I bought my first All Star rod. It's brand new, and not broken of course. But I've read that they are prone to breakage and Academy has a pretty good return policy. What is the return policy? Do I need my receipt? Is it over a limited period of time, i.e. 1 year warranty?

Most of the breakage problems with them are people wanting a new rod so they break them on purpose. Not sure about now but they used to take them back no questions asked.

Dishonest people ruin it for everyone.

Their policy is pretty laxed which means a lot of people do take advantage of it, but it also means that you should be covered if it breaks. A receipt is usually not required for any of their returns, from what I understand.

I used to work at the Academy in CS during summer school. We would take back ANYTHING. Policy was to not take back Baseball/Softball bats out of the shrink wrap or shoes and I saw managers take both back. Even saw the store manager take back an above ground pool that we didn't even carry.

That's one thing I learned about them, is that they do a lot to make sure the customer is happy. YMMV