Kroger to offer free cell phone minutes as incentive - BizJournals

Interesting incentive......it just might work


Kroger to offer free airtime as shopper incentive

Kroger Co. announced Tuesday a loyalty program that offers free wireless airtime as an incentive to shoppers.

The Free Minutes rewards program offers consumers free airtime on Kroger’s i-wireless service. The program was launched to compete with Walmart’s Straight Talk wireless service. Unlike Kroger’s i-wireless, Walmart does not own Straight Talk and is not offering incentives to shoppers.

Free Minutes rewards customers who spend $100 at Kroger stores with 20 minutes of free airtime on the i-wireless service. Shoppers are limited to 1,500 minutes a month. If the customer has an Unlimited Talk or Unlimited Talk and Text plan ($40 and $50 respectively), the customer saves $1 off of the monthly service fee for every $100 they spend on qualifying items.

The Free Minutes plan is an extension of a similar plan launched previously, exclusively in Cincinnati, in June. The Free Minutes program is being launched nationwide, and eliminates the limitations on the Unlimited plans. Where there used to be a cap on how much consumers could save on their Unlimited plans, it is now possible for customers who spend $4,000 or $5,000 a month shopping at Kroger to get their Unlimited Talk and Unlimited Talk and Text plans, respectively, free.

Kroger is the first retailer to offer wireless airtime as a loyalty incentive to customers, according to Jennifer Kues, director of communications for i-wireless.

Kroger (NYSE: KR), headquartered in Cincinnati, operates more than 2,400 supermarkets and multi-department stores in 31 states.