... to be FED UP to my back teeth with store cards and loyalty points?

[PacificDogwood]

Just reduce your fecking prices FGS!

I received a Boots delivery yesterday. Nothing fancy, some emollients for DS2's skin, some deodorant, some shampoo, some san-pro - you get the picture.

£89 .
But apparently I "saved' £43 by taken them up on their '2 for 3' offer on some things and I 'earned' 1200 points.

We get buttered up by good sounding rhetoric of what we've 'saved' and what a 'bonus' the points are. When really all we're doing is do their market research for them.

TESCO is just as bad - I never spend vouchers in time (I clearly don't shop enough...).

I have a wallet full of store cards, yet when I am in a store I rarely have the one I 'need'. I don't shop anywhere consistently enough to every take advantage of their 'offers' (yep, I am a shop whore, but feel a deep and meaningful relationship with Lidl's coming on - what you see is what you get).

Big Shops, stopp your stupid schemes and Reduce Your Overheads, then pass those saving on to us!!

I love points . We are just returning from a weekend away using avios which have come from tesco points all free .. If you are savvy you get some great freebies .. Some are a lot better than others though .

I use storecards because if I have the pay the prices I might as well get something for it. I have a waitrose card which I only use to get the free daily tea/coffee, a necter card that I use on eBay and a tesco clubcard which I use when I'm buying offers in tescos (only when they're cheapest)

The tesco clubcard is useful but I get hounded in Boots for not having one. I really don't go in Boots that much to make it worthwhile but when I do go in, its the same branch. Last time the assistant said you should have one as you're always in here. I said I don't think twice in three weeks makes me always in here.

Agree with pacific re points. My Mum is obsessed with nectar points and seems to think that they are fantastic - she buys everything in sainsburys and pays on her sainsburys credit card so she gets her points. I think they're ok if you we're going to buy the stuff in that shop anyway, but if they change your spending habits then you're being suckered in.

As an aside re the sickness policy thing, isn't that the case for lots of places? It certainly is at my work. I had three episode of sickness in one year and got a written warning. I am an NHS nurse working in operating theatres. Should I really be encouraged to come into work ill? The time I had three episodes they were all within a six week period where I had a chest infection while pregnant and kept getting phone calls at home for sickness status updates and so kept coming back to work before I was properly better

But did you know that if you go online you can print off any Tescos vouchers that you have lost/forgotten about. I had about a tenners worth that I was sure I had used but had missed somehow.

loyalty cards are just a way for the store to track your purchases and thus target product towards you more 'effectively'. they have also been used against customers... for example, a store in the US referred to a person's alcohol purchases when the customer fell in the store and tried to claim damages.

I agree with you OP, the prices in Sainsburys and Boots are so high that their points systems in no way make up for them. I use Lidl for food and the 99p shop for all toiletries/household products and have no points whatsoever, but save about £30-40 a week if not more by doing so.

If you think you are getting a stereo free from Tesco by spending £100's a month, think again!

You know vote with your feet...support your local butcher, baker, fishmonger etc whatever floats your boat. You don't have to take 'advantage' of your loyalty card. Make a stand, don't use a reward card and don't darken the doorstep of any big chain. I'm afraid the big chains aren't going to stop this practice anytime soon. You sound like Russell Brand all empty rhetoric complaining about a system but when pinned down not being prepared to do anything about it

I was going to buy a perfume there for my dd but went into John Lewis and they were price matching and it seemed to be about £7 cheaper, gift wrapped and the assistant gave me some samples. Boots don't have a counter of the brand i bought.

i think Boots is expensive

I like John Lewis and always use my partnership card so I am probably just as bad but I did have a voucher through doing this scheme so the perfume was 'free'.

I like JL and would rather they had my business tbh.

I love my tesco clubcard. I have the tesco credit card as well, so get a fair few points. We have used the vouchers for all sorts of things. Days out, cinema tickets, theme park tickets, magazine subs, and loads of meals out. We have recently booked a hotel break for me and dh. Didn't cost us a penny.
I have a necter card as well, but the points on that build up slowly as i dont shop there often, but we use the points for odeon tickets and cafe rouge restaurants when we get enough.

Use my waitrose card for occassional shops, and the free coffee on a weekday. Also have a costa loyalty card which i use loads, and one for our local coffee shop as well.
Have a boots one, but dont often use it. Thinks there's about a fivers worth of points on it. Find Boots overpriced, so ise superdrug or home bargains instead.

So you think you're getting one over the giant superstores by buying their 3 for 2 'offers' or whatever and then getting a puny bit of tat at Xmas for free.

I love, love, love them. We shop in Tesco every week cos the alternative is Asda and I hate Asda, so the points really stack up.

Clubcard boost has meant all xmas presents for kids paid for with points and I get to have some new work clothes for 'free'. I know I've paid for the stuff to get points etc, but it still means it's not coming out of my account.

And, because they know what I buy, they send me money off vouchers for things I was going to buy anyway.

I resent store cards. esp. Boots which is the only one I have and which I always forget to bring so never benefit from.

Scales on eyes.

Astr0 I had a telco card once and it seemed I only got vouchers for what I never bought (nappies before I had a baby)

My husband is a manager for EE call centre and I can't believe how lax their sickness policy is. You can be off sick numerous times on full pay and have to be off for years before they can finish you.

I on the other hand work for the government and if I have 5 days in a year I get a disciplinary and there are two more steps before I'm sacked.

"tesco"

That was supposed to be a reply about the sickness policies in supermarkets!

I'm quite happy for my purchases to be tracked That way they will send me money off things which i actually buy.

I have loads of loyalty cards - tesco, nectar, boots, body shop, Superdrug.

I'm not loyal to any shop, but I'll collect the points if I'm going there anyway.

I love them too as I feel good thinking I have got a bargain, even though I know logically that the price was ludicrous in the first place. I use my Tesco points for their partner companies like Goldsmiths where you get 3 or 4 times the value that you would get instore.

Last week I bought some perfume at a large chemist store, there was 10% off at the Dior counter that day, I then had a 10% off voucher and got 500 advantage card points as well as the regular number so overall got almost £20 off a purchase of £65ish. DH said last week that we are getting like America where people collect coupons for discounts in some ways and, although I'm not keen on that idea, I'd sooner get the discounts than sit back and pay too much.

Timid, just talking sbout this with dh last night. We went to cafe rouge for a meal. I downloaded a voucher that had 25% off, which was particularly good, considering it was saturday night, and there's usually restrictions on weekends for a lot of these restaurant vouchers.

The people at the next table ( a family of four) were leaving as we came in. They were paying with tesco vouchers, and the couple who were sitting behind us, were using some kind of voucher as well, as i heard her ask the waitress if there was anything on the menu that they couldn't have with the voucher.

We were just saying that we rarely pay full price in a chain restaurant, and always expect to have some kind of voucher/discount, and from my observation last night, so do most other people!

I am going out with friends on Tuesday night for a casual meal and will be using my taste card to pay which nets us 50% off our food bill

rabbitlady Sun 17-Nov-13 16:07:49

loyalty cards are just a way for the store to track your purchases and thus target product towards you more 'effectively'. they have also been used against customers... for example, a store in the US referred to a person's alcohol purchases when the customer fell in the store and tried to claim damages.

Yes. This is exactly why I don't have any loyalty cards and always pay in cash. I may be a conspiracy theorist, but think how easy it would be for any organisation to turn the information it holds against you. I do not want anyone knowing that today's shopping included 2 chocolate products and no fresh vegetables!

Besides, there's really nothing I ever want in the way of entertainment offers or anything like that which could outweigh my caution.

me2me2 I think that was the old days. I remember getting vouchers for completey random stuff, but they tailor it better now.

Basically, I'm too pushed for time to do anything bar an hour a week of meal planning and shopping on my computer. ANy freebies I get are a complete bonus, so they can track me all they want. Maybe one day they can just deliver my shopping every ~Saturday without me even having to tell them what I want.