The Most Bizarre Rewards Program I've Come Across

Filed in archive General on March 25, 2008

Today I was putting together a short news item about a Visa card that recently launched, when I realized I'd stumbled across one of the most bizarre rewards programs I'd ever seen. The name of the company is uTango, and if you can stay married for 30 years, and stay loyal to them for 30 years, and if they can stay in business for 30 years, you could potentially get $1 million in 30 years. That's a lot of "ifs", and perhaps that's what they're counting on.

I haven't given the program the full once-over, because in trying to understand it on the uTango site, my eyes began to glaze. It's complicated stuff. But I'll try to explain it, and I'm sure a uTango rep will show up to comment if I have my details wrong.

First, there's this: you can only be a uTango member if you are single, engaged, or recently married (within the last 3 years). If you've ever been a member of any loyalty program, you may be familiar with the concept of accruing points or cash rebates when you start at the loyalty site's "mall" and make purchases through the mall's partner retailers. (For example, I sometimes go through a special Web site to shop at online merchants who then kick back a percentage of my purchases to benefit my kids' school.) uTango works just like that. Go to uTango and then get redirected to shop online at Target, Home Depot and hundreds of other partner merchants and earn uTango points. Nothing unique there.

But here's where it gets interesting (and complicated). As a married couple you "activate" your uTango membership and then your points can start being used toward yearly rebates based on your past purchases. In addition, you start building toward bigger rewards that can come at the 10, 20 and 30-year mark in your association with uTango. (Single people can earn points, but can't "activate" to reach the 10, 20 and 30-year payoff tiers until they're married.) If you manage to hang around for 30 years, and uTango still exists in 30 years, AND you're still married in 30 years, AND you have fulfilled the spending thresholds every year in order to remain a member in good standing, you could end up with as much as $1 million, or as low as $250K on the other end, but that's still a lot of money. (Your ultimate payout is based on the spending plan you choose.)

If I understand correctly, if you are willing to commit to spending roughly $5000 annually through uTango, you can qualify for yearly rewards up to $200, an award of $2500 after 10 years, a reward of $25,000 in 20 years, and a reward of $250,000 in 30 years. There are also two other higher-spend options that ultimately get you to $500,000 and $1 million.

It's not a bad deal - your annual cash reward is basically around 1% of what you spend, which is pretty standard. What I find bizarre is the concept of a loyalty program that (1) is taking the "customer for life" theory to the extreme in promising rewards 30 years out and (2) is requiring you to commit both to your marriage partner and to uTango for those 30 years in order to get the goods. I can't think of any other loyalty program that would require you to stay married in order to redeem your points. And if there's a (3) here, it's that there's absolutely no guarantee that uTango will exist in 30 years, so, although they may require a firm commitment from you, you certainly can't expect a foolproof commitment from them.

This is a little much for me in terms of work involved and commitment required, but I'm already ineligible anyway as my newlywed days are further in the rearview mirror than uTango desires. If you're into these kinds of programs (and you really really love your spouse for ever and ever), you might want to give it a look.