PC Optimum - Shoppers Optimum & PC Points BIG Changes

Wednesday, November 08, 2017

Shoppers Drug Mart and PC Points have now made the news official, you may have seen our preview post last night about the changes coming and the announcement of the PC Optimum program!

Coming February 1, 2018 your Shoppers Optimum Points and PC Points will be converted into a new program called PC Optimum! One Card. One App. All your points in one place.

Your points will automatically be converted to PC Optimum points at their full value on launch date midnight on February 1, 2018. You can enter your points at the link below to see how much they're worth when converted. They are suggesting that your PC points and Optimum points will be worth the same or more in the PC Optimum program.

What’s new to love: Earn points and spend them in more places. Many grocery stores across Canada (the ones that are Loblaws owned, there are over 2500) will have PC Optimum points offered including Loblaws, Real Canadian Superstore, No Frills, Valu-Mart, Zehrs, Independent, Fortinos and more!

Shoppers Drug Mart Exclusive: Get 50% more points! Instead of earning 10 points on almost every dollar you spend, you’ll earn 15 points! (so we are earning more with the new system!)

Spending points just got easier: every 10,000 points is like $10 worth of free stuff and you can keep going up to 500,000 points for $500 off a single purchase! (being able to cash out at $500 in a single purchase is huge!)

Redeem your PC Optimum points at special “spend your points” events to get even more value. (I am happy that these are still going to be happening).

And of course, we didn’t forget the favourites:
Keep on enjoying bonus points offers and your favourite events like the Shoppers Drug Mart 20x Event. (hopefully they keep up with these promotions and they don't decrease and they extend this to the Loblaws side too).
Get personalized offers when you download the PC Optimum App or create an online account.
Earn points even faster with the  PC Financial Mastercard.

The takeaway from this, points will be easier to redeem/understand now that every 10,000 points will be worth $10 of "Free Stuff". You will be able to earn PC Optimum points at Shoppers and Loblaws stores and redeem your points at either as well, which will be huge for a lot of people since a lot of members are families that do big grocery shops and may prefer to redeem at Loblaws instead of Shoppers.

Take a look at the chart below to see how conversions will be calculated for PC Points and Optimum Points. The Optimum points conversion appears to be identical to the current Shoppers Optimum reward levels. They are promising to keep your accounts at equal or better value according to the website below.

You can also see how your points will compare with the changes coming, try the points converter at the link below to see what your Optimum Points and/or PC Plus points will be worth after the changes. My current points balance was actually work more in the conversion than it is now, a couple dollars more.

Since we get $10 for every 10,000 points, it's easier to keep track of how much you can redeem. Also note that even though you are using more points to redeem, you can earning more PC Optimum points on purchases too (it was 10 points for every $1, and it will soon be 15 points for every $1). That makes the points value and redemptions nearly the same.

However if you look at the conversions from points to reward, you are benefiting LESS at the higher points levels (anything over 50,000 points) than you would currently. I think I will redeeming more at the lower levels now (and probably what PC/Loblaws was looking for when changing this system around).

How do you feel about these changes? Let us know on our Facebook Page here.

Click here for more details.