Samsung has announced that effective 12/31/20 Samsung Pay purchases and gift card purchases will no longer earn Samsung rewards. When Samsung Pay first launched this was a somewhat valuable rewards program, since then Samsung has devalued this program too many times to count. So much that it has become worthless. Interesting timing given how aggressive Google Pay has been in the last few days, but this was likely decided by Samsung some time ago.
It was inevitable, and I’ve always said I would continue to use SP, even if it was just for the sercurity….but it still feels like the final kick in the nuts from our pals in S. Korea. A day after getting this notice, they sent me the offer about turning existing rewards points into cash for doing the SoFi thing. Guess I’ll at least look into it
It was such a great program back in 2015/2016 when you earned 10 cents a transaction. RIP
I bought a used Samsung Galaxy S6 for around $200 in 2016 and I earned more than $200 from all the Samsung promotions, discounts and reward points. I maxed out rewards points every month by just tapping my phone to a vending machine at work and voiding the transaction 2x a day.
Too bad Samsung got rid of rewards points but I don’t touch my phone when I’m in a store because of covid.
People who complain about the rewards devaluation have failed to see the way the value of Samsung Pay has shifted. While I no longer get anything from the rewards like I used to I now get a ton of value from the cash back offers, many of which are much better than what I can find through online portals (Rakuten, airline programs, etc.). There are many stores with 2-5% cash pack on Samsung Pay that don’t offer anything on portals. The ones that most often are best if you click through SamPay rather than a portal are HomeDepot, Ebay, Grubhub (occassionally has good portal deals), UberEats (occassionally better through portal), and Staples. I just cashed out another $150 from the cash back I’ve earned. That should more than pay for the Galaxy phone I bought by the time I’m done with it. So don’t bemoan the loss of rewards, but instead look at the good value that’s now being offered instead. (As others comment, I also get a lot of value out of this because I have an Altitude Reserve card and SamPay gets me the 4.5% even when a store doesn’t have a contactless reader.)
Meh I’ll still use samsung pay bc it’s convenient for me. I redeemed all my non expired worthless points for wallpapers.
count down to negative rewards program
Sad to see this leave but none of the other Pay Apps (Apple Pay and G Pay) also rewards customers with transaction points (i.e. for paying with your phone). Samsung Pay still offers Cash Back, just like Google Pay does, albeit with different approaches.
Samsung pay rewards have been devalued heavily and it worths nearly nothing now.
Gpay already helped place one foot in the grave for samsung pay. Removing the rewards program might be the final nail in the coffin.
GPay has existed for a long time. Just the revamped recently may have attracted more attention.
And SPay isn’t even available for all of devices so it’s another catch
Between the ads, the unnecessary and permanent sofi integration (give us an option to hide the tab at least?), and the utter destruction of the rewards program. There is only one reason to use samsung pay – if you left your credit card at home and the store doesn’t have NFC. Google pay is better in every way and more rewarding.
You’ve underutilized the unsupported “features” of Samsung Pay. I left my credit card at home and wholesale club, grocery reward, library pass, gym membership, and debit card. Sure you can cram your wallet or touch dirty buttons in addition to using G-Pay, but I like to keep it simple.
Just last month I earned 22% on all purchases at Staples through their Cash Back Awards, including Visa GCs ($300 cards w/ $8.95 fee). I think some had up to 24%, my wife had 16%. So occasionally Samsung Pay still has opportunities for big value. But certainly the Samsung Rewards program has been essentially worthless for a while and this announcement does not meaningfully change that.
Was it actually paying out on vgc? I slept on this waiting to see if it was actually paying out 🙁