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?

SpaceNk is also worth having if you buy stuff from there

I've just had a birthday £5 off, and used a £5 off jeans and some kind of amount off children's pyjamas in the last week.

Completely agree that the Sparks card is useless.

But SuperDrug and Coop Loyalty cards are excellent.

The sparks card has given two and a half million pounds to charity. And if you ask in store anybody who works there can scan your card and add your offers for you. Guess where i work.

Does anyone know what the Matalan card is for? They seem to be compulsory but don't give any kind of benefit?

I love my Sparks card I live very near a Foodhall type shop and buy stuff there several times a week, so I have about 5 billion points - I love the early access to the sale, and you get 50% off everything.

I quite like Nectar too, got cinema tickets and pizza for something like £10 worth of points last year, I also pay a few food shops with them. Was considering using some to have a family day out at Legoland, DD and I have annual passes but DH doesn't.

Actually, I think I like most of my loyalty cards, the last one I signed up for was B&Q still waiting for the vouchers they promised

SouthernComforts, they use it for data mining and also digital receipts. So if you lose your receipt they can still give you a full refund.

Superdrug is amazing. But it's all in proportion to the amount they charge. Very good in a sale though if you have a ton of points. I had £10 of points the other week after only buying about £40 of stuff over the past several months.

I know people here hate Tesco, but their clubcard is definitely worth having. I've racked up loads of points and usually spend them on air miles, magazine subscriptions and pizza express family dinners out.

Boots is really good too, and Waterstones will give you a card to stamp each time you spend a tenner. Once you have 10 (I think) you get a tenner off.

If you use the self scan till at M&S and scan your Sparks card first you can mute it. I got the £5 for my birthday which was good. I scan it as they give 1p to your choice of charity each time it is scanned.

I got £5 for my birthday. I've had a couple of £5 off dresses which I've used alongside promotions on tunics that I wear with leggings (I know, I know!), 20% off bras, 20% of nightwear/slippers (useful for grans Christmas present) and regular money off food shopping (if only I could afford to do my weekly shop at M&S).
I guess I've saved about £30-40 over the past year on things I would have bought anyway.
And there's also a link to a charity of your choice (from a selection) where they make a donation according to your spend.

They keep giving me offers on women's clothing. Lovely, except I don't buy any women's clothing from them! Is it so difficult to use the content of my online orders to tailor what they offer?

And I didn't get a fiver off for my birthday either!

Tits the most complicated and useless points/discount card I've ever had. Complete crap!

its not tits!

I've had one over well over a year now and it's useless, I cut it up and binned it the other day as there is no value whatsoever; I never got any offers or extra points or discounts from them.

People who say they never get any discounts etc - do you have the app?

I've purposefully avoided getting a Sparks card thanks to the wise shoppers of MN

Does anyone remember when Shell (as in the petrol stations) had a reward card and it was meant to be swiped every time you bought petrol and would put real money on it like a Boots card? It was crap, in fact BBC Watchdog did a piece about it and figured out that, to get just £10 off fuel, you'd have to fill your car up once a month for TEN YEARS!! Ridiculous!

Totally agree. Worst store card of all.

I love my Boots one and my Waitrose one but the Sparks one lives in my glove box now for scraping ice off my car windscreen.

The Debenhams Beauty card is pretty good. A few weeks ago if you spent £40 you got £10 worth of points on your card. As I already had £5 in points I bought an Urban Decay eyeliner for my very fussy daughter with them and it cost nothing.

I got a Christmas present for having a billion points on my sparks card.