Cross my palm with orange plastic... (Sainsbury's Reward Card)

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	Sainsbury's Reward Card
Date:	30/04/01 (410 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Versatile, good freebies

Disadvantages: Can only claim points in one store

I like the idea of reward/loyalty cards. Positioned as "giving the customer something for nothing" reward/loyalty cards can be used to improve your shopping experience in more ways than you may realise. Sadly, few of the current cards and schemes on the market really fulfil these needs, as retailers don't seem to invest the money in the right way, at the right time.

The Sainsbury's Reward Card has been kicking around for a few years, and is probably my favourite of the range currently available. Hastily introduced when JS realised that Tesco's Clubcard was a real winner, the Reward Card was positioned simply as a means of saying thank you to regular customers - whilst this is clearly true, the more shrewd marketers out there will realise that the balance between what gets given away and what gets spent tips rather more favourably towards the spending end of the scale.

The scheme works on a relatively simple system:

For every £1 you spend in Sainsburys, Savacentre or Sainsburys Petrol Stations you earn 2 reward points. Once you have accumulated 500 reward points, you can either deduct a "reward" from your bill (worth £2.50) or you can claim a reward voucher for use at a later date. In order to save and claim your reward points, you are issued with an orange Reward Card which contains a unique customer number, and a strip for your signature. Every Reward Card account is based in a single store - called your Home Store - and it is only if you use the card in your Home Store that you may claim rewards, or vouchers, or see an updated total of reward points on your shopping receipt.

The Reward Card scheme is supported by a designated customer telephone number (0800 092 1000), which you can call to order replacement cards, change your Home Store, amend your home address or simply to check your current balance. Additionally, you may register online at sainsburys.co.uk, after which you will be able to carry
out these functions online. I have to say that whenever I have contacted the helpline, the phone has been answered promptly, and the advisors have been consistently very helpful. The only time they have been unable to help is in ordering new cards. The maximum number of cards that can be ordered at any one time is two - so if you want three (as I did) you have to wait until the first two have arrived (and been activated) before you can order another one.

I would prefer it if the scheme operated on a Smart card system - rather like Boots Advantage card or Shell's Smart Card. In this way, you could access your account in any store and claim vouchers wherever you shop - at the moment, you are restricted to just one store. J.S. have advised that this is due to the loyalty mechanics of the scheme - with food retailing they want loyalty to one specific store, not just one chain of stores. It is worth bearing in mind that if you want to change your home store, you have to be issued with a completely new account number and card, so you may well be in limbo for about seven days with no card (using the old card once a new account has been set up can mean that the points don't get transferred to the new account properly).

Sainsburys operate a considerable number of affiliated promotions in conjunction with other businesses. For instance, switching your gas supply to British Gas could earn an additional 5,000 reward points, and there have been similar offers on Contents Insurance, and Internet Service Providers. These offers can be conditional of a certain spend or fixed contract so always check the details before you sign up. Additionally, the Sainsburys Credit Card promises double reward points. There is actually slightly more to this than meets the eye:

1. Your double reward points are only available on purchases made in Sainsburys' stores. Purchases made in any other shop only warrant normal reward points.
2. Reward points earnt on
your Sainsburys credit card will not be credited to your main Reward account. They accumulate on your statement until you reach the relevant denominations (500 points etc) when they are sent out to you as vouchers.

For collectors of reward points there is therefore no link between the standard Reward Scheme and the scheme operated via the credit card - which I think is a bit of a con personally.

One of the big attractions of the Reward Scheme is the versatility of the Reward Vouchers as a currency. Far from being used simply as a money-off token in store, they can be used for a considerable number of other offers - some of which increase their face value above the £2.50 in store value. Companies participating in the Reward Scheme are referred to as Partners, and currently include the following:

Beefeater/Brewers Fayre/TGI Friday- £5 off two main course meals
Blockbuster - free movie rental (max value £3.75)
Blue Cross/NSPCC - £2.50 donation
Burtons/Dorothy Perkins/Evans/Hawkshead/Miss Selfridge/Principles/Top Man/Top Shop/Wallis/Warehouse - £5 off every £20 spend (i.e. 25% discount on spend over £20).
Cawoods/Racing Green - £5 discount
Scottish Power - 5000 points if you subscribe for supply
Wightlink - £5 off any fare £30 or more

The Partners change as time goes on - Burger King were part of the scheme until recently, where one reward voucher entitled you to a £3.49 meal. Certainly, for regular customers of these shops and restaurants then the reward scheme is a useful bonus. The most popular Partner is by far and away the Air Miles scheme. One reward voucher converts to 40 Air Miles. The only slight problem is that Air Mile collectors will need to claim a reward voucher at the till, and then get it converted to Air Miles at Customer Service. Most people would probably keep saving the points and then simply exchange all the vouchers at once, when they need the air miles.

The list of Partners
is shown on the website, with a handy tool for converting your Reward balance into the different offers. The only problem here is that there are two lists of Partners - one of them is not as up to date as the other, and includes offers that have now expired - you can no longer claim BT Talk Time, or Buy One Get One Free in Harry Ramsden's. There is definitely a need for the website to be monitored and kept more up to date.

There is also a range of days out that can be paid for using Air Miles (earned using Reward points). 160 miles (four reward vouchers) will buy two adult tickets for the London Eye. If you refer to the reward card website the list of places to go for a day out is divided regionally, so if you're stuck for something to do you can have a look in the area nearest you. I have to say that the list of attractions isn't exactly exhaustive (some regions only have a choice of two or three places) but you can also exchange Air Miles for national outlets, such as UCI cinemas.

There are yet other ways to use your card. In most stores there are now reward terminals at the entrance to the store. Swipe your card in the reader, and you will be presented with various screens offering you money off the sort of products you may be interested in. This is a relatively unscientific process (otherwise I wouldn't keep getting money-off coupons for press-on towels) and is nothing more than a gimmick really. Around the store there are often product promotions where bonus points are on offer - providing you only buy things you would otherwise have bought anyway, this can be a useful way of boosting the total on your card.

My greatest concern about the Reward Card scheme is over security. I currently have a points balance just short of 50,000 Reward points - in terms of cash value this is nearly £250 worth of shopping instore. Rather than claim the points as I have gone along, I like to keep collecting until I feel that there is some
thing worth getting. The problem is - if my card is lost or stolen then anybody can claim the rewards at the checkout. There is no identification process whatsoever. I would prefer a system to be available whereby I could stipulate that my reward vouchers could only be claimed postally - that way if the card is stolen, the thief can't have my rewards. Sainsburys advised me that as soon as I report my card stolen, my points would be protected, and I wouldn't lose them - even though they could still be subsequently claimed. The current system in use does not allow for the helpline to cancel any cards. The other alternative could be simply to claim the vouchers and save them - except they have an expiry date which means that long term saving would be impossible.

Bearing in mind that every transaction made by a Reward Card customer is recorded in detail, there seem to be few offers or tools used to target offers to the people that would be most interested. I was led to believe that data from such transactions would be used to set up mailings targeted to specific customer groups, offering money-off vouchers and other promotions. I have never seen any evidence of this, and any product-associated groups in store are born through self-nomination (Mother and Baby, Wine Club etc). It seems more likely therefore, that all this data is simply used by Sainsburys as a means of plotting product ranges and prices, and working out what sells well and when.

The current Reward scheme does offer some good freebies and money-off vouchers - £2.50 back from every £250 spent is equivalent to a 1% discount (except you have to take it back in goods, so it isn't really a discount) which is not bad considering it's something for nothing. Except of course - it isn't - the 1% offered back to customers is more than easily swallowed up by the x% profit margin on all the products offered. But at the end of the day, we feel as though we're onto a good thin
g - and that's what matters - isn't it?

Summary: