The Return of ShopTrue!

At Long Last, ShopTrue is Back!

It's been well over six months since the ShopTrue domain went blank. For a while it had a 'coming soon...' landing page before finally the domain www.shoptrue.com fell off the internet altogether. Despite vaguely reassuring messages from TrueBlue support that ShopTrue would one day return, I had began to give up hope, until...

I was exploring the JetBlue rewards partners page and was curious where the ShopTrue link would take me if I clicked it - knowing it was gone. To my surprise it took me to a new ShopTrue site which has not been announced yet!

It appears to be a work in progress still, missing a little content here and there (like the empty contact page), but the important part is that the rewards mall is now open and there is finally a good way to earn extra TrueBlue miles through online shopping again.

The Partners

Currently ShopTrue seems to have a decent selection of retailers to purchase through. The site claims 800+ options and a lot of major retailers are already represented. Hopefully the selection will grow to the size of the Ultimate Rewards mall (UR)  but for now it's not a bad start. 

Big retailers to start with at the new ShopTrue mall.

 Most of the stores seem to offer 1 TrueBlue pt per dollar spent currently, but there is a bonus section which alludes to a monthly rotation of higher value stores. Places like Sephora (3pts/$) and J. Crew (2pts/$) are currently listed under this category. There are only 15 retailers that qualify as 'bonus' and offer a range from 2-4 points per dollar. No telling if the number of stores in this group will increase, rotate, or get better value, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

Pairing any of these purchases with the TrueBlue by Amex also adds an additional 1 point per dollar spent, making the peak earning potential of 5 points / $ an achievable earning level.

The Coupons

In addition to offering points towards purchases, the new ShopTrue also has some coupons that you can use on individual retailers when making a purchase. While this is not uncommon, most rewards portals that offer these tend to give extras that aren't huge deals. They'll list free shipping after $X as a special perk, or a small percent off, though usually these are available to everyone and not directly tied to using the shopping portal.

Free shipping offered to some retailers.

JetBlue is following suite in this case, with coupons that aren't going to create any real deals, but are still worth taking a glance at if you're heading to that site anyways. I wouldn't expect any noticeable savings from these.

The Toolbar

One interesting (and still in progress) part of the new ShopTrue program is the Notify toolbar. It's a browser add on that will let you know when you're browsing an online retailer that you could earn extra TrueBlue points with by using ShopTrue. 

The Notify Toolbar is coming soon.

I myself am usually pretty diligent about checking rewards portals before making an online purchase, but this is a great feature for people who may forget. It's almost impossible to remember the overlap between the Barclay's rewards mall, the UR mall, and now this portal too - so taking out the extra steps of logging in to verify if a store is available on ShopTrue will be a big help for everyone.

There is no ETA for the toolbar, but we can hope it's less than six months this time!

A Welcome Addition

That's a brief overview for now about the new ShopTrue. There will surely be changes and updates in the near future once there is an official announcement.

For now though, it's a great place to earn some extra TrueBlue points and the ShopTrue badge as well if you hadn't gotten it before the old site went down. 

- John