Review: The New and Improved Pampers Gifts to Grow

When Pampers first announced their reward program for loyal customers, I was excited about being able to cash in points on diapers I already buy on a daily basis. Little did I know as I started to collect points, that in addition to what I was getting I was responsible for shipping and handling on that item which sometimes didn't make it worth while. I felt ripped off and decided to just keep my points for something bigger and then I found out Pampers would extend their Gifts to Grow until March 2009 (some point codes on diapers still say March 2008, but you can still redeem those). What I also found out, Pampers said they took away some of the shipping charges on their items and updated their catalog with some new products for redemption.

After many complaints via email and phone from customers speaking out against the Pampers Gifts to Grow program, Pampers said they finally listened. If you go onto their website you will find a new banner that they are updating their catalog of items (which is now updated) and many items have free shipping. My question to this was, which items now have free shipping? Of course simple coupon codes or gift certificates have free shipping as those do not cost as much to ship, but I wondered if they removed the shipping for the more tangible items which was the major complaint against the program.

What I found out was Pampers had not in fact removed any of the shipping from the bigger items, the only thing I found that had free shipping were gift cards, coupons for Shutterfly and diapers, and the sweepstakes. But if you still want a book or toy, you can still be expected to pay for shipping and handling.

One awful thing that I found out from pampers is when you go to redeem your points, they will not tell you how much the shipping cost is. You go through the order, put your address, credit card number and then after you are verified by your credit card, is when they tell you how much the shipping cost will be. I thought this to be a little sketchy because Pampers should be upfront about how much shipping should be, not hide it until the last moment. While their catalog has been updated with some new Blockbuster, Shutterfly and Pampers coupons (which were not there last year) I'm thinking that it still may not be worth it unless you want one of the gift card redemptions.

Overall, if you already buy Pampers diapers, it's not a bad idea to cash in your points so that you can at least get a gift card as you are in essence not paying for it if you already buy Pampers anyway. I definitely wouldn't go out of your way to just buy Pampers for the codes and cash them in because by the time you redeem your points, you could have spent far less just going and buying it yourself.