To think Waitrose loyalty card is losing all its benefit?

[Precipice]

The free coffee disappeared at the beginning of the pandemic (it's "suspended"), in two weeks the newspaper offer is going. There were to my mind the only tangible benefits of having this loyalty card.

They claim there will be "personalised offers". Of course this is vague, but all it sounds like is that the Waitrose card will become like the loyalty cards of many shops where they get the benefit of tracking your purchases and in return for the loss of your privacy, you get nothing or almost nothing in practice, like the current occasional vouchers of "get x off if you spend ". (You can tell perhaps that I am not a loyalty card "fanatic", but I am willing to use some in some circumstances.)

@TheSmallAssassin

For me, it's worth it to be able to scan as I shop, makes life so much easier.

As a previous poster said, they are still doing monthly donations, it's just equally divided between that month's three charities.

This and I'm so pleased that they stopped or suspended the free drink as you now don't have people wandering aimlessly clutching their free hot drink cluttering up the aisles, and I get vouchers regularly for money off the actual things I buy rather than vague hit or miss ones that Tesco used to send me.

I've been sent my offers for this week. Six ways to save 50p (and one to save £1) off specific items that I buy reasonably regularly. But I can only use two of them. So two ways to save 50p. The generosity is astounding. While Tesco Clubcard has a gazillion Clubcard offers in the store and you can use them all if you want.

I'm honestly gobsmacked that anyone thought that offering six offers and letting you only have two was going to have customers thinking favourably about Waitrose.

I like the Food Monthly mag but only use the My Waitrose card when I want that for free. Can't remember ever having money off vouchers that were of an amount I'd use. I spend a lot of £20s in there, but rarely £30 and never £40. I think the last ones they sent were £4 off £40.

I get really annoyed about the money off vouchers they send. The last one I got you had to spend an enormous amount to trigger the voucher. As a single householder I would rather have a smaller voucher and make a smaller purchase, but when I tried to suggest this to Waitrose I got no joy.

Has the free newspaper gone? I'm sure I got one only a week or so ago- I was surprised because I'd forgotten all about it.
Isn't it the Waitrose food mag that's gone?

Agree, it’s hard to see the point of it now. The newspaper going is the final nail in the coffin so I’ll be shopping at the next door Lidl a lot more. Lidl also gas the added bonus of 90% mask-free shoppers vs 10% mask-free in Waitrose.

Waitrose have cut back on rewards to loyal customers. I agree their vouchers were difficult to use within the time allowed and the spend required. Now they charge for delivery. They are just becoming like any other food market. They need to improve.

Has the free newspaper gone? I'm sure I got one only a week or so ago. it's changed over the last few days. The vouchers are unaffected, but now you can pick 2 offers each week, such as 50p off smoked haddock or coxes apples.

Have not joined a loyalty scheme for 20 years, they are all bollocks from the consumer side. My view is you'll survive just fine without the 'offers'.

The Morrison's one is as bad, I might get one offer a month. I still have £56 of vouchers to spend but I can't find anything to spend them on, I want to buy home stuff.

Agree it’s so shit they’ve stopped the free paper!! They just keep cutting back. Also the new home delivery charge. And then free paper only if your delivery was after 3. And now soon to be no free paper in store.

The coffee and paper was a huge draw.

I love the vouchers but as to when and how frequently I have no idea but they are always to specific products for me so I can get rid of almost the whole pack in one shop.

I was also going to post about this last week when I got their email! Such a pity, I liked Waitrose. The newspaper felt like a substantial and useful perk.

As a pp said they are making out in their email like they are improving the rewards when they are just cutting it back even more.

I'm boycotting Waitrosecon principle, the last two shops we did the fresh stuff was awful. John Lewwis have closed the store in my city after allowing the council to pay them 3,000,000 for the building & then announced they weren't reopening the store after the first lockdown.

I don’t bother scanning my card now and haven’t for years. I read newspapers online these days and never did see the need to drink coffee while supermarket shopping. Also their offers were shite so I stopped bothering

I don't know about Waitrose but Morrisons had my loyalty with the £5 vouchers they used to give you now their tailored offers are not worth my while.
It seems to be the same for most of the big supermarkets and I think I might start doing my shop in Aldi or Lidl now.

Waitrose has been slowly going downhill for a while. We get a weekly delivery and on top of the delivery fee, their newest party trick is sending meat, on a 5 or 6pm delivery, that expires the next day.

We have to carefully check all the dates and have started handing things back to the driver.

Has the free newspaper gone? I'm sure I got one only a week or so ago- I was surprised because I'd forgotten all about it.

The free newspapers are ending on 22 Feb, they still have a free magazine.

@Chipstick10

Thousands of John Lewis partners got laid off. Waitrose and John Lewis stores are closing. And you are whinging about a free newspaper.

The point is that if Waitrose/JL keep eroding all the perks that come with paying more to shop there over, say, Tescos then there will be many more job losses and store closures as they'll continue to lose market share.

They should bring the coffee back although there was a lot of controversy about people coming in just to get a free coffee when they didn't have a Waitrose card.

I can see why they would want to ditch the coffee - a lot of staff time was spent refilling and emptying the machines.

However, loyalty cards need clear rewards, whether that is points per spend or a free newspaper.

Random offers that require a dedicated trip to the store in a specific time frame aren’t attractive, because price sensitive customers can already go to a cheaper supermarket.

I’m glad they are getting rid of free coffee. Very bad for local high streets to have that kind of competition. And free newspapers are just bin- fodder.

@merrymouse

I can see why they would want to ditch the coffee - a lot of staff time was spent refilling and emptying the machines.

However, loyalty cards need clear rewards, whether that is points per spend or a free newspaper.

Random offers that require a dedicated trip to the store in a specific time frame aren’t attractive, because price sensitive customers can already go to a cheaper supermarket.

Yes. There were some terrible figures around the amount of disposable cups used from their stores but they then switched to bring your own cup.

I suppose I feel the paper and coffee were very ‘real’ draws and they stood apart from everyone else by a mile. The coffee was good coffee

I ditched the Sparks card years ago when I was getting nothing, but they were getting my data.

IMO they got the coffee and paper offer totally wrong. What thy should have done was 'free cake of the week with any coffee' or vice versa.
Free newspaper when you spend £10 on x product range
And kept you up to date with an email .

The best loyalty scheme at Waitrose was the 8 picks they did around a decade or so ago and last for several years. I was really annoyed when they removed that particularly as they started sending me offers for products I would never use or money off coupons that could be used for amounts over £50. I'm a single household, and never spend more than £30 (at the very most) in a single transaction/a week. I even wrote to their customer services about this one pointing out that they had a huge amount of data about me and my shopping/spending habits, so didn't have a clue why they weren't offering me more tailored deals. I think what really irritated me was the waste of paper when the till would spew out these supposed money off promos that I weren't applicable to my needs, and went straight into the bin.

I was pleasantly surprised when they started sending 10 personalised money off coupons. I think these came once a quarter. They really did reflect things I bought regularly and amount to about £10 off. I was actually pleased they were using my data properly to send me something of use. During the past 18 months, these coupons s were helpful although their frequency was not great. But when they arrive, they were all spent, something I had never been able to do with previous coupons.

During lockdown, I fell out of the habit of shopping at the weekend, and with that, I also got used to not having a 'free' newspaper from Waitrose. Even so, it's annoying they have removed this perk, it was always one useful thing about using MyWaitrose.

There doesn't seem to be any point to continue to scan my card now, so I will stop doing that - They won't be getting my data if there's nothing of note in return.

Gosh, long post

I agree OP. The free Sunday paper was the main benefit and I used to like the free coffee. I was really pissed off when I received the email informing me of the ‘improvements’ to the scheme 🙄