in suggesting that the Marks and Spencer Sparks card is the worst loyalty scheme ever

[JackandDiane]

1. YOu have to activate offers - requires WAY too much thought and planning
2. I just want money off things I buy fgs
3. that fucking ' have you swiped your sparks card' is surely mitigation for murder?

My sparks offers are becoming more relevant and including things I buy regularly. The problem? I buy them at a BP garage I drive past daily, and whilst they ask for the sparks card and give me the points i can't actually use the sodding discounts!!

I just want to go into a shop and buy whatever it is I want at a reasonable price. I don't want 2 for 3 or BOGOF offers, I don't want vouchers, I don't want loyalty cards, I don't want meal deals and I don't want deal of the day/week offers.

These stupid 'deals' are REALLY annoying and sometimes they are too bloody complicated.

Waitrose, Marks and Tescos annoy me the most.

One of my offers is on gin!

Totally useless. I have filed it in the bin.

Gosh it's a hard pick this week - what to choose!!!

Three of my offers today are on things I actually buy every week.

3 for £9 on Balanced for you meals
20% off cream cakes
20% off chocolate.

I cant remeber what the other two were for, they can't have been good.

Agre with what everyone said.

Can anyone beat this? I've specially logged onto m Sparks account cos of this thread (haven't been bothered to before), and found one of my offers is "20% off blueberries". So I guess that's worth, what, 40p or so? Which I have to log in for, load to my card, go to an M&S, remember to buy the blueberries as well as pants / tights etc, then get a whole 40p off them. When they were probably cheaper in my usual supermarket in the first place as I never get groceries in M&S.

Anyone got an even more useless offer?

In the run-up to Xmas, if I spent more than £60 on a Waitrose shop three times in, I think, a month, I got sent a voucher for £30. Not difficult to spend more than £60, if you're stocking up on wine, Xmas chocs, biscuits etc. Or even stockpiling washing powder or whatever. And £30 is a v nice bonus.

Whereas with Sparks, if I buy a fruit pie in the next 11 days I can have 20% off. Whoopdedoo. They've just been on offer anyway. And I had to change my password to reregister, because it wouldn't accept the original one. I'm annoyed people are getting chocolate because I do buy their hazelnut Swiss bars.

I mentioned to an assistant that I had a Sparks card but hadn't quite got the hang of it and she said, 'You and however many million others.'

I used to use my M&S card as my default credit card for the reward vouchers, but I'm changing to my John Lewis one now.

Well according to this the Sparks card is the key to M&S resolving its continually declining clothing sales. Marketing people & overpaid CEOs are consistently useless, aren't they? All they have to do is read the fecking comments on sites like MN. The customers have been telling them exactly what the bloody problem is for years now! Morons.

I would add though that the more cynical reading of that article is that the whole point of the Sparks card was simply to gather data with no intention to provide real benefits to customers at all. And apparently any points you accrue are zeroed at year end!

Reading that article, their CEO sounds bloody delusional

While we're on the subject of pointless loyalty cards, the Superdrug health and beauty card is really pointless!

Notamummy - If it's anything like the Sparks card, it must be completely devoid of points then

I had an email for a survey on Sparks card. Gave it 0 throughout and told them to look at Boots and the m&s credit card for how to run a good loyalty scheme

Anyone got an even more useless offer?

Quite possibly, but who would remember?

I'm not sure I'd notice if my Sparks points are all zeroed. They don;t appear to be actually for anything.

Agreed! YANBU!

If they analyse the Sparks data, what's the bets that they find hardly anyone is using their Sparks card to do anything much (except get the occasional 20% off chocolate (which I didn't get ))?

"Three of my offers today are on things I actually buy every week.
3 for £9 on Balanced for you meals
20% off cream cakes
20% off chocolate."

Do you really buy chocolate and cream cakes every week?!

One week I had offers on cheese, wine and Percy Pigs.

M&S understands me.

I would have gone for those as well Keletubbie

Been in this morning and, when asked if I have a sparks card did my usual stuff about it being a waste of time. Assistant gave me a knowing look and said they'd had so many complaints from older customers about it only being accessible on line that they were introducing a 'paper version'. No idea how that will work. But interesting that even the staff are stopping the pretence of being surprised when you say how awful it is.

One week I had offers on cheese, wine and Percy Pigs.

M&S understands me.

I am definitely partial to a Percy! Maybe he should be the next CEO of M&S, he'd do a much better job of it!

I agree about the older customers feeling left out because it is only on line.
However, it does annoy me when I am at the checkout in Sainsburys and they print off all these bits of paper to fill my handbag with. They must be chopping down whole forests of trees just to keep Sainsburys supplied with vouchers.
It really bothers me - not sure if that is reasonable.

NicknameUsed I do buy those things every week, is there something odd about that?

I don't know anyone who eats cream cakes every week, so yes, it is unusual. I guess that as we aren't much of a chocolate eating family, buying it every week seems to be a lot of chocolate.

I'm sorry that sounds a little judgey, but to me it is unusual, that's all.