$25 Disney gift cards (SM)

[fourfoxesinpa]

Didn't see these on the redemptions page. Will they be coming back? Thanks!

[keishashadow]

R they out of stock?

Do see the regular/non-discounted $25 ones:sunshine:

[SunshineGirl]

I've actually been changing up the cash out options a little bit, especially in light of the postage prices going up again. We've been having so many SMs cash out every time they hit 24 credits that it was killing us. So you still get the same discount rate right now, just starting at the $50 card level.

[linanglab]

That is DEFINITELY understandable. I think everyone is feeling the pinches of the economy in one way or another. Everything is going up....except for our income.....this will teach me to budget a bit better I guess. Thanks Tricia for all the hard work!

[askomsky]

I totally agree and understand. It makes sense to save money in that sense.
We thank you for all you do.

[goofy08]

I'd like to know this, too. :)

[wilsonfamily4]

there is a thread exactly like this one and here is the answers. :)

http://www.sunshinerewardsforum.com/showthread.php?t=8677

[fourfoxesinpa]

Thanks, Dee, for the link. BTW...I love the new family picture. Too Cute!

[jnorth1007]

I merged the two threads so that there wouldn't be any confusion.

[keishashadow]

i understand 110%:sunshine: as to postage, etc.

the $50's are way less bulky in my vacation file too:)

now, if only i had the patience to wait until i hit $100:p

sorry, missed the other thread

[OhMari]

I wouldn't mind throwing in some money, to help you buy stamps and postage. You help us save money and earn money, I would be willing to do the same.
:)

[jnorth1007]

Honestly I think that waiting to cash out until you need/want the money instead of cashing out each time you guys hit the cash out amount would be the biggest help (Just my opinion though, not an official stance LOL) because it cuts back on the work, postage, supplies and everything needed to do cashouts. If everyone cashes out at $25 or $50 then by the time cashouts are completed and sent out and recieved they are almost at the cashout point again LOL. So if you guys want or need the cards at that point then by all means cashout. If not, hold off for the higher card amounts. Consider it helping the environment by saving the postman gas ROFL

[m 'n c]

Honestly I think that waiting to cash out until you need/want the money instead of cashing out each time you guys hit the cash out amount would be the biggest help (Just my opinion though, not an official stance LOL) because it cuts back on the work, postage, supplies and everything needed to do cashouts. If everyone cashes out at $25 or $50 then by the time cashouts are completed and sent out and recieved they are almost at the cashout point again LOL. So if you guys want or need the cards at that point then by all means cashout. If not, hold off for the higher card amounts. Consider it helping the environment by saving the postman gas ROFL

I agree with Janet's post. I made myself keep saving until I reached the point where I had enough to pay off my trip and cashed out for that amount. I will now keep saving up until I find a use for my account balance even though I'm almost at the minimum again.

I will also add that trying to input $25 cards was a PITA last month and I will gladly wait until I can cashout for $100s again as it will cut down my 1 hour spent entering cards to hopefully 20-30 minutes.

[Alice28]

I think it's a good idea. I have mostly $100 and $50 denominations this time, but a few $25- I am sure the BWV check in person is just going to roll their eyes at me. It's gonna take 15 minutes to swipe all my cards. :p (I'm applying it to our dining plan)

[mollyeilis]

This isn't about the SM discount, but about cashing out for lower cards.


In my head I agree with waiting until you have a good amount to cash out.

Last quarter, however, and going into this quarter, I found myself cashing out for smaller amounts, more often than I really liked to do. Why? Well, there was the aspect of getting back into surveys when I really hadn't been able to do them for basically a whole quarter. I was trying not to take the surveys for granted, since I'd had bad luck with them, and each time I hit a cashout amount I was shocked! And then I was just plain old shocked how fast other things brought up my balance.

I hope that the following can be taken as just a sweet-natured thought I've been working on for awhile, not as "oh Molly's complaining", because the core of the reasoning behind it is actually to save you guys time and effort!

The idea that has been roaming in my head is to (down the road, in the future, once things get on an even keel) either:

1. Have a schedule (that can be modified if needed, obviously) for when cashouts will be worked on.

or

2. Post in an obvious place when cashouts have been mailed, with info on who was included.


Now I know this might seem like extra work. But gosh, it seems to me like far more extra work to field all the questions and concerns or just wondering/pondering of people of when they should cash out for their trip, if they were part of a cashout, blah blah blah. To have a central spot on the site and on the forums to say either "this is when it will be done" or "this is what has been done as of today", and maybe even have the forum info be a locked thread so you don't have to come back and answer questions, *seems* (to me) that it would ultimately be less work.

It would also help the members out, b/c I'm sure I'm not the only one who has, say, $30 in the account, and the 2-4 week cashout estimate is in effect. Assuming might take that whole time, I cash out for the $25, then y'all show your incredible efficiency and it gets here in 1.5 weeks, and then by another week or so I surprisingly have earned enough for another, leading to a "cross your fingers it gets here but if not that's OK" cashout. :p


Obviously I don't know if the set schedule for paypal cashouts are working for you, but for those of us who have been around here we KNOW how to do it. I know, should I ever want a pp cashout, when to make the request and especially when I will get it. If that's working, I would think that having a scheduled (at your convenient times) cashout time would be good, too!

SR is run so honestly, openly, and to me this is the right word but it might not make sense to others, transparently, with lots of info being given on inner workings and thought processes, I would think the above would be a natural extension of that. :sunshine:

Respectfully submitted and yours truly,

Molly

[mollyeilis]

Just went and got myself some coffee (it's only 9am here!), and got to thinking, and now I feel like a total dork, b/c obviously you guys have already thought of such things, and have either rejected it or are working on it.

Well, just in case, I know that I would love a system where we know when cashouts are processed each month, where I could check the site and or the forums for that date and the date of mailing, and plan accordingly. I mean, I have a running calculation of how much I need per day to get SM, depending on if I count the full time or subtract the days we'll be in southern CA...of course I'd like to have a set date for cashing out purposes! :rotfl:

[ligrumpygirl]

I believe somewhere (a thread? chat?) Tricia was throwing around the idea of a specific day for cashouts. Maybe when she pops in today, she can give you a better idea of how far this idea is from comng to fruition. (wow I don't think I ever used that word in a written sentence before haha)

[jnorth1007]

Ok I'm not really sure I understood your post correctly but I will go with what I THINK I got from it LOL.

Tricia has been reluctant to set a specific date for making cashouts for gift cards because she is trying to give good customer service. While it is easier for her to have a certain day and some people might agree that they would like to know exactly when, the majority of the people would throw a FIT that they had to wait until "so and so" to get their cards. We have discussed it before and she has been reluctant because she wants happy members also.

The compromise was that we tell people you have to give the specified amount of time for a card to show up and no complaining when it doesn't come earlier than that. So for the sake of making things easier on you guys: it takes 2-4 weeks for a card to get there. If by chance yours gets there early and you want to chance ordering another then by all means do so. I don't think that anyone is trying to say that you can't cash out for the smaller amounts. We are just saying that people who cash out whenever they hit the $25 mark regardless of when their need for the cards are will drive up the cost and availability of the cards. I was pointing out that instead of offering to pay Tricia to carry the $25 cards that it would be more economical if everyone just cashed out for the cards they needed when they needed them. I totally get that some people like to have the cards in hand and those people and anyone else can continue to do things the way they always have. However, the cost of providing the smaller ones to people ever three weeks may make them too expensive to carry at some point. I am again ONLY EXPRESSING AN OPINION so no one go into a hissy thinking the $25 gift cards are going to be disappearing.

Also, I didn't understand what you were saying about the suveys at all or what they have to do with cashouts but if you would care to explain it I would be happy to read it again LOL

[m 'n c]

Janet - I also read Molly's suggestion just now and what I think she was saying was that she is trying to do surveys daily and make it a habit. What she has found is that she is having good luck with those and freebies crediting and therefore hitting $25 very quickly and in the excitement is cashing out for $25 all the time. Basically I think she was trying to explain how others might be consistently cashing out all the time for lower value cards.

[jnorth1007]

Ah see now it makes sense lol I was just not reading it right! Thanks for translating Catherine. I need a vacation from home lol because i just wasn't seeing it. Now I do. Molly I would say GREAT that you are doing so good on the daily surveys that is so awesome and if you can't control the excitement then awesome, if not, well then don't LOL

[askomsky]

I think the key here is patience..... SR is a fabulous site they we know everyone loves, BUT there are over 10000 + members that are cashing out (I'm sure half aren't even forum members) and only a handful of SR "employees" handling them all. With that in mind I think we'll ALL agree that they do a fantastic job of taking care of 10000 + members. Back to my main point is, it's great that we "earned" this money for Disney GC's, paypal etc, but 2-4 weeks means exactly that and SR hasn't let us down before so why should it start now.

Molly I do understand what you were trying to say and it made perfect sense! :)

Janet I agree with you, cashing out frequently for small amounts = bigger expense and hurts our trees! lol :p I do however understand people who are paying down balances want to get them ASAP.

I know Tricia wants to please everyone and for that I am thankful, but she may end up going crazy in the process! ha ha. I like Molly's idea of a locked thread where she can post updates on disney mailings that keeps it centralized and hopefully ?'s down.

Just my 2 cents!

[jnorth1007]

Like I said April if people are more comfortable doing it that way then by all means do it. There is still an option to get a $25 Disney GC there just isn't a discounted price on it for SM's since that is where the costs were coming from.

I think what I didn't explain about the set cashout date thing that would make it less desirable is that in order to do it then it would have to be done like paypal. Cashout by the last day of the month for cashout on the 15th of the next month. So now what you are doing is expanding the waiting time to 14+ days since none of the cashouts would be done until the 15th. Anyone who cashes out on the last day wouldn't even have their cashouts processed until 14 days later. So this means that those people who get extra earnings at the last minute would have even less time to earn and take the chance of getting a card. It wouldn't be set up that everyone who cashes out by the 15th gets cashouts sent out on the 15th since it takes time to run the reports and do the cashouts.

Perhaps a good compromise would be for Tricia to list when she has done and mailed out a cashout. I don't know but it is totally Tricia's decision and I am sure that she will take it into consideration. The point of the thread was to let you guys know that SM's who were cashing out every week for small cards were costing alot of money so the option has been removed. That is a necessary evil for Tricia.

[askomsky]

Like I said April if people are more comfortable doing it that way then by all means do it. There is still an option to get a $25 Disney GC there just isn't a discounted price on it for SM's since that is where the costs were coming from.

I think what I didn't explain about the set cashout date thing that would make it less desirable is that in order to do it then it would have to be done like paypal. Cashout by the last day of the month for cashout on the 15th of the next month. So now what you are doing is expanding the waiting time to 14+ days since none of the cashouts would be done until the 15th. Anyone who cashes out on the last day wouldn't even have their cashouts processed until 14 days later. So this means that those people who get extra earnings at the last minute would have even less time to earn and take the chance of getting a card. It wouldn't be set up that everyone who cashes out by the 15th gets cashouts sent out on the 15th since it takes time to run the reports and do the cashouts.

Perhaps a good compromise would be for Tricia to list when she has done and mailed out a cashout. I don't know but it is totally Tricia's decision and I am sure that she will take it into consideration. The point of the thread was to let you guys know that SM's who were cashing out every week for small cards were costing alot of money so the option has been removed. That is a necessary evil for Tricia.


Janet I hope I wasn't coming across as disagreeing. If anything when I saw your first post I was agreeing totally with you. Which is why i said Patience! :)

Honestly it doesn't matter to me one way or another, I just know how easily people get frustrated and Tricia is such a good person at trying to please everyone. I agree waiting to do it like Paypal may not be the best option, but that's her call.

[jnorth1007]

No I didn't think you were being disagreeable and hopefully I didn't come of as sounding that way either because I wasn't being disagreeable. I just want everyone to know that they can still use the $25 GC's if they want to. I also wanted everyone to know why the decision is such a tough one to make for Tricia. Thanks for your imput though. It is important for Tricia to know what everyone wants. I just wish we could get the opinions from people who don't use the forums too.

[SunshineGirl]

I've been reading along and kind of going back and forth on all of this. One of my thoughts recently was to move to what some of the other sites do and just have ALL cashouts done by the end of one month sent out on the 15th of the next month. It would cut down on our postage costs and administrative time quite a bit, but it's a big step backward in customer service, I think. I don't know. It's a tough issue. Maybe I need to take a look at the cashout patterns overall and see how many people it would actually impact if we moved to something like that.

They paypal goes pretty smoothly. Although we do get quite a few trouble tickets filed starting around the 8th of the month from people wondering where their paypal money is. We keep referring them back to the terms and FAQ...and even the paypal page...but apparently they don't find the information easily or something??

Thanks for the feedback on this. I'm getting steamed at the post office for continuing to increase the rates. But I am sure that their costs are increasing a lot these days with the fuel rates. So I get it. I get but don't have to like it. LOL!

[pattip03]

It sounds reasonable to me. Then we would know when to expect to receive cashouts. Maybe you could go with a happy medium and mail on the 15th and 30th. Whatever you decide I'm sure will be for the best.
Thanks for everything you do. :sunshine:

[wisconsinmom]

I've been reading along and kind of going back and forth on all of this. One of my thoughts recently was to move to what some of the other sites do and just have ALL cashouts done by the end of one month sent out on the 15th of the next month. It would cut down on our postage costs and administrative time quite a bit, but it's a big step backward in customer service, I think. I don't know. It's a tough issue. Maybe I need to take a look at the cashout patterns overall and see how many people it would actually impact if we moved to something like that.


I think it would really only affect people when they are close to a trip and trying to get a few more dollars for their trip. For example my next trip is scheduled August 8th. If the end of the month policy was in effect I'd have to cash out by June 30. But as it currently stands I could cash out by July 10and be within the 4 week window. Those 10 days may or may not make a difference. Personally I don't have strong feelings either way, I guess I figure if I don't earn that extra $ in time for this August, I could use it when I go in January or next August:rotfl:

[3dog2kidmom]

I've been reading along and kind of going back and forth on all of this. One of my thoughts recently was to move to what some of the other sites do and just have ALL cashouts done by the end of one month sent out on the 15th of the next month. It would cut down on our postage costs and administrative time quite a bit, but it's a big step backward in customer service, I think. I don't know. It's a tough issue. Maybe I need to take a look at the cashout patterns overall and see how many people it would actually impact if we moved to something like that.

They paypal goes pretty smoothly. Although we do get quite a few trouble tickets filed starting around the 8th of the month from people wondering where their paypal money is. We keep referring them back to the terms and FAQ...and even the paypal page...but apparently they don't find the information easily or something??

Thanks for the feedback on this. I'm getting steamed at the post office for continuing to increase the rates. But I am sure that their costs are increasing a lot these days with the fuel rates. So I get it. I get but don't have to like it. LOL!


I am in favor of skipping the discounted SM rate on the $25 cards and waiting till $50 or even $100 to cash out if it helps. I'd hate to lose the discounted cards SM perq altogether though. As long as if we do want a $25 (or $50) card we could still get them at the regular rate. I don't even think I'd mind cashing out by the 30th for a processing on the 15th too much. And I would really appreciate knowing when they would come (I've almost been attacking the mailman these last few days waiting for $250 I'm expecting so I can pay off my cruise, LOL!) I'm with WisconsinMom in thinking that it should really only affect people if the are trying to get those last few dollars in before a trip. Ordinarily it shouldn't be an issue, though.

Thanks for continuing to offer this, Tricia. I really do appreciate it, and that's just another thing that makes this site rock!

[sunshinecindy]

I think the key here is patience..... SR is a fabulous site they we know everyone loves, BUT there are over 10000 + members that are cashing out (I'm sure half aren't even forum members) and only a handful of SR "employees" handling them all. With that in mind I think we'll ALL agree that they do a fantastic job of taking care of 10000 + members. Back to my main point is, it's great that we "earned" this money for Disney GC's, paypal etc, but 2-4 weeks means exactly that and SR hasn't let us down before so why should it start now.

Molly I do understand what you were trying to say and it made perfect sense! :)

Janet I agree with you, cashing out frequently for small amounts = bigger expense and hurts our trees! lol :p I do however understand people who are paying down balances want to get them ASAP.

I
Just my 2 cents!

Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, April. The key is patience. I know everyone wants to get down to that last dollar, but, that money isn't going anywhere, and you'll be able to use it for something I am sure, so the hurry to cashout the last minute and expect your gift cards to be there in a week is unrealistic, not only because we have others things we do but cashouts, but because we cannot depend on the US mail to get it there in time. I do cashouts twice a week, mondays and thursdays, so for anything but Disney, that gives you a little idea of when you will receive them. But, like Tricia says, cashing out for the 25.00 is costing too much in postage and taking up more of our time. I even have people that cashout everytime they hit 10.00, and its getting ridiculous. While we want to be able to provide good customer service, we also need to be able to continue to look for coupons and offers, and run contests and all those other fun things that SR is known for. I won't be posting the names everytime I mail out a giftcard, thats for sure, but in Tricias case, maybe she should just have 2 cashouts a month, if you get your request in by the 10th, the card will be mailed on the 15th, if you get it in by the 25th, it will be mailed on the 30th. Or even once a month, if you have your request in by the 15th, it will be in the mail on the 20th. Also, opening TT to get your disney card numbers is a real time taker too, so, please refrain from that. We have close to 11,000 members now, 7,000 very active, thats a lot of cashouts.

[3dog2kidmom]

Also, opening TT to get your disney card numbers is a real time taker too, so, please refrain from that.

Cindy, Tricia actually told me that it made it easy on her last time I did this --

http://www.sunshinerewardsforum.com/showpost.php?p=77719&postcount=82

Has that changed, Tricia? If I misunderstood I apologize. Because that definately saves postage and supplies if we are just using the numbers to pay on a balance.

[Alice28]

Just my .02- just feel like sharing as I have done SR a long time. I used to like to cashout whenever I hit the $25, but the last year I scaled back quite a bit. I waited for the special cashouts for the most part, or if I really needed a gift card quickly/disney dollars. I like having the bigger cards, for one thing.

I agree that the money isn't going anywhere. However I like the flexibility of cashing out when we want to. I think a good compromise would be the twice a month cash outs. I think that would give Tricia and Cindy more time to do other stuff on the non-cashout periods, and then just concentrate on cashouts during the cashout days. Esp if maybe if you all did the cashouts on say the 15th and 30th, then you could 'guarantee' those cashouts mailed in 3-5 business days vs the 2-4 weeks that is now on the FAQs. I personally would like that better. Because as it stands now, you can cash out on the say, the 5th of the month- but you are not guaranteed to even get that payment by the 30th of the month according to the guidelines. KWIM? But if we have the special cashout days 2xs a month, knowing our giftcards would be mailed sometime in the next 5 business days, that's a much better deal. :sunshine: