Last week I wrote about a new app called Pepper Rewards. I wanted to publish a few updates about that, but didn’t want to keep updating that same post as I wanted to keep that as a somewhat useful resource for how the app works, so here’s a follow up post.
1) Pepper Rewards 10% Cashback – When Will It Be Earned?
When downloading the app but before signing up, one of the screens it scrolls through mentions that you’ll earn 10% cashback for the first 30 days. The app offers 5% cashback as standard, so that means you’re earning double for your first 30 days.
The thing is, when buying gift cards in the app you earn points worth 5% which initially makes it look like the 10% offer is no longer running. That’s not the case at the time of publishing this – the 10% offer is still in force. What happens is that you earn 5% initially, then after your first 30 days the additional 5% will be added.
Seeing as we’re all so new to the app right now, I don’t know how promptly the extra 5% will be credited to your account, but I wouldn’t be unduly worried about not receiving it.
2) Merchant Coding
I’d made a couple of purchases from Pepper to see how it would code. With Chase, the category type is listed as ‘Shopping’, with the merchant type being listed as ‘Computer software stores’. That could make it of interest with cards that earn bonus points in that category, so I’ll be checking what happens with an Amex Business Gold in case it earns 4x Membership Rewards.
3) Chase Offers
I’d mentioned in that original post that I bought a Walmart gift card in the Pepper app with a card that had a Walmart Chase Offer loaded to it. The reason why is that the retailer name of the gift card brand you buy shows up on the transaction description which is usually all that’s needed for Chase Offer statement credits to be triggered.
My own personal test is unconfirmed as of now – I’ve not received a statement credit yet, but Chase Offers can sometimes take a while to post. There’s an added wrinkle that I’d loaded the Chase Offer shortly before making the purchase, so perhaps the offer needs to have been loaded for longer in order for that to work.
That said, I’ve seen at least one data point from someone who bought a Walmart gift card with a card that had the Walmart Chase Offer loaded to it and they did get the statement credit. That’s awesome news and I’m glad that my suspicions appear to be true.
4) $20 Referral Credits
When people first signed up, the $20 referral credits were posting on people’s accounts reliably. However, at some point within the 24-48 hours after, new people signing up were finding that the $20 credits weren’t appearing on their accounts.
At first I thought it was because my account had been shut down by Pepper Rewards (it’s since been reopened) and that could’ve affected things. However, on the Frequent Miler post about the app, Nebby posted the following comment:
Update: I spoke to Pepper phone support this morning; they were very friendly and increased my confidence in the app.
If like me you still haven’t received a $20 signup bonus, Pepper has now provided an update and explanation – Due to the rampant fraud of people referring themselves to earn additional signup bonuses, the company has shifted away from immediately crediting the bonus and has now implemented a policy where the bonus credits within 30 days.
I recommend calling their support number for yourselves since they asked me to provide my contact info so they could add me to a list of users that are due the credit.
I’ve also seen comments from people in various groups that in some cases Pepper is asking for them to provide proof of ID. If you provide that I don’t know if the $20 referral credit gets posted faster seeing as you’ve proven your identity, but be aware that it’s something they might ask you for.
After submitting my ID, Pepper/Moocho emailed that the $20 credit has posted to my account and to the referrer’s. $20 is in my account, so hopefully you got yours too – thanks!
I received a somewhat odd email on 1/31 saying something about “completing the triple – double” with “promotional credit issued valid through 2/7”. I did see a $15 credit in my account which may have been for 3 $100 GCs purchased last week? I’d bough a couple more this week, so maybe they are giving the extra 5% weekly.
I think they ended up offering double cashback on some brands which means they effectively tripled the standard 5% cashback if you were already earning double cashback from being in your first 30 days with the app. I hadn’t realized until after the promo ended that that’s what the triple double thing had been about.
@Stephen Pepper, in which part of the app can I find the exact date for the end of the 30-day double promotion?
I don’t think it shows in the app. Pepper Rewards confirmed it’s 30 days from when you sign up.
I purchased IKEA gift card, while I’d already enrolled in Chase’s 10% back offer on IKEA purchases. The gift card purchase didn’t trigger the Chase offer.
Anyone else get an email today offering another ~30 day period of 10%, through March 25th?