To not know why M&S have introduced a Sparks card that does nothing.

[HamletsSister]

I recently got one of these beauties. Yay! I thought. Free knickers. Dutifully, I purchased t shirts and tights, bras for DD, even a couple of large boulder slings for myself.

And then, after some months, I asked. Apparently, the weird e-mail offers you get where you seem to pick one, are all you get. No discounts online. No preferential deals. Nothing.

I thought it would be like my Boots card, or my Co-op card where I clock up "money" and can then buy something.

Why do they make it so complicated?

Will they read this thread and sort it out?

Nectar is indeed crap.

M & S keep giving me money off vouchers which are dated 3 weeks hence. So I forget about the vouchers totally and then when I remember, the small window of opportunity has closed.

Boots Advantage card is by far and away the best.

I deduct all of my Nectar points from my Christmas food shop. Usually amass about £120 per year but don't shop in Sainsburys all the time - we also buy food from Lidl and Ocado.

Works for me , I pick the offers on the app and am often getting 20% off deli stuff or gf things and we also got 20% off frozen prawns and my mums cat eats 2/3 bags a week so that was excellent . Some weeks there are no useful offers but that because I don't generally go to an M&S with clothes just the food stores .

I also get fuck all from Nectar but admittedly hardly ever go to Sainsburys. I think I get a £2.50 off voucher about once every five years. So in their favour, at least the points don't expire.

Bloody hell Floral. I hope my cats don't find out that there's a cat out there that's fed on M&S prawns.

Mine have to make do with Felix As Good as it Looks bought in bulk from Zooplus and they often look at me as if it's the worst thing in the world and do it 'it's so unfair' teenage style strop.

Dd used to work in Sainsbury she was a nectar ninja she knew how to get the deals

He's a spoilt brat and gets exactly what he wants , when he wants it and he only eats M&S North Atlantic large prawns , any other type he leaves and complains loudly .

I love nectar! Don't shop there so much anymore but they do a good double up points just before christmas so I get some christmas presents for half price paying with points. Usually coincides with the toy sale or 25% off clothing too. And you can get points lots of other places if you link it up!

This week I got 20% off multipack knickers and 20% off herbal teas. I used both offers, and stocked up - I was expecting those deals to turn up as they seem to appear quite often, so I delayed my purchases until they did. The card's ok if you get offers for things you'd buy anyway, and have flexibility over when to shop. When I first signed up I got 10% (I think) off food for a certain number of days, so that was quite good. There's not much incentive to hand the card over every time you're in a store though.

I've got an M and S chargecard through which I get regular 20% off vouchers anyway.

I also use that to pay for all my purchases (supermarket shopping, clothes, petrol, any big purchases) which means every couple of months or so I get about £40-50 worth of vouchers. That's worth having. But the sparks card?

I think Nectar is okay because I store all the money up for Christmas. Tends to be £60-70 a year.

And Rocky - why make a points card that's so hard to understand that people like us don't realise you need to link the offers to your card? I'm not stupid and it took me several months to work that out

I didn't get a birthday fiver either!!

I did not realise until last week, that you have to select the deals yourself. An assistant scanned my card at the till and I had a 20% off baby and toddler clothes which I used straight away.

There is a self scanner at my local M&S. Another assistant told me that you just scan your card, but I had actually tap in the last 10 digits of my card number, then view the offers, then select them to my card. Then you queue up at the till to pay.....

Why can't Sparks cards be like Boots points cards?!?

I'm a nectar ninja too! It's no good if you simply swipe for regular shopping but there are ways of increasing your points hugely, I've usually got a balance of around £100 and I do spend them very regularly. I won £50 in the 'swipe to win' promotion, use the app for extra bonus points and do other things like Nectar Canvass.

I miss her Nectar and staff discount

Nectar is good if you add it when booking travel via expedia.

Sparks is too complex. The only use I have had from it was when I was buying my teenage daughter and I a stack of new undies and the assistant said - do you have sparks, have you chosen the 20% off bras offer running? She showed me how to do it and I had 05 off. Another assistant and I wold have missed it completely.

Nectar can be linked to Ebay too

DH has a gazillion nectar points (no idea why). We use then when sainsbo has it's 25% off clothes to stock up for DD

Our M&/ is always full of confused older people who don't understand how to get the offers , the assistants offer to check for them but 9 times out of 10 theey can't log in because they can't remember their password or , like my PIL don't have an email address.

They all moan about not getting their free coffee anymore which you used to with the old card .

The only offers I ever seem to get are for men's underwear ,(?) , ready meals which we don't really eat and children's clothes , my youngest is 15.

Of course it is useful - to M&S marketing! Don't sell your soul for a pair of knickers

it's only worth it for the early access to sale, where you get 50% off stuff that's only reduced by 30% when the actual sale goes live. I've just stocked up on tights with 20% off, but I never use the food offers and my so-called amazing top tier access seems to have 'unlocked' a monthly email from my local store in which they tell me that they're selling Easter eggs at Easter, and there'll be a 20% off Home event soon.

It's not any old Whoopie-do, it's an M&S Whoopie-do, etc, etc...

Still better than the joke that is the MyWaitrose card but not a patch on Nectar!

Love my free coffees and 10% off at Waitrose!

yellow that's interesting as I thought that some of the food offers were linked to previous spending and that's why I get gf offers which aren't relevant to many people

I hate "loyalty" cards that require you to jump through hoops to get the rewards, it just means I never use them.

I have a Rewards card for The Works as I help out at a friend's toddler group so buy lots of craft bits in there regularly, plus I'm always buying books in their "Fiction 3 for £5" offer for me and my DD. They also always have great deals on picture/story books for younger kids so I stock up and use them as supplements to main presents for my friends/siblings' children for birthdays/Christmas/Easter etc.

They have a simple system of £1 = 5 points (thought they regularly have double/triple point events) and then every three months they convert your points into a cash voucher that is automatically loaded onto your card. No vouchers for specific things or specific times, no offers on selected products only, no other gimmicks - just a straightforward cash voucher you can apply to anything in the store.

So when I go to the checkout they will ring up the purchases, scan the card and say "So your total is £7.50 but there's a £3.45 voucher on your account, would you like to use that towards your purchase today?" without me having to do anything beyond handing over the card to the cashier.