I sell things on eBay throughout the year. As a seller I have lots of options to choose from when it comes to shipping. Typically, if I have a larger or heavier item to ship I will use FedEx over the U.S. Post office because the price is usually lower for my customers.
Awhile back, I enrolled in the My FedEx Rewards program offered through FedEx. I was excited about the opportunity to earn points and then claim them for things like gift cards to Target or Amazon.com. I figured that I give my business to FedEx to ship my bulkier items rather than UPS or the U.S. Post Office and star earning points. I chose FedEx over the competition for more than a year spending hundreds of dollars in shipping costs to exclusively use FedEx and earn those points.
I guess it was all for nothing. They informed me that my FedEx rewards points were going to start expiring if I didn’t start cashing them in on their “rewards.” I looked at their catalog and found I wasn’t eligible for any gift cards and could only choose between the following trade show crap shown below.
The crap I was entitled to after spending hundreds of dollars on shipping with FedEx. THANKS FEDEX!!!!
Since I didn’t need another water bottle or have any interest in a FedEx keychain, I sat back and watched more than 3,000 of my hard-earned FedEx points expire. Another 700 are set to expire before the end of the year. I don’t ship enough to ever make this up, so what’s the point. Why did they ever let me in their program in the first place knowing my shipping history? Why give a loyal customer a reward only to take it away because they aren’t shopping with you enough?
I should have known that points expired. I’m sure I read somewhere that they did when I signed up. So don’t worry FedEx, I know it’s my fault. You don’t really want to reward your small customers anyway. I get it. I’ll take my lumps and see myself out of your “rewards program.”
If you are an occasional eBay seller and use FedEx to ship, think twice about signing up for their “rewards program.” It is nearly impossible to save up enough points for anything good unless you are shipping A TON of items. You’re likely to see points expire before being able to use them on anything someone would actually want. Instead, shop UPS and the post office for a better rate and pocket the savings.
By the way, here are some good deals on shipping supplies if you need them.
Duck Duck Gray Duck 
what i don’t understand is why the reps don’t explain this to their customers. i lost out on $100k in volume from 2 years of shipping. i contacted fedex telling them to give me the credit and i got nowhere with them. a program to create loyalty only has me pissed off.
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My business got in at the right time I guess, they were doing a bonus program this time of year. We spent about $5,000 on fedex shipments in the last 2-3 months but also received 900,000 fedex bonus points by meeting some goals they had listed. I’ll take it but I totally agree with you, if you don’t ship much then you’ll never have enough for the gift cards (18,000 points for $10 card).
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it works great, i got over $200 in rewards this year
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I ship about 30 2-3 lb packages each day usually 2nd day. Fedex also gives a very large shipping discount at that level.
The program does work, but like you say; have to ship tons.
Point expiration should be limited for smaller volume shippers in my opinion so the desirable rewards are ultimately made available. But if points didn’t expire at some point, I can only imagine how many truckloads of flatscreens have gone to Digi-key or Cabellas….
It does work, But like you said….. Have to ship tons.
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So how much did you have to ship to get that? Were you shipping a lot of things air or ground? Do you think points should expire?
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The FedEx reward system does work. I just got my free 51″ flat screen TV from them. Took me over 1 year to accumulate the points. Not bad for a program I signed up for because I was bored during airport layover.
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Okay, well you must ship a TON then. For the occasional shipper and eBay seller, points expiring is a major drawback.
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we have hundreds of thousands of fedex rewards and we have gotten thousands in gift cards and flat screen tvs. its a great program…
and no i dont work for fedex
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