Positive Change to Ikea Projekt 0% Interest Purchase Plans

[trvlscmmr]

No Ikea rewards just the benefit of 0% interest on large Ikea purchases. 

I opened this account a few years ago when the 0% interest plans were originally structured:

6months/>$1,000,     12months/>$2,500,        24months/>$5,000

I received an Ikea Projekt email or mailer in last few weeks where I noticed a nice improvement for cardholders. The spending threshold for all 0% plans was reduced.

Now the 0% plans start at $500 spend:

6months/>$500,         12months/$1,000,           24months/>$2,500

Still not the kind of 0% plans you'll see with major US furniture store cards but an improvement nonetheless. 

[NRB525]

We've been trying to build out two bookshelves and a large cabinet with selectable shelves, baskets, drawers and a clothes hanger bar. Inventory availability for the components has been mostly miss, sometimes hit. Resulting in 5 trips to IKEA where often as not we buy frozen meatballs or potatoes so as not to walk away empty handed. Pestering ( respectfully ) the helpful warehouse staff either in person or on the phone, who can only guess where the next shipment will come from has been part of the experience. They have sometimes been able to arrange delivery of some parts, two Click and Collect were successful, and we've paid shipment on some small items that could be ordered on line, so we've gotten about 5 separate deliveries, including one of the large mirror doors. The other mirror door was the last one in stock the day we bought it. 

Friday the 15th was the pinnacle of our experience. DW arose early, found the two shelves we wanted were available to ship, and ordered them delivered to a local FedEx point for $3 shipping. I rolled out of bed later, found the two shelves we wanted were available to ship, and ordered them delivered to the house for $20 shipping. We only really have space for two shelves. The last drawer, the last component, showed low stock, so we chanced driving down. Got there an hour after opening, and of course the drawer was gone. Warehouse staff speculated it could be a year before the drawer becomes available again. ( cuts to earlier visit ... Fortunately we had bought an available, yet not originally in the plan basket on pull out runners on an earlier trip to the store. And we bought two sets of basket runners even though only one set was needed for the one basket we got "because the runners were in stock".) Also on Friday, I talked with customer service in the store to cancel the second set of shelves we didn't need... and we bought meatballs. So Friday we walked away from the store with only meatballs.

A long way of saying I have spent enough I would have reached the new second tier, but only if they had all the items in stock the same day. I'm glad I didn't apply for the Projekt card when it came out. 

[trvlscmmr]

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@NRB525 wrote:

We've been trying to build out two bookshelves and a large cabinet with selectable shelves, baskets, drawers and a clothes hanger bar. Inventory availability for the components has been mostly miss, sometimes hit. Resulting in 5 trips to IKEA where often as not we buy frozen meatballs or potatoes so as not to walk away empty handed. Pestering ( respectfully ) the helpful warehouse staff either in person or on the phone, who can only guess where the next shipment will come from has been part of the experience. They have sometimes been able to arrange delivery of some parts, two Click and Collect were successful, and we've paid shipment on some small items that could be ordered on line, so we've gotten about 5 separate deliveries, including one of the large mirror doors. The other mirror door was the last one in stock the day we bought it. 

Friday the 15th was the pinnacle of our experience. DW arose early, found the two shelves we wanted were available to ship, and ordered them delivered to a local FedEx point for $3 shipping. I rolled out of bed later, found the two shelves we wanted were available to ship, and ordered them delivered to the house for $20 shipping. We only really have space for two shelves. The last drawer, the last component, showed low stock, so we chanced driving down. Got there an hour after opening, and of course the drawer was gone. Warehouse staff speculated it could be a year before the drawer becomes available again. ( cuts to earlier visit ... Fortunately we had bought an available, yet not originally in the plan basket on pull out runners on an earlier trip to the store. And we bought two sets of basket runners even though only one set was needed for the one basket we got "because the runners were in stock".) Also on Friday, I talked with customer service in the store to cancel the second set of shelves we didn't need... and we bought meatballs. So Friday we walked away from the store with only meatballs.

A long way of saying I have spent enough I would have reached the new second tier, but only if they had all the items in stock the same day. I'm glad I didn't apply for the Projekt card when it came out. 

Ikea can be a major pain ordering their more popular items that run out of stock in store. I've been through that process. I feel for you...

Also it was a pretty miserable experience shopping in store to reach the old $5,000 threshold when I bought a $2,000 sectional about 2 years ago. I wish they had lowered the min spend for 2year interest-free plan to $2,500 back then. They need to tweak some of their supply chain methods (shipping) to make it a little more shopper friendly but IKEA has their model that works well. 

As far as the IKEA projekt card I'm pretty happy with it. HP was EQ only. Good starting limit & I've received 3 SP CLIs in just about 3 years being a cardholder. It's only a store card though.