Kroger Discontinues Rewards Debit Card

Grocer to 'focus on enhancing other savings solutions' for customers

7/5/2023

Mariano's is among the Kroger's banners no longer offering the Rewards Debit Card.

The Kroger Co. is no longer offering its Rewards Debit Card. The grocer's webpage currently reads, “We are no longer accepting applications for the Rewards Debit Card. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

The nationwide grocer launched the payment option in February 2019. The Kroger Rewards Debit Card offered such benefits as bonus fuel points and Our Brands discounts. The rewards doubled when the card was used through Kroger Pay.

As reported by The U.S. Sun, long-term subscribers to the plan took to social media to vent their frustrations regarding the lack of notice about the change and the amount of complimentary rewards points they received following the news.

Kroger responded in part: “We are always looking to improve our products and shopping experience, so we are sun-setting this to focus on enhancing other savings solutions for our customers.”

One of these solutions is its Kroger Boost membership program, which launched nationwide in July 2022.

“Early results are exceeding our expectations with incremental engagement and overall household spend," said CEO Rodney McMullen about the company's loyalty program. "We are evolving Boost with new benefits to further broaden its appeal and create additional customer value. In 2023, we will make significant investments to build out our personalization capabilities, including increasing the use of real-time data to predict customer needs, which will support sales growth during the next three years.”

Kroger saw a lift in sales for its first quarter ending May 20, while also growing digital sales by 15%. The company increased delivery sales by 30% over last year, driven by such delivery solutions as customer fulfillment centers and Kroger Boost.

Meanwhile, during next week's GroceryTech in Cincinnati (July 12-14), Kroger Group VP, Product Experience Jody Kalmbach will take part in the “Creating Next-Gen Customer Experiences” session, offering attendees insights into the many ways that tech-driven personalization is reinventing the grocery experience across web, mobile and intelligent chat. GroceryTech will be presented by Progressive Grocer and its sister publication RIS.

Cincinnati-based Kroger has almost 2,800 retail food stores under a variety of banner names. The company is No. 4 on The PG 100, PG’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. PG also named Kroger one of the Retailers of the Century.