Domino's Pizza... Not as Good as I Remember

Two weeks ago I tried Domino's Pizza. It had been years since I'd last ordered from them. They keep making noise about how they're better now (hint: it's a fake advertising ploy), though, and they had a 50% off sale, so I figured I'd give them a try to see if anything's really different.

The simple answer is, despite all their advertising about how they've improved their pizza, they really haven't. Their advertising message the past several years of "we suck, we're sorry, we're getting better" was purely a marketing ploy. It was a high risk ploy that a lot of people expressed worry about at the time, but it has paid off nicely for Domino's. Meanwhile, their pizza is actually... apparently worse... than before.

I remember ordering Domino's a lot in high school. Classmates at my school and I realized we could get Domino's to deliver to the flagpole at the front door after the final bell rang. We pick up pizzas there, run to the buses, and enjoy pizza on the long Friday bus rides home. Okay, maybe it was the taste amplification from doing something that seemed borderline illicit, or the joy it brought to a grinding ride in a school bus, but those pizzas rocked.

Hallmates and I ordered Domino's a bunch my first year at college, too. That was until I discovered there was way better pizza from a local shop. Domino's wasn't bad; they just weren't awesome compared to strong, local competition. Of course, that was in New York!

Domino's today just isn't that good. The sauce flavor is bright, same as it ever was. That alone cast my memory back to those halcyon Fridays in high school. But the cheese and toppings were bland. Domino's today isn't so bad I'd refuse to eat it.... It just isn't good enough that I'd choose it if any kind of reasonable alternative is available.

Sapphire Card Closed, Anniversary Trip Booked!

Several days ago I wrote about whether to keep my Chase Sapphire Preferred card after its anniversary. I'd had a great score with the card in its first year, but prospects for the second year were looking dim (as is typical). Well, Hawk and I decided on a joint strategy to clinch certain value from the points on that card and close it to avoid paying the annual fee that just posted. Oh, and in the process we booked a nice hotel stay for our anniversary later this year. 😀

Four steps:

1. Hawk sent a few thousand points from her Chase Sapphire Reserve account over to my Sapphire Preferred. This worked through a feature called Combine Points that Chase offers, though they've made it hard to access. Setting it up required a call to customer service.


2. The point (heh) of transferring a few thousand to me was to top off my account with enough points to transfer to Hyatt for a planned redemption. As soon as I received the top-up from Hawk, I transferred my full balance to Hyatt.


3. Over at Hyatt I booked 4 nights at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort and Spa in Bonita Springs, FL around our anniversary in September. It's a resort hotel with nice pools and waterslides— exactly the sort of thing we like. (We're kind of like 11 year olds at heart.)


4. After moving the points and booking the stay last night, I canceled my card account— with a 0 points balance— this morning.

One reason I'm really pleased with this play is that it locks in great value for the Chase Ultimate Rewards points I'd earned. When I write these "What's in Your Wallet?" tagged posts I always state what the points are worth. The thing is, for points that aren't cash back, those point values are only theoretical. They're based on what I expect the points will be worth when I redeem them— which may be well into the future. And in the future the points are almost always worth less than they are today. That's because airlines and hotels devalue their points regularly.

For example, the mountain of Marriott points I'm sitting on, which I valued at 0.8 cents per point (cpp) a few years ago, is worth closer to 0.5 cpp today. Similarly, I valued United points at 1.8cpp years ago but they're worth 1.1cpp today. Lesson: never hoard huge points balances, it's not worth it!

But now I've cleared out my balance of Chase UR points, so their value switches from theoretical to definite. And I'm getting great definite value, to boot! In the past I valued Chase UR at 1.5 cpp. With this stay I'm getting more like 2 cpp. That raises the value I figure my one-year play with the Chase Sapphire Preferred was worth from $1,195 to over $1,500. I think that's a new high score!