Update 7/19/22: Bumped has sent out emails to members today advising that Loyalty Rewards will be ending and they’ll be closing down the app. Bumped will still exist, but it’ll be a browser-based service on desktop and mobile, with a browser extension available. Basically, they’ve decided to become yet another shopping portal – for a second time – which doesn’t bode well for their future seeing as their portal rates are poor compared to other portals.
This doesn’t bode well for their future, so I’ll likely cash out my earnings as it’ll be easier to do now than it likely will be if the company ends up closing abruptly.
The Bumped app used to be an interesting card-linked app as they offered Loyalty Rewards. You picked a retailer/restaurant in a number of different categories, then received rewards in the form of stock when shopping there and paying with any of the credit or debit cards you’d linked in the app.
Last year they completely changed the app, removing Loyalty Rewards and turning into a shopping portal with an attached card-linked program. I was fairly scathing about those updates, seeing very little purpose in the app. Their shopping portal rates were poor compared to nearly every other portal. Their card-linked program was nothing to write home about either; it runs on Rakuten Card Linked Offer Network (RCLON), but offers poor rates compared to Rakuten’s own card-linked program. Seeing as it’s not possible to stack card-linked programs which run on RCLON, there was no point using Bumped when you could get better rewards elsewhere.
As a result of that update, they went from word-of-mouth darling to having the same Google Play Store ratings as Robinhood after the fallout from Gamestop.
Bumped might be able to improve that average score of 1.4 / 5 as they’ve reintroduced Loyalty Rewards. It’s a reintroduction of their original offering, except it’s bigger and better than before (for the most part) as they’ve increased the number of categories, expanded some of the categories to include more retailers and all categories now earn 1% (some used to only earn 0.5%).
To see these changes, you’ll need to update the app. If you don’t see the changes immediately, it might be that they’re rolling out the functionality to older users first. When you open the app, you’ll likely see a prompt on the home screen to select your new Loyalty Rewards. If not, tap the Menu button and then select ‘Loyalty’ which will be listed above ‘Stock Marketplace’ if you do have access to it right now.
There are now 10 categories for which you can select a retailer in order to earn Loyalty Rewards. Depending on the retailer, you’ll either earn stock in their company or shares in an ETF. For example, you’ll earn Starbucks stock if you select Starbucks as your coffee selection, whereas with PetSmart as your Pet Supplies option you’ll earn VTI shares (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF).
Here’s a complete list of all the categories and each of their eligible retailers (as mentioned earlier, you select one retailer from each category):
- Apparel
- Aeropostale
- Carhartt
- H&M
- Levi’s
- Tailored Brands
- Gap
- Club Warehouse
- BJ’s Wholesale Club
- Sam’s Club
- Coffee
- Dunkin’ Donuts
- Starbucks
- Entertainment
- Disney+
- Netflix
- Sirius XM
- Sling TV
- Spotify
- Hulu
- Meal Kits
- Sun Basket
- Personal Care
- Bluemercury
- The Body Shop
- The Vitamin Shoppe
- Pet Supplies
- PetSmart
- Quick Eats
- Burger King
- Chipotle
- Domino’s
- Jack In The Box
- McDonald’s
- Taco Bell
- Wendy’s
- Sportswear
- Athleta
- Finish Line
- JackRabbit
- Lids
- Moosejaw
- Olympia Sports
- Transport
- BP
- Chevron
- Lyft
- Shell
- Uber
Positives
Overall, this is a positive development as they’ve added back in a feature which is what made the app special in the first place. They’ve increased the payout on some categories and also increased the number of eligible retailers.
Loyalty Rewards can be useful even if you wouldn’t normally shop at some of the retailers. For example, I don’t ever buy clothing at H&M but selected that as my Apparel option. That’s because we sometimes see H&M Amex Offers, so if I buy an H&M gift card to take advantage of an Amex Offer, I should earn 1% back in VTI.
If you shop at BJ’s or Sam’s Club, earning 1% for doing nothing beyond making sure your card is linked is a nice little (or big, depending on how much you spend) bonus.
In the past, Bumped stacked in unexpected ways with Fluz, so be aware of those possibilities as those will hopefully return now that Loyalty Rewards are back in the app.
Bumped has a couple of limits in terms of how much you can earn in rewards, but I’m including them in this positives section as the limits are pretty generous. There’s a maximum reward of $50 per purchase, so you’d only be able to max that out by spending $5,000 in one go at a retailer which is unlikely for most people (unless you reaaaaaaaaally like Chipotle’s burrito bowls). There’s also a maximum reward of $250 per category per calendar year. That’s $25,000 in spend per category which is a generous allowance, so unless you’re hitting places like Sam’s Club or BJ’s Wholesale Club hard, that limit shouldn’t cause many issues.
Another positive is that if you had access to Loyalty Rewards in the past, all your credit and debit cards should be relinked. With The Stock Marketplace, you had to add the cards back one at a time which was a pain, so it’s great that this isn’t necessary if you’d already bulk-added your cards in the past using Plaid.
Negatives
While there are a number of positives, there are a few negatives to highlight. For starters, there used to be a grocery store category where you could select either the Kroger family of stores (Ralphs, Fred Meyer, Smith’s, Fry’s, etc.) or the Albertsons family of stores (Safeway, Tom Thumb, Acme, etc.) That’s sadly no longer an option, but it wouldn’t surprise me if offering that as a Loyalty Reward would be too costly, especially if they’re now trying to offer 1% for all categories as that was a 0.5% category in the past.
Another potential negative is that Loyalty Rewards is available until June 30, 2021. After that date, you have to make one purchase through The Stock Marketplace to extend your eligibility for Loyalty Rewards for an extra three months.
I have mixed feelings about this. It’s annoying that they’ve put up this barrier to easily earn Loyalty Rewards. At the same time, they’re trying to encourage app users to shop through The Stock Marketplace, so I can’t really fault them too much for trying to increase user engagement. The Stock Marketplace is their shopping portal, so spending a few bucks at an eligible retailer will maintain your access to Loyalty Rewards, so it’s not like it’s too much of an imposition – it’s just not as easy as I’d like.
Another potential issue is whether or not Loyalty Rewards uses RCLON (Rakuten Card-Linked Offer Network). Bumped definitely uses RCLON for its in-store card-linked offers as part of The Stock Marketplace, but searching the terms I can’t see if that’s the case for their Loyalty Rewards feature.
If it does use RCLON, that could limit its usefulness. For example, Rakuten’s card-linked in-store program offers 1.5% as standard for H&M, but it sometimes gets increased to 4.5% or more. Even at 1.5%, it would be more beneficial to go with Rakuten, especially if your account is set up to earn Membership Rewards and you value those at greater than 1cpp (cent per point). The other issue is that I’m not sure how you pick whether you earn with one or the other. If your card is linked in Bumped, does that mean that card will never be able to earn with another RCLON app or site such as Rakuten, Google Pay, etc.? Or can you activate an offer with one of those other sites/apps to ensure you get a better rate than the 1% on offer from Bumped?.
Something which is unclear right now is if Loyalty Rewards stacks with Bumped’s own card-linked offers. For example, is it possible to earn 1% in Loyalty Rewards when shopping at PetSmart, while simultaneously earning stock by activating the in-store PetSmart offer in The Stock Marketplace? If so, that might suggest Loyalty Rewards would stack with Rakuten or another site/app which uses RCLON.
Overall though, the reintroduction of Loyalty Rewards by Bumped is a positive development, so props to them for relaunching that.
If you’re interested in signing up for Bumped, here’s my referral link. I don’t think I earn anything for referring you and I don’t think there’s a signup bonus for you either. In the past though, Bumped required that you sign up via a referral link which is why I’ve included my link here in case that’s still how they handle signups. There used to be a waitlist too, so hopefully they’ve either removed that waitlist or that they work through it more quickly now than they used to.
I’m just realizing that loyalty rewards have gone away, though I got rewards for Starbucks 3 days ago. So maybe some of them are still working?
Interesting – I wonder if they forgot to deactivate some of the loyalty choices.