The 11-year-old loves nothing more than being in the water.
Twice a week she uses the hydrotherapy pool at her school. Now, thanks to Capricorn Rewards+, she can also use a pool at home.
Pippa has cerebral palsy, is non-verbal, and uses a wheelchair. Her parents— Capricorn Members Brett and Rochelle Funneman, of Shmick Auto Electrics in Geraldton, Western Australia—recently built a new home and decided to install a swimming pool so Pippa could get in the water as often as possible.
“We had a fair few points saved up and we always put them in shares, but I said to my husband, ‘why don’t we get a pool for her and get it heated’, because she’s in there all the time doing her physio and exercise and she’s free when she’s swimming; she actually just loves the water,” Rochelle said.
“Obviously, pools aren’t cheap. By the time we got the pool itself in, it was $35,000. It’ll be about $60,000 by the time we’re finished. We had about $11,000 in points, so we asked if we could put it towards our pool, just to bring the cost of that down.”
Capricorn agreed, contributing the value of the Funneman’s Rewards+ Points to the cost of the pool.
Capricorn Rewards+ was launched in February 2024 as an expansion of Capricorn’s already generous Rewards program. It’s an innovative new way for Members to use their accumulated Rewards Points to purchase almost anything they want.
Previously, Members could only spend Rewards Points on products available on our platform. Rewards+ allows the purchase of items that are not readily available on our platform, as long as they’re tangible products (not services or travel), worth more than $3,000, and Members have the full value of the item in points at the time of submitting the redemption request.
Capricorn created Rewards+ specifically to enable Members to use their Rewards Points so they get the benefit from them—and the Funneman’s are certainly enjoying that. The pool went in last November.
“We’re spending more time in the backyard as a family,” Rochelle said. “Pippa has a brother who is 14 going on 15, and he’s happy to be playing with her in the pool and jumping in and doing bombies. She absolutely loves him doing that—it’s like a little wave pool for her and she just loves going up and down. So, family time has definitely increased one hundred per cent, especially on the weekends.”
But it’s not just more fun and togetherness the pool has brought the Funneman’s lives. It’s also revolutionised that all-important hydrotherapy for Pippa.
“We try to get her into the water as much as we can during the week because, with her muscle tone, she can get quite stiff,” Rochelle said.
Pippa had surgery last year which installed a special pump in her stomach with a catheter that goes around her spine. It releases medicine that relaxes her muscles.
“Obviously, if we keep the muscles moving, it’s going to make things a lot easier for her, as well as the effect of the medicine,” Rochelle said. “So, the pool is perfect because she’s flat out kicking and just feels free in the water.”
Rochelle said it was wonderful to be able to use their Rewards Points on something that was adding so much value to her family’s lives.
“You’re running a business, you’re working hard, and to get these rewards back—in a way we can see how hard we’ve worked,” she said.
The pool is not the first time the Funneman’s have used the Rewards+ program. When they were building their new home, they invested some of their points in a new surround sound TV and cabinet.
Using Rewards+ is as easy as getting a sales invoice for an eligible item, submitting the invoice via the Rewards shop, waiting for approval from Capricorn, and then getting your confirmation back from the supplier.
What will you get with your Rewards Points?
For more information about making a Rewards+ redemption, log in to myCAP and visit the Capricorn Rewards shop.
