[US] KMart + ShopYourWay

starfailure

One can really string together some nice deals when you shop Kmart and use SYWR.

Last week, i redeemed about $24.50 worth of points (mostly earned with special promos and coupons) to get a Hobbit Mirkwood Elves set, then received $10 back in points. That brought my balance to about $17 in rewards.
Today I had ~$20 in reward because SYWR seems to add surprise points every couple days.
Then, I got a notice for PROMO CODE:9813857400362066 - Redeem your points and we'll match back the points redeemed up to $100 in points.

So, I redeemed my $20, which doubled to $40 and bought the Hobbit Lake-town Chase for $12.83.

Don't neglect this rewards program.

CircleK

^ truth. I've been racking up some great deals using SYWR. I'll be the first to admit that I have zero clue on how the program is supposed to work, but it seems like they are throwing free points my way every time I turn around.

busumoe1

I wonder if they are trying to change their discount strategy. It used to be greater emphasis on discounting prices and occasionally give away some points. But the pattern for the last few days seems to be higher prices, but awarding more points instead.

If it is indeed the new trend, while it's good for Kmart (by making people come back to their store in order to use the points), it is *probably* less of an overall discount in the long run.

Doubling reward points are good, but that does not happen often and reward those who hoard their points more than those who use the points quickly.

Extra 10,000 points ($10) back for $50 seems nice, but 20% off the actual price (so that I can still get 20% when I buy over $50) + $5 off $50 is much better.

sgarrahy

I snagged a nice deal on this one, it was already down in price and use $6 of sywr. http://brickset.com/sets/76011-1/Batman-Man-Bat-Attack

legomason

Had the following in an a email today:

So it's like $10 off $50 plus you can receive $10 in points if you have that coupon when you buy something with the $50 in gift cards.

busumoe1

^I believe this is an in-store only deal, plus I read somewhere that the award cards are in-store only.

bea

They give different deals to different accounts. I used to get things like $5 or $10 "surprise" points good on anything but now I only get useless deals that are good on specific items or categories I never buy from kmart (like clothes or tools).

legomason

When you are signed in go to Kmart.com/coupons and you can select what you want to use. They update weekly but not sure what day.

ChgoMatt

These are showing as in-stock in Kmart in Chicago:
LEGO  Friends Olivia’s Ice Cream Bike
LEGO  Friends Andrea’s Mountain Hut

pharmjod

If it is anything like past history with KMart, they have the items loaded in their system with the wrong numbers linking them to other sets. So if you order one of those for store pickup, you will likely get a random Friends set, not the ones you want. But who knows. They may have fixed it now.

just2good

^This. Never order from Kmart. Last time this has happened was for the Hobbit DoS sets, and I haven't ordered any since then. I made numerous orders from 2012-2013, and the same thing happened every time.

CaptainRogers

Wow, super helpful. Thanks for something that's totally not an ad. 👍

Astrobricks

Is Kmart still a thing?

Bumblepants

Astrobricks said:

Is Kmart still a thing?

in Costa Rica apparently

pxchris

The best thing about the resurrection of this deader than dead thread by a spammer is seeing a post from when @just2good was a member and posting.

Marshallmario

Google search result: 
The remaining Kmart location are clustered in isolated locations with about 25 in just five states: California, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. And 11 are in U.S. territories: Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam. Michigan, the original home of Kmart, has one remaining store.Jun 2, 2020
I was curious myself!

panchox1

huh. I was pretty sure that that there was one in Colorado. at least there was a couple years ago. 

Ronyar

There is still one in NC:

https://www.kmart.com/stores.html

cody6268

Kmarts still exist? We had four-five within an hour's radius of me, plus at least one Sears. Now, none of those exist. One Kmart and one Sears are now a Rural King, the Kmart near me just opened up as a Gabe's, which I think is some kind of regional department store after being empty since 2016 and starting to really go down. I'm surprised they gutted and redid the store in less than three months. It was awful for the last close to ten years when it was a Kmart and obviously had gone down a lot since then. They don't seem to carry diecast or LEGO, so it's a no-go. Interestingly enough, the (closed for the 24 years I'm alive, but apparently lasted from the '70s-'90s) auto center and Garden Center were split off into separate stores, and are being rented out as space on their own. Rural King took up the ENTIRE Sears, including the auto center. It is huge! I think one of the biggest ones in existence.  One Kmart remains empty. In fact, it and Belk's were the last stores the small mall it was in really had. The Italian restaurant moved to a new location, the gun store (yep, there was a gun store in that mall) moved into a recently vacated Fastenal.  All that's left is a "non-denominational" church and a movie theater.

And don't even bother buying the new Craftsman tools from Stanley/Black+Decker. Compared to the old Craftsman stuff, they're crap.

Kinda sad, as Kmart had a presence in this area as a SS Kresge in the 1920s, and the Sears and Roebuck catalog was the Amazon of its day.

karrit

panchox1 said:

huh. I was pretty sure that that there was one in Colorado. at least there was a couple years ago. 

The Loveland, CO K-mart finally closed last year, it was a dump and way overpriced.  A farming/ranch chain opened up a branch in that old K-mart building recently.

pxchris

I worked at a Kmart for a couple years back in the early '00s (pre and post 9/11). It was an absolute dump. haha

panchox1

karrit said:

panchox1 said:

huh. I was pretty sure that that there was one in Colorado. at least there was a couple years ago. 

The Loveland, CO K-mart finally closed last year, it was a dump and way overpriced.  A farming/ranch chain opened up a branch in that old K-mart building recently.

it's the one in Pueblo that I was thinking about. Looks like it closed about a year ago or so as well. 

MugenPower

cody6268 said:

And don't even bother buying the new Craftsman tools from Stanley/Black+Decker. Compared to the old Craftsman stuff, they're crap.

People have been saying this for ages ever since they stopped being Made in USA.  I haven't purchased any in many, many years, but the last few times I did (multipiece "mechanic" tool sets, sockets, ratcheting box wrenches, drivers, etc.), they were made overseas and I haven't had any issues with them.  Granted, they are simple hand tools, so perhaps less chance for failure, but unless you're making a living with those tools, I personally don't feel the need to splurge on something like Snap-On.

They certainly didn't seem any better or worse than other big box brands (Husky, Stanley, etc.) but they did have the added benefit of the lifetime warranty that allowed you to get a straight swap at any Sears if you had a problem.  Though, with dwindling Sears stores that advantage has all but disappeared... On the flip side, how often is a wrench going to fail?

Again, I don't know how they've changed in recent years, and maybe the more complicated tools are more prone to failure, but I haven't had any problems with my Craftsman tools despite many old timers (my assumption, since it seems like Craftsman hasn't made their tools in USA for ages...) saying they're crap now just because they're made overseas.  If you look at some product reviews, you'll even see some people give low ratings and stating they immediately returned the item upon seeing it's made overseas, without even using them.

madforLEGO

Its a damn shame about what happened to Sears. I mean they did it to themselves, but I had many a happy memory going to Sears to get clothes, tools, etc. Also loved that they would calibrate tools as well (like my Torque wrench that was sitting around for years, not sure if Lowes would do that now)

oldtodd33

It is a damn shame that Sears couldn't find a way to make it, after all they were the original mail order business. I also loved the fact that you could drive right to the store and buy specialty tools for your car and not have to pay Snap-on's huge price for a tool that you'd use just a few times. I have a set of spline drive sockets I had to buy from Sears for my wife's car that were relatively cheap but I'll only use them a few times in my life. Oh well. 

Astrobricks

I think the last Kmart in town was the one they built in the middle of one of the main streets in Minneapolis back in the 70s. So dumb. Anyway, that one is now a post office after the nearby one was burned in the riots. Hopefully in a year or two it will be torn down and the street opened back up.