Woolworths Rewards Extras & Delivery T&C Changed

Food & Drink
1

[date=2023-05-30 timezone="Australia/ David Hellewell

May 29, 2023, 18:52 GMT+10

I signed up to a 12 months Woolworths Extra rewards which included 10% discount on a once a month shopping. This was a fee of $50 pain in September 2022. I now get this email from Woolworths telling me that from 1 July 23, I will not receive the discount if I shop online or click and collect. I usually click and collect as my wife is a transplant patient with a very low immune system so we avoid crowds. How can Woolworths change the agreement I’d already paid for. I could accept it if the agreement terminated in September 2023.
Here is a copy of the email they sent me today:-

View this email online

Everyday Extra from Everyday Rewards
Your Everyday Extra benefits are changing
Hi David,
Thanks for being one of the first subscribers to our new Everyday Extra subscription.
Great news, Everyday Extra is here to stay. However, we’re making some changes as we roll out the program more broadly.
From 1 July 2023, we’ll be making the following changes to your Everyday Extra subscription:
•
Extra Discount
Your monthly 10% Extra Discount* will continue to be available to use in-store at Woolworths and BIG W. It will no longer be available to use online (including Pick up and Direct to boot orders).
•
Extra Points
You’ll collect 2x Everyday Rewards points° on every shop at Woolworths and BIG W, both in-store and online, instead of 3x Everyday Rewards points.
•
Annual subscription fee
The price of your annual subscription will increase from $59 to $70. This will apply from your next annual renewal date after 1 July 2023.
You’ll continue to receive discounts, double points on your everyday shopping, and Extra Perks like free products and more with Everyday Extra.
To show our appreciation for your support as one of our earliest subscribers, we’ll provide 3 months additional free access to your current annual plan as a thank you. This means your next annual subscription payment will be delayed until January 2024.
If you’d prefer to cancel your annual subscription immediately and have your remaining balance refunded, log in to your account via the Everyday Rewards app or website, and select Account > Everyday Extra > Plan Details > Cancel plan.
If your subscription remains active from 1 July 2023, these changes will automatically come into effect. We have updated the Everyday Extra Terms & Conditions to reflect these changes.
Yours sincerely,
The Everyday Extra team
Your savings so far
icon-discount-earned
$231.02^
Extra Discounts enjoyed

icon-rewards-points
8520^
Extra Points collected
Since joining Everyday Extra on September 2022
Extra helpful links
Extra FAQs
Terms & Conditions
Contact us
Everyday Extra
^Based on data from 05/09/2022 to 29/05/2023. Transaction data may take up to 7 days, so some data may not be showing yet.
*Extra Discount
Extra Discount only applies to 1 Woolworths and 1 BIG W shop, with single transaction values up to $500 each, once a month in-store only. Exclusions apply - for details, see this FAQ. For full T&Cs, see this link.
°2x points
Available in-store or online at Woolworths and BIG W for Everyday Extra subscribers. 2x points equals 1 standard Everyday Rewards point and 1 additional point. Exclusions apply. For details, see these FAQs.
Don’t know why you’re receiving this email?
You’re receiving this information as part of your paid subscription with Everyday Extra.

In accordance with the Everyday Extra Terms and Conditions, you aren’t able to opt out of service communications about Everyday Extra. If you don’t wish to receive any further important information relating to your subscription, please contact our Customer Contact Centre live via chat on everydayrewards.com.au or via phone on 1300 101 234 to cancel your subscription and request to stop receiving this information.

Please do not respond to this email.

2 Likes
2

If you find the changes from the 1 July 2023 are unsatisfactory to you, they have given you the choice to cancel the Woolworths Rewards Extra program with ‘remaining balance refunded’.

I take the remaining balance refunded as pro-rata refund for the 3-4 months left until 23 September 2023. This would be in the order of $12 to $16 depending on how the refund is calculated. I would check this is the case before cancelling.

Because the T&Cs state:

  • We may change, suspend or terminate these terms and conditions or the Everyday Rewards program at any time. However, we’ll give you notice ahead of time on our website (see paragraph 54 (sic) for more details).

and

  1. Can these T&Cs be changed or terminated?

Yes. Woolworths may change, suspend or terminate these T&Cs or the Everyday Rewards program at any time.

We will give advance notice of any such change, suspension or termination on our website (or you can obtain details by calling the Everyday Rewards Contact Centre), which will allow you time to cancel your membership within the period of that advance notice, in the event that you do not wish to agree to the relevant change or suspension.

Where we change the T&Cs, a copy of the revised T&Cs will be available on the Everyday Rewards Website or can be obtained by calling the Everyday Rewards Contact Centre.

If you continue to use your Everyday Rewards Card or any other Membership Facilities or seek to access or use any Member Benefits after the period of advance notice has expired, you will be deemed to have accepted the amended T&Cs.

3 Likes
3

I have complained to the ACCC about this. I only got offered an Everyday Extras membership a month ago and I signed up on the basis of a yearly membership, not month to month. To change the terms a month later seems like blatant false advertising. They should at least honour what was offered to me for a year.

Also there is no Big W in my town, so we can only shop there online but online discount is now removed, so we lose a pretty major benefit. This also seems like false advertising.

Probably won’t get anywhere but it seems unlikely that they weren’t already planning these changes when I was sent an offer email on 27 April.

5 Likes
4

Welcome to the community, @SparklingSam

Hopefully more than just your one complaint is received by the ACCC. For those who signed up recently it’s a well made observation,

Woolworths have offered an out to cancel and obtain a refund, refer to the OP. Whether individually there has been any real benefit for those with only a short period of membership, some may have received no benefit. The broken promise feeling may also be significant for those signed up customers with a similar experience.

One is left to ask whether Woolworths promises made when signing up customers shortly before changing the scheme were made in “good faith”?

5 Likes
5

I am one of the many disgruntled Woolworths customers who are on a Woolworths mobile phone plan which also gives the same discount and we have also received a similar email. I don’t even have a Woolworths store in the town where I am currently living and am also older and have shopped online since the pandemic began.
Facebook keeps advertising in my feed and I noticed that when people comment with a complaint about this issue, they suggest that you go into your account and register a complaint that way. I hope every body does. There is a Coles in my town so I will also look into that.

4 Likes
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I took out car Insce with woolworths - not even a year ago, so that I could get the 10% off. I am disabled and cannot go to the shops for a large order, so I was doing a click and collect for the larger orders with the 10% off.
Now they are stopping the 10% off for Inscurance holders as well for online shopping. This must be going to disadvantage many disabled people. Are there any other shops we could shop at that gives 10% online?

3 Likes
7

Woolworths recently advised (by email on 29May) changes to the T&Cs covering annual subscriptions to their delivery service. The changes are significant and apply from 01July regardless of how long your subscription has to run.

Does anyone else think it is wrong to change T&Cs mid subscription?

This subscription service has had a number of problems and they always seem to favour the company. Why can’t these major multi-billion dollar market players get their systems right and why do they consider they are free to dictate changes with impunity? The answer - market dominance. They are so dominant that customers have no other choice but to accept whatever they dictate. Being outside the metro area this is particularly so for me.

Has anyone else noticed this? Interested to hear what others think.

8

I merged your post into this one that started out about other Woolies rewards programs.

Virtually every promotional program includes some text to the effect ‘we can change this anytime’ but they rarely do.

Woolies seems to have gutted some of the most desired benefits across their non-grocery products in the expectation it will not cost them too much business and will enhance their profits. Consumer choices for groceries are limited and there are not many and sometimes no viable alternatives, but they could lose insurance and mobile customers since those markets have many players. Woolies other businesses, TBD.

It remains to be seen if they will rescind or modify their seemingly stingy decisions.

1 Like
9

Totally agree - I have noticed the dismantling of “customer benefit” programs across many companies. Just look at IKEA. And QANTAS scheme is just appalling. I also refuse to use FlyBuys because it harvests immense amounts of consumer info (which they consider theirs to exploit/sell) in return for little to no benefit to the customer.

As for this specific case - when you pay for a subscription the T&Cs should not be changed part way through your sub. If you bought an annual local service for newspaper delivery and part way through they announced they would not deliver weekend editions anymore, or that they would only deliver every second day, people would be angry. But because it is such a big company customers just tend to think they must accept whatever they are graciously offered by the provider without question.

I am just tired of being treated with such disdain/contempt.

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That depends. You wrote that the changes are “significant” but that is not sufficient information (for someone like me who does not use the service and doesn’t know what the changes are).

In my opinion the bottom line is: If the changes result in “material disadvantage” to you and either you have paid in advance for the year or you are locked into a contract for the year … then the company ought to give you the option to terminate the arrangement without penalty and, where applicable, get a pro-rata refund.

In my opinion it is not wrong per se to change Ts&Cs. Governments and companies do that all the time. Change is the only constant. (So in that sense I disagree with the idea that they should just “get it right” and leave it that way.) The test of goodness is not whether changes occur but whether they allow you to exit without penalty if you don’t like the changes.

Yes, the cynic would say that government and company changes are more often to their benefit and against your interests - but that doesn’t mean that that applies in any specific individual case.

I take your point that they could have “grandfathered” the changes (i.e. not applied the changes at all to existing customers) or deferred the changes (only applied the changes when the subscription comes up for renewal). Whether it is at all practical to have one set of customers with one set of rules and another set of customers with another set of rules I can’t say, not knowing what the changes are.

(As a very hypothetical example, if it used to be that deliveries were Monday-Wednesday-Friday to your area and they are “changing” that to Tuesday-Thursday then it is obviously reasonable to apply the change soon to all customers in your area.)

So, is Coles an option for you?

Is not using home delivery an option for you?