Actually, I made a big judgment mistake. I really apologize for this.
The day after I wrote the post above I noticed on my second TRU receipt that only $59.98 of my $200 reward was actually redeemed.
I did not buy only Lego's as I thought and mentioned before. There were 2 power rangers stuffs in there and sure enough that's where the reward went to.
The strange thing though is that the next day I redeemed $140 on all Lego's, at the same store, and it went through, no issue and this time for real. No mistake.
It is real, guys...It is happening. I went back to that store yesterday and had to negotiate to get a merchandise credit for the reward I lost. It worked for that time.
The rule is certainly brand new for the stores it is not yet 100% enforced but the store managers are aware of it and they are working towards enforcing it.
For now they are nice enough to force the redeem or give lost reward back in the form of a merchandise credit.
However, this is not going to last for long.