Sears KidVantage Club

I just had to blog about this because I have talked to 5 moms in the past week who didn't know about it! I don't normally shop at Sears, especially for kids clothes, but I've started to recently! Last year a friend told me about their KidVantage program, and I finally decided to try it out!

Here are the basics:

• The program is FREE and you sign up in-store at the register. Give them your name, phone number and address and you're ready to go!
• If your child wears out the clothes or shoes you buy before they outgrow them, return the item with the receipt to the store and they will replace it with a like item for FREE!
  
• The program tracks your purchases and when you have spent $100 in kids clothing or shoes, you will get a 15% off coupon for your next purchase.

I recently tried this out myself. Last April I bought some khakis and jeans for H and G on clearance. I spent $7.99 per pair, which is more than if you buy them at Goodwill or a second-hand store, but I wanted to try out the program. I figured if they didn't wear out, great, they would just get passed down to the next girl in line! :-) They both wore their new pants for the rest of spring, only occasionally through the summer, and then pretty regularly through the fall and winter. At the beginning of February, H came to me with a hole in her khakis. Time to try out the program!

I took them to the store with the receipt (no tags), and they immediately asked if I was doing a KidVantage exchange. They told me to go back and try to find the same pants. Since I had bought them on clearance last spring, I figured there wasn't a chance, and I was right. So I found another pair of khakis in the same size and brought them up. I explained that these were the only khakis in the same size I could find (and I was worried, since they were $12.99 and I had only paid $7.99). She said, "okay!" and rang them up for me and I got them for FREE! Nice, because these had an adjustable waist while the originals hadn't--though they were plain instead of having gold embroidery, which H had liked.

Not two weeks later, G got a hole in her jeans. (It couldn't have happened the same week, could it?) Back to Sears I went. I couldn't find the same jeans, but I found some that were very similar on the clearance rack on sale for $7.49. No problem! While I was there, I bought some jeans in size 4, 5, and 6, one for each girl, for $4.99 each!

I haven't tried the program for shoes, yet, because honestly, I have forgotten to look. Usually when I am at the mall I have all 4 girls with me and time is limited!

One tip--I didn't think I would remember which pants were from Sears (though surprisingly, I did), so when I got home, I took a picture of the items with the tags still on laid out on the floor. I printed out the picture and kept it with my receipt in the KidVantage flyer they had given me.

Have you used the Sears KidVantage program before? Do your kids notoriously wear holes in the knees of their pants? How about shoes? I've heard that Shopko has a similar policy, but am not familiar with it--anyone want to weigh in?