Nectar hasn't kept me sweet (Nectar Card)

Member Name: rdobbie

Product:	Nectar Card
Date:	06/05/03 (9346 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some reasonable deals to be had at restaurants, Funky card design

Disadvantages: Poor rate of return, Awful customer service, BP's staff not trained in using the system

On the surface this seems to be another wholly negative review from someone who's fast becoming Dooyoo's very own Victor Meldrew.

Not so, actually, because although Nectar has recently left me infuriated and rapidly developing an acute case of SARS (Scepticism About Reward Schemes), I'm making a real effort to give this review some balance by trying to think of *any* positive factors which go in Nectar's favour. It's difficult, but I'm trying.

So let battle commence.

Nectar was launched last September if my memory serves me correctly. It promised to be everything that the Sainsburys Reward Card used to be, plus much, much more besides. By forming a new breakaway company called Loyalty Management UK to run the scheme, Sainsburys were able to get other retailers in this venture. The original "gang of four" consisted of Sainsburys, BP petrol stations, Debenhams and Barclaycard.

BP and Barclaycard already had loyalty schemes in place which were replaced by Nectar. Another notable player in the scheme was Argos, who decided to accept Nectar vouchers as part or full payment towards their goods, although they declined the idea of issuing points on purchases.

The scheme promised to be bigger and better than anything than had gone before, with customers being given 100 introductory points if they registered their card on the internet. So how embarrassing that just a day after launching, the online registration facility spectacularly crashed and took Nectar's IT department a couple of months to fix. We will never know how Nectar failed to predict the surge for new registrations when rolling out such a huge nationwide scheme, but already the management of Nectar was starting to have a distinct whiff of ITV Digital about it.

Since its launch Nectar has been widely criticised for giving such a miserable rate of reward. In the case of both BP and Barclaycard, Nectar offers a much poorer re
turn than its predecessor schemes.

Barclaycard customers now get an appaling 0.25%, that's £1.25 back for every £500 spent. It hardly makes it worth the bother.

The BP payback is similarly poor - a return of only 0.66%, based on current fuel prices of about 75p a litre. So if you spent £1000 in a year at BP (that's about enough petrol to fill Michael Barrymore's pool), you'd just about scrape enough points to get £5 off at Argos. I think that's pretty insulting, especially as BP's petrol prices are amongst the dearest - well they are in my area anyway.

It certainly makes Nectar the worst value petrol loyalty scheme in Britain.

Sainsburys continue to offer the same rate as they did for the old Reward Card - 2 points per £1 - equating to a 1% return (remember each Nectar point is worth half a penny). If you hunt around you will find that some products have extra points - for example "Buy 1 Get 100 Extra Points". Remember, however, to mentally halve the number of points being offered to work out their true value. So buying a £4.99 bottle of wine to get an extra 100 points only equates to 50p back. Sainsburys extra points promotions are nowhere near as generous as they used to be when the Reward Card was launched. Back then you could expect to get about half the price of the product back in points, but now it's more like one quarter or one fifth.

Debenhams offer the same rate as Sainsburys - 2 points per £1 (a return of 1%). And if you have a Debenhams Account Card you'll get an extra Nectar point for every £2 spent.

It's a valid point, however, that you can "double accumulate" (or whatever you call it) by combining a purchase at BP, for example, with a payment on your Barclaycard. But it's still nothing to get excited about.

In the last week or so Nectar has announced more major partners in the scheme. The Thresher group of booze huts, a vast chain
which includes Threshers, Victoria Wine, Wine Rack, Bottoms Up, Haddows, Drinks Cabin and Huttons, are giving 2 points per £1. And Adams Childrenswear are giving the same deal again. Obviously having more partners can only serve to strengthen the benefit of this scheme to consumers.

When your card contains over 500 points, these can be converted into paper vouchers at any till in Sainsburys. 500 points on your card gets you a voucher worth, er, 500 points. Be warned, though, that the simple request of "please can I redeem my Nectar points" is often interpreted by the cashier as a request to knock the monetary equivalent (£2.50) directly off the bill instead of giving you the voucher. Once they've pressed the button on their till it's too late - so be sure to ask for a *voucher*. They need to clarify this procedure because mistakes are happening too often. There is also a strange rule that you can only redeem vouchers at your home Sainsburys store. In my mind this is annoying and pointless - I use more than one Sainsburys store and would like to have the flexibility to redeem wherever I go.

In Nectar's defence, however, they've recently made it possible to use your Nectar card as part payment at Argos where it will be swiped and points will be deducted in multiples of 500 - this eliminates the need to use Sainsburys as a middleman to collect your vouchers.

When it comes to spending Nectar vouchers there is a healthy variety of options. Maybe the worst value spending options are Sainsburys and Argos who will give you a bog-standard £2.50 off for each voucher you present. Some deals, however, offer a better return, like a meal at McDonalds (worth about £3.29) or a movie rental at Blockbuster (worth up to £3.75) in exchange for one voucher.

There are numerous other redemption offers on travel, days out and restaurants. The generosity of these offers varies considerably - and it's always worth checking th
e small print. For instance, at some restaurants like Brewers Fayre you can't use Nectar vouchers at weekends. I won't give a recital of every Nectar reward on offer as they are changing by the week and you can get a full breakdown at www.nectar.com. But I will give you my pick of the bunch - and that's £5 off per Nectar voucher at any branch of Caffe Uno, Est Est Est or Garfunkels. The great thing about this offer is the lack of restriction - you can go any day or time, and you can use one voucher for every person who dines at one of these quality establishments. So two Nectar vouchers can earn you £10 off a meal for two, and that makes a great meal pretty cheap.

In March I received a mailshot from Nectar, containing bonus points vouchers for use with their participating companies. One of these vouchers offered 100 extra points at BP when buying a full tank of fuel. I made a slight detour to visit my nearest BP garage - somewhere I would not normally visit because the petrol is always 2p a litre more than the local Tesco. After filling my car and presenting the Nectar voucher to the cashier, I was astonished to find that he did not have a clue how to process the voucher through the system. He explained that the garage had received no guidance from Nectar on how to provide the extra points promised on the voucher. He handed the voucher back to me. In fact the guy didn't even know how to swipe my Nectar card, so I left the garage £32 poorer and no Nectar points the richer. Annoying, huh? Especially when the garage forecourt is decorated with huge banners promoting BP's involvement in the Nectar scheme.

There then followed a string of furious e-mails sent to Nectar using their online 'help' facility (see www.nectar.com). Annoyingly, the website has no simple "contact us" button - you have to go through an incredibly complex maze of FAQ pages to arrive a form where you can contact them. Even then, my complaint did
not fit in to any of their pre-defined categories.

Five e-mails and two weeks later, I finally got a response. Nectar were asking that I gave them proof of my transactions at BP in order that they could investigate. I do not think it reasonable that I am expected to go to the trouble of digging out all my credit card statements and sending them in the post to Nectar in order to prove that the transactions took place. And what if I had paid by cash, and did not have credit card statements?

I think that the BP garage in question should have had the honesty to admit that they had not been accepting Nectar bonus vouchers from customers, and refunds of Nectar points would therefore be made automatically by way of apology to customers like myself who had been disappointed and inconvenienced enough already.

Further frustration came soon after when I tried to spend two Nectar vouchers at the restaurant chain Est Est Est. Nectar vouchers are supposed to be redeemable at these restaurants (see above), but upon presenting the vouchers, the waiter gave a blank stare and hurried off to get his manager, who also gave a blank stare. Est Est Est said they had never heard of Nectar and were not aware that they were participating in such a scheme. I assured them that they WERE participating, and after some argument they accepted the vouchers on a goodwill basis. Nevertheless the incident was extremely embarrassing and awkward.

The problem here is that Nectar is being very badly managed by people who don't understand the importance of effective communication. They have singularly failed to ensure that companies in the scheme have been given training on how to participate. This means that customers everywhere are being short-changed, inconvenienced and embarrassed at the tills. It is absolutely imperative in a large retail scheme involving so many partners that everyone knows what's going on at any one given time. It's no use sending eve
ryone vouchers to use at BP without telling BP about it.

It seems that quite a few Nectar customers have had some pretty serious problems with the system. Look at http://www.consumerdeals.co.uk/nectarbook.html to see what I mean.

Take heed, Nectar, you're running things badly and your customers are getting annoyed.

If only they could attach the same importance to swiping Nectar cards as they did to swiping customers' Visa cards! How strange that the likes of BP never falter when it comes to teaching their staff how to collect payment. Why should less care be taken when it's the other way round - THEM giving US something back?

I thought Nectar was only worthy of one star because of it's abysmal customer service and stingy rate of return, but I've awarded it two stars in recognition of the fact that they are making a small gesture to customers with their current "Double Points" campaign, and are continuing to expand the scheme to include more retailers.

All in all, I'd say it's just about worthwhile to use Nectar at Sainsburys, and possibly at BP and Debenhams - but only if you would have shopped at these places anyway. As for the Barclaycard factor, forget it - go and get yourself a better credit card that offers cashback or incentives worth 2 or 3% instead of this measly 0.25%.

And if you do collect Nectar points, I'd explore some of the better value spending options like using vouchers at participating restaurants (as mentioned above) - then at least you're doubling the value of each voucher.

You have to work hard to maximise the benefits of this scheme.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found this to be of some use.


*** STOP PRESS - 06/05/03 ***
This morning I filled up at another BP garage (not the same one mentioned above). Once again, the cashier didn't have a clue how to swipe my Nectar card, and he didn't know how to
process the Nectar bonus points voucher. He was rude and irritable, and thought I was being unreasonable in expecting to have my Nectar points added to my card. Once again, I left the BP garage with no Nectar points. Ironic that the forecourt was decorated with banners promising "Double Points". These people are taking the p*** and I'm very angry. A letter to Trading Standards is imminent.

Summary: