Complete Guide: How Do Walgreens Points Work?

If you’ve ever shopped at Walgreens, chances are you’ve noticed the big yellow tags on certain items saying how many rewards points they’re worth. Or maybe you wondered why the cashier ringing you up asked for your phone number, or saw a big stack of Walgreens deals by the door when you were walking out… you’ve probably thought to yourself: How do Walgreens points work?

Learning how to coupon at Walgreens and save money is easy with their rewards programs. Walgreens has two rewards programs, but one is newer, more popular, and is a better way to earn and save—it’s a points-based system that gives you rewards you can use in-store as cash. This guide explains all the details you should know about the Walgreens rewards system, including how to earn and redeem points, so you can start saving today.

How Do Walgreens Reward Points Work?

There are two rewards programs at Walgreens: Register Rewards and Balance Rewards. Register Rewards is a manufacturer coupon that’s printed out and handed to you with your receipt. It doesn’t require you to enroll ahead of time to be eligible, but your register rewards coupon expires 14 days from when you get it and doesn’t offer any other ways to save.

The Walgreens Balance Rewards Program, on the other hand, does the heavy lifting of the two—here’s how it works:

• You create a Balance Rewards account in-store, on the Walgreens mobile app, or on the Walgreens website
• Your Balance Rewards account is connected to your phone number, so every time you shop at Walgreens, you’ll type your number into the pin-pad at checkout
• Walgreens Balance Rewards points are digitally added to your account after each purchase
• The more Balance Reward points you save, the more money you’ll be able to take off of future purchases
• To redeem points, you’ll type in your phone number and zip code (the one you signed up with)

How Much Are Walgreens Points Worth?

At Walgreens, you can easily earn thousands of points in a single shopping trip. Those bright yellow tags with sales and rewards make it easy to keep track of how many you’ll be earning with each purchase, given they list the amount in points and dollars, but here’s what you need to know—every 1,000 points is equal to $1 in rewards.

How Do You Earn Balance Rewards Points?

Figuring out how to earn Walgreens points is a lot simpler than you’d think—just about everything you buy and do regularly will earn you points. From cosmetics and household goods, to drink and snacks, to medications and healthy lifestyle choices, Walgreens makes it easy to rack up points.

There are four major parts to the Balance Rewards program: Everyday Points, prescriptions, signing up to be a Beauty Enthusiast, and taking part in Balance Rewards for Healthy Choices.

What Are Everyday Points?

While you’ll earn more points for specific items, you’ll still earn 10 points (1 cent) for every dollar you spend at Walgreens, no matter what you buy. If you download the Walgreens mobile app and use it to digitally clip coupons to your account, you can also sometimes find “coupons” that will multiply your Everyday Points during your next shopping trip.

How Do You Use Walgreens App Coupons?

You can attach coupons from the weekly ads and monthly Walgreens coupon booklets digitally, and opt-in to Everyday Point multipliers, directly to your Balance Rewards account number.

Here’s how to do it:

• Download the Walgreens mobile app on your phone and sign in
• Go to the section titled “Weekly Ad & Coupons”
• Search through all coupons, specific categories, or use the navigation bar to look up coupons related to items you’ll be shopping for—the “Recommended for You” category is where you’ll find the Everyday Point multipliers
• Beneath each store coupon you’ll see a blue clip button that you’ll need to click to attach it to your account
• Shop at Walgreens as you usually would
• When you go to checkout, use the pin-pad to put in your phone number and watch as all your coupons are applied to your purchases

These coupons will stay on your account until they expire, so that you can use them an unlimited amount of times—Everyday Point multipliers can only be used once, however, so shop accordingly.

Do You Get Walgreens Points From Prescriptions?

Picking up prescriptions from the Walgreens pharmacy is a great way to earn points without having to buy or do anything out of the ordinary. Every time you fill a prescription, you earn 100 points (10 cents), but there are some restrictions.

You won’t earn points from the pharmacy for the following reasons:

• Your pharmacy items weren’t purchased at “Participating Locations”—meaning Walgreens Drugstore, Rxpress, Duane Reade, or Walgreens Pharmacy locations in-store
• You went to a “Participating Location” but picked up your prescription through a self-service Express Rx kiosk
• Your pharmacy items were purchased from Arkansas, New Jersey, or New York
• Your prescription was transferred to a store located in Alabama, Mississippi, Oregon, or Puerto Rico

How Do Walgreens Points Work as a Beauty Enthusiast?

Within the Walgreens Balance Rewards program is another program that focuses on beauty. If you’re looking for how to earn Walgreens points quickly, and you like to stock up on personal care items, becoming a Beauty Enthusiast is the answer.

Here’s how the Beauty Enthusiast program works:

• Sign in to your Balance Rewards account and opt-in to becoming a Beauty Enthusiast
• Every time you buy cosmetics, skincare, haircare, fragrances, beauty accessories, bath products, or oral care products, your spending will be digitally tracked
• Once you reach $50 of spending, 5,000 rewards points ($5) will be automatically added to your Balance Rewards total

You’ll also have access to additional “Recommended for You” coupons, and will receive emails about the Beauty Enthusiast sample bags when they hit stores. When they do, you’ll be able to get an entire bag full of beauty products as a free gift with any $20 beauty purchase.

What Are Balance Rewards for Healthy Choices?

With Balance Rewards for Healthy Choices, you’ll earn even more points for doing things that are not only completely free, but good for your health and well-being.

Some of the things you’ll earn points for include:

• Walking
• Running
• Cycling
• Weigh-ins
• Drinking more water
• Cutting down on nicotine
• Monitoring your blood pressure
• Doing glucose readings

Here’s how you can take part:

• Sign in to your Balance Rewards account and join a health challenge
• Challenges last four weeks, and after each week you’ll receive 100 points (10 cents)
• Once you complete the fourth and final week, you’ll get to spin a wheel to receive up to 2,000 additional Walgreens Balance Rewards points ($2)
• Points are automatically added to your Balance Rewards account

Balance Rewards for Healthy Choices is a way to reward yourself for positive physical and mental changes with what’s essentially tiny Walgreens gift cards—but since you can enroll in more than one challenge at a time, those tiny gift cards will add up. Plus, you’ll be rewarded in other ways, like losing weight, sticking to your medications, and bettering your mental health.

Can You Use Points to Earn Points at Walgreens?

Walgreens lets you use points and earn points in the same transaction, but there are some limitations—you can only use and earn points on unit offers, not threshold offers.

Here’s an example of a unit offer where you could use and earn points all at once:

• Buy 2, Get 3,000 Balance Rewards points

This is an example of a spend threshold, where you couldn’t pay with points and earn points in the same transaction:

• Spend $25, Get 5,000 Balance Rewards points

While Everyday Points aren’t a huge contributor to Balance Rewards points, it’s worth mentioning that you won't earn Everyday Points on the portion of the transaction that was paid for using points.

How Do You Check Your Balance Rewards Points?

As long as you enter your phone number on the pin-pad every time you make a purchase at Walgreens, you’ll see your total account balance at the bottom of every receipt. You can also check your total points at any time online or through the Walgreens mobile app.

How Do I Redeem My Walgreens Rewards?

If you’ve made it through the couponing and shopping stages, you’ve probably racked up your rewards and are wondering how to redeem Walgreens points.

Whether you’re starting the Balance Rewards program for the first time or have recently used a reward and are back to a zero-point balance, your first $5 worth of points are always redeemable in increments of 1,000—here’s what that looks like:

• 1,000 points = $1.00
• 2,000 points = $2.00
• 3,000 points = $3.00
• 4,000 points = $4.00
• 5,000 points = $5.00

Beyond 5,000 points, you won’t be able to redeem in increments of 1,000—these are the remaining point levels you can redeem and how much money they’re worth:

• 10,000 points = $10.00
• 20,000 points = $20.00
• 50,000 points = $50.00

Balance Rewards points rollover, so you don’t have to use all your available points at one time, but you can if you want to. The maximum number of points you can redeem is 50,000 per transaction ($50) and 100,000 per day ($100), splitting your purchase into two separate transactions.

What Can I Get With My Walgreens Rewards?

You can use your Walgreens rewards to purchase anything online or in-store, except the following:

• Alcohol
• Dairy
• Tobacco
• Prepaid cards
• Clinic services
• Prescriptions
• Other pharmacy items or services
• Contact lenses
• Photo orders not picked up in-store

Do Walgreens Points Expire?

If you keep your account active and purchase something at least once every six months, Walgreens points won’t expire until one year from when they were earned.

Get More Rewards with RebateKey

Walgreens will let you use two coupons per item as long as you’re using one Walgreens store coupon and one manufacturer coupon—either Register Rewards or manufacturer coupon. Stacking coupons is a great way to save money while you work towards getting more Balance Rewards points.

With RebateKey, you’ll get access to tons of manufacturer coupons to use on your next shopping trip, and automatic cash back from Walgreens every time you make a purchase. Even with one of the best rewards programs, Walgreens points are no match to getting a check in the mail. All you have to do is sign up and shop, so join RebateKey today and start getting the most out of your rewards programs.

Sources:

Walgreens. How the Program Works. https://www.walgreens.com/topic/help/balance-rewards.jsp

Walgreens. Become a Beauty Enthusiast. https://www.walgreens.com/balancerewards/beauty.jsp

Walgreens. Balance Rewards for Healthy Choices. https://www.walgreens.com/steps/brhc-loggedout.jsp

Business Wire. Walgreens Balance Rewards for Healthy Choices Participants Losing Weight, More Adherent to Medications, Studies Show. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150611005786/en/Walgreens-Balance-Rewards-healthy-choices-Participants-Losing