For those who have a Verizon cell phone, you are probably already well aware that their Smart Rewards program is pretty awful. I’ve accumulated over 300,000 points have have never redeemed for anything. I’ve looked at the site a few times and have never found anything even close to worthwhile or wasting my time for. Your points will never get you something for free, instead you use your points towards something – whether it is merchandise, coupons, or gift cards. Typically, you redeem your points to get anywhere between 10%-20% off of whatever you are looking to purchase. In the case for redeeming your points towards coupons, these coupons can many times also be found online or through the Entertainment Book. Ultimately, their rewards program is not much to pay attention to. But it is changing!
Verizon is leaving the Smart Rewards program and introducing the Verizon Up rewards program. All Smart Rewards points will expire on October 31, 2017, so you might as well go ahead and redeem your points for something. In my case, I’ll only redeem for free items, that means coupons and while it will not give me much value in the scheme of life, I’ll probably be able to use them somewhere locally. Might as well get $5 off somewhere I go anyways!
Or, you can use them to get 10% off a gift card. Great redemption if you were going to go shop at that store anyways, but there are many times cheaper ways to purchase gift cards at a discount.
Or you can use your points to bid on an experience/gift card. I am glad that all these years as a Verizon customer will maybe get me a $25 Panera gift card!
So what is Verizon Up?
Going forward you will no longer earn Smart Rewards points, waaahooo!!!, and instead you’ll earn Verizon Up points. For every $300 you spend on your Verizon Wireless monthly bill, you’ll get 1 credit. You can then redeem your credits for free rewards. From what it looks like, 1 credit can be redeemed for a minimum of a $5 gift card. FYI: You can only access Verizon Up from your cell phone. 
Some rewards include:
- 20% off 10 rides within a month –> this could definitely save you a lot of money if you typically take expensive Uber rides!
- 1 GB of bonus data –> worth $10 if you are going to go over
- First 3 months free of HBO Now
- $10 Device Dollars –> worth $10
- $25 off $75 at Boxed.com –> worth $25 although only valid for new customers and I assume you cannot combine with another coupon code (which are always available), so a very low value
- $5 Starbucks gift card –> probably what most people will redeem for since it is a fixed $5 for something you’d use anyways!
I do hope more rewards get added! Or maybe once you earn more credits, more rewards are available? I am not sure! It does seem like everyone starts with 1 credit, so you can snag your free reward now, or wait until you’ve accrued more credits. Unlike Smart Rewards, however, credits do expire in 60 days, so make sure you do not let them expire.
While their rewards program will never be as good as a hotel or airline program, at least now you’ll be able to get something more desirable for free.
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Earlier this year, I left Big Red for Team Magenta and T-Mobile. I spend half of what I did before, have great coverage at home and in countries I travel to often included in my cost AND I get some nice free perks every week with T-Mobile Tuesdays. Sure, there isn’t something mind blowing every week. But a free movie rental every few weeks and free MLB.tv is still more than I ever got after 15 years with Verizon. This new program won’t be much better on Big Red.
Plus, now Verizon has all of your personal data (including browsing history, calling habits, etc), that you agreed to let them have after you signed up for the rewards. Little did anyone know that the points wouldn’t be worth anything, weren’t stackable, and couldn’t be used to purchase items at a huge discount (or even as bill credits or credits towards merchandise in a Verizon Retail store). This is a prime example of bait and switch and should be considered fraud (class action lawsuit anyone?)….
Their rewards were nothing but a joke and garbage. F them and their points that I racked up. Been with them since 1999 and I feel like I’m not getting anything at all. Their point redemption site was a pos offering auctions for drawings and crap discounts on gift cards.
IF a monthly bill is $70 and you need 300 points for 1 reward… and points expire after 60 days …
that equals no rewards.
And you agree to let Verizon have access to all of your personal browsing information and permission to sell it. This is a scam. Verizon makes way more creating and selling your profile than you get from their crappy rewards. You’d have to be an idiot to sign up for this.
Verizon Up is a downgrade for customers and a definite up grade for Verizon. I will get exactly the same rewards they are offering without even participating
I actually liked the Smart Rewards. There were tons of local BOGO deals at restaurants and foodie places like Coldstone Creamery. I will miss that. I agree with the s2face about not collecting points if your bill is less than $150mo. Who is Verizon trying to fool?
Verizon Sucks for doing this. They took all my points. It took me years to accumulate these points and now there gone. They gave me a $5 AMC Card definitely dropping Verizon now
Yep, I think I accrued about 150,000 “smart” reward points. I tried it on a couple of auctions… no, wait, no I didn’t. You needed a minimum of 300,000 to get even the smallest things. Pointless. I looked at some of the other crap they had to offer, and nothing I wanted.
And now their tagline is “Rewards you really, really want.” The site mentions concert tickets, NFL (I hated the NFL app that is currently taking up space on my phone), tickets to NFL games (no NFL team near me within 2 hour drive – even if I wanted to watch those spoiled rich guys complaining about supposed injustices), Uber rides – no need for Uber where I live, 1GB of bonus data – I’m already losing my roll over data every 3 months. $5 at Amazon… hey there’s something I could use… but $5 for my browsing history and access to my phone? Meh.
Free of HBO No- thanks
$10 Device Dollars –> worth $10 – okay, but I would just feel cheap.
$25 off $75 at Boxed.com – who, what?
$5 Starbucks gift card – heh… NO thanks. That won’t get me a hot chocolate.
Soooo being with them for years having over 75,000 and they couldve ATLEAST shown appreciation by carrying over my smart credits. Or atleast half?? Now they start offering stuff thats worth something snd they dont take the effort to allow customers who are vets to carry over their credits. When i saw this I was literally pissed.
I never knew they did away with their rewards I was saving up for auction items because even at 400,000 (last time I checked it) plenty of people had a lot more to bid and I was told to save up so I forgo looking for over a year and find out it’s gone and did a Goggle and end up on this article. True the rewards were not that good unless you had so many you could when an auction item which is what I hoped to do. When I once complained that way too many people had a million points or more and how do I compete with that they just said “well it’s based of how much your bill is” so people that had crazy plans (which there is plenty of) could bid on shit. Would have been nice if I was told, maybe in one of their junk emails but no one has time to look at that. So yeah kind of shitty they just did away with it should have converted the points over…oh well I won’t be looking at their UP program I don’t care just was wondering where the F the rewards went.
“Anyways” IS NOT A WORD. It’s always, always “anyway.”
Have a blessed day.