Amazon Giving Whole Foods Benefits The Boot

Whole Foods is doing away with their membership shopping loyalty program for discounts, and it has to do with the Amazon buyout.

By nowproducerdave on April 23, 2018
(Photo by Drew Anthony Smith/Getty Images)

You probably remember last year when Amazon bought Whole Foods. The whole store chain, no pun intended (ok, very intended). $13.7 billion, and it happened last summer. Anyway – Amazon just cancelled the Whole Foods benefits and discount membership, and you have until May 1st to use the points.

The Whole Foods loyalty program gives you points on purchases that you can use towards future purchases, giving you credit towards certain products and discounts. Many grocery stores do this, Raley’s included, and it’s a great way to save a lot of money if you do all of your shopping at one store. In the Amazon takeover, they’re sort of restructuring the store to more suit their business model. They’re doing away with the program, but if you have any points left over you can still use them through May 1st. As of May 2nd, the points will be useless. Also, the program has only been active for about a year anyway.

See also: Amazon wants to get into the banking business.

The good news is though that Amazon isn’t going to leave shoppers without a rewards program. According to an email that was sent out, the new program will still offer discounts. The bad news is that it will only be available to Amazon Prime members. It’s sort of a dirty way to get people to sign up for a paid membership when most grocery store memberships are totally free. Also, the cost of Prime is increasing, too. Check out some more info about the Whole Foods program changes here, though all the details haven’t been released yet. We’re curious if there will be different “tiers” of memberships. We’ll just have to wait and see. Is an Amazon Prime loyalty program something you’d consider if you don’t already have a Prime membership?

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