Penn Dining launched a new rewards program on the Penn Eats mobile app this week, allowing students to redeem their reward points for a variety of prizes.
The rewards, located in the Rewards tab of the app, include a coffee loyalty program or a dining dollar giveaway for dining plan holders only. The previous rewards system began with the release of the Penn Eats mobile ordering app in 2019.
Penn Eats, which allows students to order and pay in advance, has always had a rewards feature, where students could earn points by ordering and completing challenges on the app. According to Director of Communications and External Relations Barbara Lea-Kruger, the new rewards program is more robust and flexible than the old system, which was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Participants can use the digital loyalty punch cards at Market Cafe, Joe’s Cafe, or Accenture Cafe when purchasing a coffee in the app. After receiving nine punches, participants can receive a tenth coffee for free.
Participants can also enter various contests supported by Coca-Cola and other sponsors using their reward points. For example, participants can use 20 points to enter for a chance to win a Coca-Cola-branded Bluetooth speaker, or 25 points to enter for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to the Penn Bookstore.
Each week, dining plan holders will be able to use 10 points to enter for a chance to win a certain amount of dining dollars. This week, eight winners will be selected at random to win the $25 dining dollars giveaway.
“As an extra added bonus to being on a dining plan, only the people on a dining plan can enter for dining dollars,” Lea-Kruger said. “We want to reward our dining plan holders.”
These improvements come after many students expressed interest in redeeming their Penn Eats reward points in a Penn Dining survey sent out last year.
“Even though we didn’t have a rewards program, through the pandemic, students could continue to earn rewards, so there were students with a lot of points,” Lea-Kruger said.
In preparation for the new rewards program, students could use all their existing reward points from the pandemic last semester to enter contests where they could win items, such as a mini fridge.
“We had a tremendous response. As soon as we sent it out, people were in there entering contests and redeeming points for goods. We did that so … people could get something for the points they had, and then we started fresh with everybody at zero points this semester,” Lea-Kruger said.
According to Meal Plan Manager Ted Morrin, there have already been nearly 600 entries to the rewards program within the first week.
“As long as students keep participating and redeeming their points, we will keep this up. We’ve been looking at how other schools do it, so we may change what we’re offering,” Lea-Kruger said.
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