Wholesale Horror – Ongoing Chaos Redeeming Sam’s Club Mastercard Rewards

Redeeming Sam’s Club Mastercard Rewards

Our points and travel hobby can convince us to do many odd things, including committing time to activities we’d otherwise avoid.  This is of course true for many tasks on the earning side, but also occasionally on the redemption end.  I’m focusing on the latter today.  But no, this story doesn’t go, “geez, I spent a lot of time online finding this award.”  I generally avoid that type of writing, anyway, as it would bore me, and, more importantly, many readers.  (And I don’t need any help boring readers more than I normally do.)  Today, I’m talking about a relatively rare chore I have in our hobby – hitting the streets to redeem, this time related to the Sam’s Club Mastercard.  But to partially explain the havoc I go through at the end, I must first talk about why I bother.

The Greatness of the Sam’s Club Mastercard

Unlike the store itself, I’ve enjoyed the Sam’s Club Mastercard for years.  The card earns 5% on any gas station spend up to $6k annually.  The card also rewards dining spend at 3% back.  I pick up 5% total on Sam’s Club spend – 3% from the card, and 2% from being a Sam’s Plus member.  My $110 Sam’s Plus membership is automatically charged to the card annually.  And I have absolutely zero problem paying that.

Why?  As a Sam’s Plus member, I drastically decrease my trips to Sam’s.  That’s because the vast majority of items we buy from Sam’s are eligible for free shipping to Plus members with a $50 order minimum.  Comically, I’m giving more money to Sam’s for my membership so I can get out of going there.  But once a month, I swallow hard and venture out.

Again, why?  Because Sam’s Club Mastercard holders can effectively cash out their Sam’s Cash rewards in-store.  We routinely earn significantly more rewards than our normal Sam’s spending, so applying rewards to such purchases would be merely a drop in the redemption bucket.  To promptly, fully realize all of our Sam’s rewards via true cashout, I must do what I dread.  But each time I go to Sam’s, I question my decision to return.

The Catch

Outside

The Sam’s Club parking lot is one of the more unsavory spaces in my metro area.   People, pallets, cars, carts, cart wranglers, boxes, plastic, and most anything else you can possibly imagine aimlessly loiter around a much-too-small footprint.  But apparently, there’s always enough room for a luxury bed sheet stand, something I’ll take their word for over trying myself.

Given this predicament, I’ve chosen to avoid this Mad Max scene the past few years by just parking at a semi-adjacent strip mall.  Plenty of parking exists over there, but that comes with its own set of hazards.  I walk along the edge of a street as oncoming drivers turn harshly into the perpendicular Sam’s club entry, because there’s no sidewalk.  I imagine one isn’t there because pedestrians are somehow an afterthought in this (and every other) strip mall wasteland.  Anyway, as I traverse the street on one side, I pass a drainage ditch on the other, next door to a local wing joint.  Invariably, a slightly-sweet trash smell unwelcomely wafts across from the moist bog below.  I quickly forget about the stench as I approach an open field next to Sam’s littered with abandoned shopping carts, a few with empty, seemingly-gallon-sized Sam’s food court soda cups – American sloth in full view.

No matter, it’s only about a 200-foot walk and less drudgery than the alternative – sitting in standstill traffic in the Sam’s Club parking lot as absent-minded drivers and shoppers play a weird game of chicken, none particularly interested in moving.  Because hey, that’s a funny video they’re watching on their phones.

Waiting My Turn

Things are looking up at the Sam’s entrance.  I wave my membership and say hello to the Sam’s greeters.  Their smiles beckon me to do the same.  (Isn’t it delightful how that happens?  Try it yourself some time.)  But then another reality returns.

The recently-relocated customer service desk next to the entrance, or more accurately the amoeba which is apparently the line, is an absolute mess.  The previous customer service location had clear line signage, posts, and barriers ensuring an organized queue.  The new location, in an apparent move to streamline, offers no such equipment or order.  Instead, entering customers needing service just start loitering aimlessly, often looking at their – you guessed it – phones, clearly uninterested in line-forming.  Some waiting feel the need to have their oversized Sam’s shopping carts/woobies at their sides.  Simultaneously, they feel a need to keep 5-10 feet of space between anyone else and their carts.  You may see where this is headed.

Consequently, Sam’s main entry is completely blocked by the hoards of people waiting at customer service.  I do my best to stay out of the walkway as I watch unexpecting customers enter and serpentine through the maze.  The only Sam’s worker(s) in sight (or maybe on site?) are head-down working at customer service.

Cashing Out

By some miracle, I eventually end up at the desk, and the rep and I greet each other.  I ask to redeem my Sam’s Cash, and they consistently oblige.  Occasionally, the rep reminds me that I can cash out at a regular register with a cashier.  I mention I haven’t been able to in the past, as the cashier didn’t know how to do so and needed to call the MOD to take care of it (true story).  The rep awkwardly laughs, and I thank them for the rewards in the small bills I requested.

I move toward the exit and slink by the carts of oversized dog food bags (doubling the cart’s width) and exit, feeling like David Blaine.  After all, I had no receipt to check since I didn’t buy anything, because I loathe the inside of Sam’s only slightly less than the parking lot.

Conclusion

But I occasionally experience no other customers at the service desk, and I’m in and out of there, lickety-split.  That’s a Sam’s Cash redemption unicorn, though.  The chalk is what I spent way too much time describing above.  But if that’s the toughest angle of earning and redeeming Sam’s Cash, that’s fine with me.  In a store and country of shameless excess, so are these rewards.  See you next month!