Brilliant Distinctions: Can You Save Money with Allergan’s Loyalty Program?

Allergan Brilliant Distinctions
  • Brilliant Distinctions is the loyalty rewards program for Allergan, the company that manufactures BOTOX Cosmetic.
  • The rewards program includes other popular products from Allergan.
  • More than three million consumers are enrolled in Brilliant Distinctions, and it’s also popular with physicians, who say it provides good benefits to patients.

Brilliant Distinctions is a customer loyalty program that helps you to save money on Botox cosmetic treatments and other Allergan products. The program functions like an airline rewards program or store-specific loyalty shopping membership: you earn points for spending on certain treatments and products and can redeem those points toward future treatments.

So while you actually can save money with Brilliant Distinctions, you do have to know how to maximize the benefits.

How Do You Become a Brilliant Distinctions Member?

Brilliant Distinctions offers a very simple sign-up process on its web page. You can join with your Facebook or Google information — Brilliant Distinctions won’t post on your behalf on either account — or sign up with your name, birth date, gender, zip code, email, and a password you create.

When signing up you are encouraged to provide your mobile number in order to receive offers and information via text messages. If you do decide to take Allergan up on the offer, you can always change your mind later and stop the messages by simply texting the word “STOP” back to any of them.

You have to be at least 18 years old to sign up for a Brilliant Distinctions membership.

How Does the Brilliant Distinctions Program Work?

Once you’re a member, you can earn a certain number of rewards on each treatment or qualified product purchase. The rewards are valued at $10 for every 100 points, and you can redeem them in the future to save money on cosmetic treatments and products. As a member, you’re also privy to special offers on other Allergen products.

What Products Are Covered?

Brilliant Distinctions is an Allergan program, which means most of the company’s products are covered. You can earn rewards on select Allergan products, including:

Some limitations and exclusions do apply. For example, you only earn points on Botox treatments when the out-of-pocket expenses are $200 or more. Points are only awarded for Revolve Advanced Adipose System cash-pay aesthetic procedures. Other than the SkinMedica products, all the Allergan products listed above require a prescription.

Allergan also limits rewards in keeping with cosmetic and medical best practices. For example, Botox treatments should not be provided more than every three months. If you do undergo a treatment within three months of your previous session, the program won’t provide any rewards for it.

>> Learn more about Botox and Juvederm and how they are the perfect combination for natural looking results

How Do You Earn Brilliant Distinctions Points?

You earn points by purchasing or receiving qualifying treatments, which award points in three levels.

  • Earn 100 points for qualifying LATISSE, SkinMedica, and VOLBELLA XC treatments.
  • Earn 200 points for qualifying BOTOX Cosmetic, JUVEDERM XC, and CoolSculpting treatments.
  • Earn 300 points for qualifying KYBELLA, Natrelle, REVOLVE, VOLLURE XC, and VOLUMA XC treatments.

To earn points for these treatments, you must receive them from a participating physician and let your provider know you are a Brilliant Distinctions member at the time of service. The provider will enter your treatment into the Allergan program database, and your points awarded within the next 24-48 hours.

You can also earn extra points with membership activity.

  • Download the Brilliant Distinctions mobile app to manage your membership on an Apple, Google, or Android phone. You get 100 points for downloading it and logging in on your mobile device.
  • Refer friends to the Brilliant Distinctions program and receive 200 points for each one who joins. This reward is limited to 1,000 total points (or five friends).
  • Shop for products at the Brilliant Distinctions mall, where you earn rewards for purchases at online retailers such as Michael’s, Kohl’s, Fandango, and Best Buy. Rewards vary by retailer. As of March 2018, for example, you get one Brilliant Distinctions point for every $2 spent at Best Buy.

How Do the Tiers Work?

Allergan administers its loyalty program at three levels: Silver, Gold, and Diamond. You reach each level by building up points, and the higher levels have more perks than those under it.

Brilliant Distinctions Silver Level

At between 0 and 599 points, you’re a silver member. You receive $10 in redemption value for every 100 points and an annual reward on your program anniversary (the date you joined the program). The anniversary reward is worth $10 and must be used within three months.

Brilliant Distinctions Gold Level

At between 600 and 1199 points, you’re a gold member. You receive all the silver rewards, plus:

  • An extra 50 points on every qualifying treatment
  • A SkinMedica gift

Brilliant Distinctions Diamond Level

At 1200+ points, you’re a diamond member. You receive all the silver rewards, plus:

  • An extra 100 points on every qualifying treatment
  • Two SkinMedica gifts
  • Your points never expire

How Do You Redeem Points for Botox Treatments?

You can log in to your Brilliant Distinctions account any time after you accrue points and print a coupon voucher for reward redemption. For example, if you have 100 points, you can print a voucher worth $10.

Any participating provider will accept the voucher for the face value toward your out-of-pocket costs or cash price on qualifying treatments. You can find a list of participating providers by searching through postal codes on the Brilliant Distinctions site.

The program has more than three million consumer members, so it’s fairly popular among patients and product loyalists. It’s also popular with providers because it offers a real, easy-to-use benefit to patients. “Our patients love the program,” says Santa Barbara dermatologic surgeon Corey Frucht, “because it saves them a significant amount of money over time.”

Not every provider participates in the program, though, so patients who want to save money with a membership will first need to ask their provider if they participate. Among the reasons why some providers don’t participate, issues surrounding administration requirements and scale appear to top the list.

Physicians note that the program works best for providers with larger customer bases who regularly use Allergan products. It also requires a certain level of organization and administrative time to maintain, as office staff are required to to enter the requisite information for each visit in order for patients to receive their rewards.

Staff also need to go through certain channels to redeem loyalty vouchers. When you bring in a Brilliant Distinctions voucher, the physician gets reimbursed for that value from the program, but they have to apply for the reimbursement. The process is very similar to how retailers process manufacturer’s coupons.

Note that if a provider doesn’t accept Brilliant Distinctions coupons, this might indicate that they don’t actually use Allergan products.

Providers who advertise Botox Cosmetic but use a different product, such as Xeomin or Dysport, can’t receive the reimbursements. If you’re seeing a doctor who advertises Botox Cosmetic but doesn’t participate in the rewards program, you might want to ask them a few questions about the exact products they actually do use.

Is Brilliant Distinctions Worth the Time and Expense?

Many doctors and patients alike feel the Brilliant Distinctions rewards program is worth the relatively minimal effort it takes to join and maintain it. For patients, joining the program takes approximately two minutes, and maintaining and redeeming rewards is almost as easy as using a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper.

According to BankRate.com, the average cost of a unit of Botox Cosmetic administered by a physician in a clinical setting is between $14 and $17, and patients need multiple units per treatment. The average cost for each treatment ranges from $300 to $1,200.

If you get 200 rewards for every Botox treatment you undergo and the price of each treatment is $600, you would need 30 treatments (or $18,000 worth) in order to receive one completely free treatment — assuming you didn’t earn rewards any other way.

With Botox cosmetic treatments only provided every three months, it would take you 7.5 years to earn a free treatment.

While that might sound somewhat excessive, it doesn’t mean the loyalty rewards program is without it’s worth. Just one Botox treatment earns you 200 points, a $20 value. Since it only takes a few minutes to sign up for the free program and you can redeem the value toward your next purchase without waiting for enough points to cover an entire treatment, you start saving money right away.

Are There Other Loyalty Programs like Brilliant Distinctions?

When it was initially introduced back in 2009, Allergan’s Brilliant Distinctions program was the first of its kind in the United States. Since then other companies have followed suit, recognizing the high level of popularity loyalty rewards programs enjoy in the domestic cosmetic surgery industry.

For example, Galderma offers the Aspire rewards program, which lets customers earn points on the brand’s products, as well as discounts on future treatments.

Some cosmetic and plastic surgeons even offer their own in-house reward and loyalty programs. Dr. David B. Reath, a plastic surgeon in Knoxville, TN, offers discounts to his most loyal patients. Patients who reach Level 3 in his program can get a discount of $500 on their next visit, for example.

Ultimately, joining these types of rewards programs doesn’t cost more than a few minutes of your time, and you can save hundreds over the years. That probably makes it worth it for most patients, especially when treating frown lines, severe facial wrinkles, and other issues long-term.

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