me, so I only get in there once or twice a year. Most of my purchases have b been from shop@home. Anyway I had $25 worth of points about to expire so last week I made a special trip to the store. I bought $75 worth of stuff to get the pick a brick box. I cashed all my points in which brought the price down to $50. Anyway, I check my points balance today expecting to see 75 points. They only gave me 50 points. Is that because I used my VIP points to pay for part of the order? I checked their FAQ about VIP points and there was nothing that I could find. I sent them an email asking for clarification.

Anyone know anything about this?

[lego the hutt]

Here is where it mentions it on the website:

"For every $1 earn 1 VIP Point. "

It is always a bad idea to use your points during double VIP point promotions.

[hatcher]

Thanks. That's pretty sneaky in my opinion, but its their policy so....

And yes, glad I didn't buy that stuff during triple VIP points.

[vynsane]

How is that sneaky? You get a point for every dollar spent. You expected points for dollars you didn't spend? Every item on the S@H site shows you exactly how many points you'll receive and tallies them up in your cart.

The one thing most people don't notice is that (I'm almost certain) they also give you the $0.99 on the end of prices, too. The display only shows the total dollar amount without any cents on the end, so a $9.99 item shows you getting 9 points but buying two of them for $19.98 garners 19 points, not 9+9=18. But I'm almost certain it's actually 19 and 98/100 points. I'll send an email to LEGO CS to try and get a definitive answer on the rounding up vs. fractional accrual.

EDIT: Okay, so I did a little experiment. I added two of the small $4.99 Creator sets into my 'bag' on S@H. Each says they will give me 4 VIP points, but in the sidebar says I will earn 9 VIP points on this order:



This is not to say that it keeps a running tally of all the $0.99 missing over your lifetime of LEGO purchases and adds them up, but it does show that it only drops at most $0.99 off the total amount of money you spend. It doesn't round down individual items, only the final total of your purchase. So if you were to buy five items at $4.99, it's rounding off the remaining $0.95 and gives you 24 VIP points.

Should they just round up to 5 points on a $4.99 item? I'd think it would make the entire system a lot easier to maintain, which would reduce maintenance and development costs, but that's just me. Obviously, they don't feel the same way.

[dulait]

Should they just round up to 5 points on a $4.99 item? I'd think it would make the entire system a lot easier to maintain, which would reduce maintenance and development costs, but that's just me. Obviously, they don't feel the same way.

Totally agree with you. It is like going to get two coffees, instead of for example $1.99+1.99, can we just give the cashier $3?