I've had one of those Waldenbooks Preferred Reader cards since they'd offered them.

WB isn't the best of bookstores. Their Cumberland Mall store was always annoying; they had a lot of bestsellers, but not the less popular things I was interested in. However, they did have most of the new mysteries or SF books when they came in, and what they didn't have I could order--and the store was on the way home from work, so I could stop in for a goody without going out of the way. The Town Center Mall store was better on stock; a lot of times when a new book came out I would go up there instead of to Cumberland to make sure they had the book.

Occasionally the ordering thing gets dicey, too; about a year ago I asked them to order a book and they said they couldn't because it wasn't in their warehouse. The clerk told me to go to Barnes & Noble instead--which just about made my jaw drop because Waldenbooks and Borders are owned by the same company; the clerk was sending someone to the competitor!

Anyway, the deal with the WB card is that I get 1 point for every dollar spent at Waldenbooks. When I get 100 points, I get a $5 off coupon.

Later, they had a Waldenbooks credit card, which I did get. The APR was good and for every $5 spent I got a point toward a book coupon.

When we refinanced the house, we also rolled a very small amount of credit card debit into it. Afterwards I made a rule that I would pay off my credit card every month, which I've been doing. The small amount which I charged each month added to my points toward books.

Just before I went into the hospital, I got a note from the Waldenbooks credit card people. The card was now going to be a Borders/Waldenbooks credit card. They, I believe (I can't find the letter, although I saved it) also said that it would now be 1 point for each two dollars spent. Okay. That sounded cool.

It was then I though of something. Maybe instead of just paying things out of my bank account, I should charge them on the credit card and rack up points. Then the money I would have put toward buying these things out of my bank account I would pay to the credit card company. Since I had electronic bill pay, this would be easy. So I tried this for a while, including paying the home maintenance policy and the termite prevention service for the year. That should have totaled up a goodly amount of points!

Strangely, I never received any compensation--i.e. store coupons--for all that money. I was a bit ticked and was going to call them to see why, but they had taken the telephone number off the card.

Yesterday I got the credit card payment bill. Usually I check the bill to make sure everything on it is my charge, make sure the due date is what I had on my electronic payment, and then tear up the thing and toss it. This time I opened it fully.

There at the bottom of the bill was a $5 store rewards certificate.

Oh, nuts. There was apparently something I missed on the letter from the credit card company. I bet--but since I didn't open the last bill all the way I still don't know--that now any credit racked up on the card is not going to arrive separately in the mail any longer; it's going to be with the credit card bill.

That means last month I probably tossed $20 worth of credit without knowing it. Ah, well, live and learn.

But dammit...

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 2:21:00 PM

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