Samsung Pay is currently the only mobile wallet that offers a rewards program. You earn a fixed amount of points for every transaction, rather than earning based on the dollar value of each transaction. The amount of points you earn is tiered and used to be as follows:
Approximately two days ago Samsung Pay made a change and cut the earning rates in half. It now looks like this:
As you can see, earning rates have been halved across the board. This is in addition to the fact that Samsung Pay recently devalued points to make them worth less as well. It’s hard to complain too much, because this is all in addition to the rewards you’d normally earn on your credit card but it’s still a significant and negative change.
Hat tip to join_the_club
Just catching up on this now and this is expected but disappointing. I didn’t make tons from SamPay, but it was really nice when GCs were heavily discounted and you still earned points from each transaction. They succeeded with me, because I do really like using it day-to-day where it’s frictionless, but I won’t be pushing to use it where cashiers are skeptical anymore.
I used Samsung Pay as much as I could when it first came out through now and used up my points right before the devaluation (thanks to DoC’s heads up). I knew the original earning and rewards scheme was unsustainable, so I made sure I did as much as I could (organically, I’m not a MSer) knowing the gravy train would eventually slow down. It was a great run while it lasted. I don’t think I can say I paid for my whole phone with what I got back from Samsung Pay, but I definitely got close to it.
I’ll probably continue to use it because I actually like it, but I definitely won’t go out of my way to use it like I used to. I feel sorry for you guys that haven’t been using it for over a year, but like anything on this site, there’s always the risk of it closing down or devaluing. It’s definitely not worth staying upset over it, or you’re just going to be upset all the time.
I was thinking of getting a used $90 S6 Active for underwater pics while on vacation and taking advantage of the rewards program. Do you think it’s worth it?
So glad I didn’t upgrade my S8+ to a S8 Note and give my S8+ to my wife, I came so close, but now I’m glad I didn’t, I noticed that SP increased Samsung Visa GC and BB, last month. Oh so glad I cashed in my 10k points in December for a $50 Visa GC, great timing, but I cant really complain, the promos since I got my S8+ , was able to take advantage of the card issuers promos except for a few like Navy FCU and 1-2 others. I’m not going to worry now if I lose Plat. Status I had to make the effort toward the end of Jan, to hit 30
Wow, I’m surprised people would buy a phone simply because of the potential rewards from Samsung Pay. Don’t get me wrong, the devaluation of the points has been huge since inception; it was always a bonus anyway and no other mobile wallet offered it. With the original points required for samsung rewards cards, you could earn $20 per month just by doing the 50 transactions. Now we are down to $4-seems about right but I didn’t check the math. On top of that there were tons of other bonuses always available and those seem to be much less frequent. I have made approximately $1000 off of samsung pay rewards points, and that doesn’t count the savings from discounts regularly available on gift cards that are generally better than offers you find elsewhere. Aside from the rewards program being pretty much devalued to nothing now, it simply is a better mobile wallet than any other available. People can debate that but I say that only because it is accepted nearly everywhere. I’m actually tired of proving cashiers wrong when they tell me it won’t work. For me, carrying my phone is better than carrying 10 different cards. I carry one just in case and my phone.
The ONLY reason that I keep samsung phones is for samsung pay. I’m actually back in the phone market, and will be looking elsewhere now since the rewards aren’t worth it anymore. I will continue to use it this quarter for the freedom rewards, but other than that, I’ll probably stop, except when there are gift cards that I want to buy at a discount
WOW! First a 20% cut and now a 50% cut? That’s freaking huge! It’s not even worth the time anymore. There’s no advantage to using this mobile pay.
I’ll have to ditch this. It’s not worth it anymore. Last time I was so close to 10,000 points before they changed the point structure with no notice. And now with this change again without any notice and in the middle of the month. They bribed us to to use their product and change our behavior but now I’ll have to delete the app. It’s way too slow and not worth it anymore.
God only knows what other change they’ll do next to the program.
Just started a few weeks ago … and the USBank Altitude transactions were not even showing up which made things worse!
I guess that doesn’t matter anymore..
Have the same problem with my Altitude and Samsung Pay, doesn’t matter anymore now since I won’t be using it anymore.
I just started. Should I not bother then?
Probably not unless your card gives a bonus for mobile payments or you’ve left a particular card at home. I’ve found it a bit cumbersome to switch over and use Samsung Pay, almost not worth it for a few pennies.
Samsung Pay is by the far the most widely accepted since it uses MST or NFC not just NFC. I can’t count how many times a cashier told me they don’t take Apple Pay, to only see the receipt print out using Samsung Pay.
This quarter for Chase Freedom is very easy to use with Samsung Pay. It’s practically 5x everywhere (except online).
Actually it’s any mobile payment. So you can use it @ many places with Apple Pay and Safari.
I think the point that Jeremy was making was that you can use Samsung Pay in places that Apple Pay will not work. Samsung has MST technology that mimics a magnetic swipe in machines that are not equipped for NFC.
I used to use Android Pay exclusively, and had it not been for MST, and the Samsung Rewards program I would have never even tried Samsung Pay. I’d have a hard time going back to Android Pay now, there are just too many places that don’t accept NFC around me.
Yep you can even uses SP at gas pumps that have the old insertion readers. Sometimes you have to insert a biz card to activate the reader.
Wow, I didn’t know this. Thanks for mentioning it. I’ll be trying this out the next time I fill up.
It’s so much faster than both chipped and non chip cards, unless you run into an old POS Card reader. I entered and carry copies of my vehicles insurance cards, DL, as well as memberships cards, you can manually enter them as well as GC that are not supported manually under membership card section. Costco still won’t accept anything but the physical card even with a scanable barcode.
I will still use SP, just not going to push for rewards any longer except the use your Chase card 3x for $10 GC, etc or the 15%+ off GC I already purchase for gas points at Kroger stores.
If the website you’re shopping at accepts Visa Checkout (not many, unfortunately), you CAN utilize Samsung Pay.
I have probably earned about $300 using Samsung Pay. So sad they changed the rate!