Do your grocery stores have those "loyalty cards" ?

Toomuchstuff

Toomuchstuff

Member
Location
Wisconsin
I hate being asked at just about every store I go to " do you have our card?" Heck yeah , I have a key chain full of stupid cards ! :mad: I wish stores would do away with those annoying things. Some of them build up points . For what ? I don't care ! I just want the cheaper price and I don't want to have to show a little card to get it !!!!!!

The other thing I hate is ....God forbid I DON'T have their card with me , they ask me for my phone number to look it up ! If it wasn't for the discounts , I'd throw them in the shredder and make confetti out of them .

Well , I guess this little rant means the coffee has kicked in ...LOL... :eek:
 

I don't like them either. I have 2; one grocery store and one department store. I mostly use the grocery one. But yeah, what the heck do I do with the points? No one ever says what they're for, they just tell you how many you have.

I hate the whole concept...a marketing ploy, and the means to know what I buy so "they" know what ads to stuff in my mailbox or stick onto my websites or whatever. Someone posted a thread about snooping drones. Well, I basically carry 2 tiny drones on my keychain at all times.
 
I' m with on this....annoying!


Even the hardware store touts a rewards card... It's funny, when the clerk asks me for my phone # or email address,

and I decline to give it up, the clerk gets such a hurt look.....:shrug:
 

At Safeway and Fry's (Kroger) the points get you a discount on gas at certain locations. Ace Hardware points??? I dunno.
 
I googled about the rewards points and actually got the answer - my grocery store points can get me a 12lb turkey for Thanksgiving. The stupid rewards card is already making a turkey out of me, so, makes sense.
 
My Safeway card gets me .20 off per gallon of gas at Chevron,so that is worth it. Kmart card builds up points and many times I have gone in and been told that I have anywhere from 20.00 to 40.00 cash built up and walked out without having to pay anything. CVS sends me $2 and $3 off coupons to add to my card almost weekly but they expire in a few days and CVS is so expensive I don`t generally shop there anyway. Only do if it`s something that I can`t find anywhere else. The rest of my cards don`t do anything for me,near as I can tell.
 
The grocery store I go to most often has "fuel saver" cards for customers to get a few cents off gas at their gas station. Initially I thought of saving it up and giving it to someone who has a car, but quit bothering with it when I found it's only good for 30 days.
 
We have cards for most supermarkets if we sign up for them, but there's no necessity to sign...

2 of our Major supermarkets give a penny in the Pound spent...with one large chain the rebate is sent in vouchers every quarter... rounded up to the nearest £2 ...You can garner these points instore or at the petrol Garage . The vouchers have a use by date of up 2 years .. so you can save all your money off vouchers for a major event like Christmas for example and use them like Cash instore at face value... However you're prevented from spending them on (ironically ) on Fuel ... but also baby food, medicines or Alcohol and cigarettes are prohibited.. other than that you can spend them on all grocery items, clothing, and hardware, etc..

The best thing tho' is that you can choose not to use them like cash and instead go online to the supermarkets' website instead , and redeem them for up to 4 times their value on Air Miles, Holidays, Hotel room, train or coach tickets...experiences ..like helicopter trips...or day trips to Tourist sites..or amusement parks...etc...

You can use your vouchers to buy Furniture, home goods, tv's, cameras, computers , white goods, as well as normal groceries... ( but you don't get the 4x times value on these items)...but essentially they are free as you're using the vouchers to buy them


Recently I got an annual seniors train ticket which gives me 1/2 price rail fare anywhere in the country for just £15 of vouchers... which means for a whole year I only pay half price on the train..... I've got £30 now of vouchers at home and they don't expire until May 2019...£30 will get me 4x it's value which is a lot...I can book a weekend break for 2 with that at 4x it's value...

Also by being a card member we get money off vouchers sent every week if you spend over a certain amount... which have to be used within 6 days of the date of the voucher..

Right now I have a voucher which will give me £9 off if i spend £60 or more between the 3rd and the 9th of October.. and a one for the second and third week giving me £6 off a minimum £60 spend...

I might use them I might not...I can see it's an enticement to make me shop in that particular chain and spend more than I might ordinarily...so I don't always use those if I decide to shop elsewhere ...but if I know I'm likely to spend £60 or more in any given week then I'll do my shopping there.


The second major supermarket chain used to give 2p in the £1 but now recently has reduced that to 1p....however unlike the first major chain you get the money back at the till... so when your card is swiped at every transaction , the pennies build up... and once you've accumulated £2.50 you can then use them against the price of your groceries, and use them in 500 point blocks, so if you have £6 you an only redeem £5 etc... the difference with this chain compared to the first is that you can gather points from many different affiliated sources... not just the Supermarket , so even buying Airline tickets with certain airlines, or paying utility bills, even Ebay will gain you Nectar points... which you can use to either spend in store or on air miles or so many other things


Here's the website of the second chain Sainsbury to give you an idea of how it works..

https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/...ices/nectar/nectar-frequently-asked-questions
 
Sounds like we shop in at least one store in common! Mrs.L used her vouchers ( boosted up) to buy her 'tablet' and accessories for virtually nothing. I've just been to B&Q (hardware store) today as they give 10% off for holders of their over 60s card on Wednesdays.
 
I have a Kroger loyalty number as I lost the card. Besides discounts on products I get a discount on gas at Shell stations. I do the surveys on the receipt and get more fuel points. I also use the surveys to tell the store about employees that really help with my shopping. I also use it to tell if I have a bad shopping experience. I won a $100.00 Kroger gift card last year by doing the survey. They only take a couple of minutes to do.
 
Not a problem for me. While waiting in the check-out line, I get the card out of my wallet,

and when I'm next, I hand the card to the cashier, she scans it and hands it back to me,

And we go on from there. I can't even envision ANY problem with that.
 
I just put my phone number into the card reader, I can't be bothered with a bunch of cards. Only place I really use it is at Safeway to get the items at the sale price. Otherwise I'd have to pay regular price. I also do the e coupons at Safeway which give me additional savings besides the ones I get as a member.

I just got $4 off a purchase of $40 the other day, that was an e coupon. I have the app on my phone and see what I want to add to my list and it's all deducted at the cash register when I'm paying, takes no extra time at checkout. Using this app I also got a 24 case of bottled water for 99 cents this week.

I also have a balance rewards card at Walgreens and get points for purchases. The points convert to $ and that amount can be deducted from any future purchase...no time limit.

Im not a couponer but these things I do are effortless and worth the savings, especially at Safeway. I don't bother with the gas savings though.
 
Yes I have 2 supermarket cards and a Walgreens card.

They rely on "slippage" too, like when a person left their card home and never gave them their phone number (like me). However, if you ask for it (and sometimes even when when you don't) the cashier will put in the store's discount card in for you, anyway.

Shop Rite will give you a free turkey at Thanksgiving time if you've spent x-amount of dollars over the year, that's one good thing about tracking with those cards.
 
Capt Lightning said:
Sounds like we shop in at least one store in common! Mrs.L used her vouchers ( boosted up) to buy her 'tablet' and accessories for virtually nothing. I've just been to B&Q (hardware store) today as they give 10% off for holders of their over 60s card on Wednesdays.
Click to expand...


exactly... and yes B&Q's 10% off is handy too
 
hollydolly said:
meant to say...at no time do we have to give our phone numbers ... . I wouldn't do it even if they ever asked..why on earth would they even need it?
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They don't but its an option instead of showing your card. It doesn't bother me to give my phone number, if they want to know it all they have to do is look me up but why would they?

I don't ever answer my home phone anyway, thinking of getting rid of it when my contract is up.
 
Some of these cards used to be used for a check-cashing service as well as so-called discounts off inflated prices. I think they needed your phone number if there was a problem with your check. I don't even know if they still do that.
 
I don't like them but I definitely use them!

A new way to annoy me are the stores that offer discount coupons only available on a smartphone, that seems discriminatory to me.

I have also noticed that in my area the stores advertise many items in the flyers on the first week of the month at regular price, more of a reminder to buy them, and very few promotional sale items. It was explained to me that in my area approx. 1/3 of the people receive SNAP benefits and that those benefits are paid the first nine days of the month so the stores know that they will be busy without offering special buys to attract customers.

The whole thing can be frustrating, I'm doing my best to take advantage of the stores and the stores are doing their best to take advantage of me, LOL!!!
 
Aunt Bea said:
I don't like them but I definitely use them!

A new way to annoy me are the stores that offer discount coupons only available on a smartphone, that seems discriminatory to me.

I have also noticed that in my area the stores advertise many items in the flyers on the first week of the month at regular price, more of a reminder to buy them, and very few promotional sale items. It was explained to me that in my area approx. 1/3 of the people receive SNAP benefits and that those benefits are paid the first nine days of the month so the stores know that they will be busy without offering special buys to attract customers.

The whole thing can be frustrating, I'm doing my best to take advantage of the stores and the stores are doing their best to take advantage of me, LOL!!!
Click to expand...

I have that smart phone app but I think I have the option of printing out the e coupon if I want....I'm not sure though.

The store I shop at is pretty lenient. If I didn't add some coupon to my iPhone, they'll give me the discount anyway...this just happened yesterday.

Im nice to them...they're nice to me. :)
 
My fav store has an in-store PC with the app and applies the e-coupon onto your card. The item itself is marked on the shelf as eligible for an e-coupon.

Only drawback is you may have to wait in a short line.
 
Yeah. Got it on my key chain. You do get discounts. But in reality, they over charge us, so they can give a few pennies back. But I'm willing to take whatever crumbs I can. And I get coupons that are especially selected for me. When I was buying Friskies Cat food, I'd get 50 cents off a $5 can of exotic cat food.
 
I'm not a fan of those cards at all. My wallet is stuffed with them. It makes me yearn for the old days when something was just plain on sale and you didn't need any special card to get the sale price.
 
Doesn’t everything today have those cards? Even my cell phone carrier has one, I think it’s called Plenti. I have two, to the grocery stores I most frequent. Really don’t care about loyalty cards.......the grocers aren’t ‘loyal’ to me when they constantly raise their prices.
 

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