‘No, thank you,’ I said.
‘But it’s spend 8,000 dirhams between now and tomorrow, then get ten percent off the second purchase you make between Wednesday and 2 am.’
‘No, thank you,’ I said.
I think I’m the only person who has ever said no to her loyalty card. It’s nothing personal, I want to say. I just do not sign up for loyalty cards. Not the ten percent off every purchase, not the ones that get you invitations to exclusive pre-sale parties. I don’t even like the every tenth coffee free.
I get that some people love a bargain, love the thrill of the chase and so on. But see, I find shopping and buying stuff hard enough as it is. It is completely incomprehensible to me how people can ‘go shopping’ for recreation. I would say that about eighty percent of the time I go shopping, it ends in tears. Mine or someone else’s caused by me.
Loyalty cards just add to the stress. Demanding to be accounted for, to be considered, remembered. For me, loyalty schemes are just another one of those niggles, another piece of brain-noise I can do without. For a person who already over-thinks, this is an issue. If I had to think, every time I stepped into a shop, ‘But I shouldn’t buy it here, I have to buy it at the shop at the other mall, but then I’ll need to get back in the car…’ analysis paralysis, we haz it.
The only exception I make is for frequent flyer points. I am a member of two frequent flyer schemes. Which is why, after spending several hours online last night and the night before trying to book my tickets home for the summer (which will be winter – yay) I am bloody exhausted today.
adelaide from adelaide 
My loyalty cards are always in my other handbag.
Got some good stuff out of Flybuys when we still lived near a Coles. Since then not so much. If they are for somewhere where you shop all the time, maybe worth it. If not, they are just clutter.
“It is completely incomprehensible to me how people can ‘go shopping’ for recreation.”
Oh my goodness, yes! Shopping is hideous.
I, however, accept all loyalty cards etc and then take a peverse pleasure in refusing to use them. No, I can’t explain it either…
I do very much like the tenth coffee free. But as I am a) skint and b) a coffee house tart, for months now I have had about five different cards for different places with one measly stamp on each.
Maybe your way is better.
I too loathe loyalty cards – they carry with them some kind of inbuilt irritation factor..
Can’t be bothered with them. The ones that embarrass me most are the breadshop ones – I must be the only person who cannot remember which bread shop she is in.
I was told of a legendary creature the other day who carries her cards with a hole drilled in them, on a keyring. Oh.My.God.
I’m with Mindy. I use them for places I frequent, like Woollies or the nice hippy cafe down the road. Otherwise it’s like having individual pin numbers for everything in life and my brain just melts down.
Every time I go to the counter of our DVD library with the one overnight movie it’s taken 10 minutes to choose and the two family weekly ones renewed from the previous week because they need to be watched another 10 times by the small person, a helpful staff member tells me it’s only 5 cents more for TWO overnight DVDs.
And I wonder how on earth I could possibly find another one that two adults had either not seen or felt like watching. Far too hard.
Of course we never have time to watch two movies in 24 hours but you couldn’t possilby return one without seeing it even if it only cost 5 cents.
Yeah. Screw all that stuff.
I buy stuff with my money that I earned.
I’m not here to submit to thought training or any of that other crap.
I’ve actually had to stand there at the supermarket check-out and explain to cashier why it would actually make me worse off financially to find another $4 item so that I could put myself over the $30 purchase necessary to qualify for cheaper fuel.
“4 cents a litre!”
“I’ve only got a 40 litre tank.”
“Are you sure? You don’t need milk or anything? 2 litres is about four bucks!”
“I’d only be ‘saving’ $1.60 next time I filled up. If I bought milk, I’d actually be $2.40 poorer.”
“4 cents a litre!”