OT: Boots Advantage Programme
 

Hi,


Ok, this is a bit cheeky... :D

I've noticed some mention of Boots/Advantage here in the past.

I'm currently working with a loyalty scheme from the inside, and would welcome any comments or observations anyone on this forum has on the Boots Advantage Loyalty Programme.

Is anyone a member? Are there any frustrations, or opportunities for programme change? Are you happy with the promotions, mailings and deals?

Any feedback would be welcomed, here or via PM.


Regards,
Yossimills

Yes, I find it very frustrating that you can't exchange Advantage points for BA Miles.

Right, now that we're back on topic ...

:D

As is traditional, we'll give this a run here before moving to a more appropriate forum.

Swanhunter
Moderator, BAEC

I am also disappointed that, as a Boots Gold Advantage card holder, I am no longer able to pre-book the till I would like to pay at. And last week, someone at an adjacent till had a screaming baby, and I have not yet received a refund of my purchase in compensation ;)

More seriously, for the OP, as I'm afraid to say with almost all shop loyalty schemes, I forget my card 50% of the time, and don't really get overly excited (no Tesco's nearby to build up the BA Miles, you see, for all those who are shaking their heads in disbelief)...

Benefits (as someone who spends a lot on nappies and baby stuff!) -

a) effectively 4% cashback, doubling to 8% on selected brands (eg Pampers) if you register with kids club. Idiot proof scheme. HOWEVER, it only works because Boots is now price competitive with Waitrose these days. If Boots was more expensive than Waitrose then I wouldn't bother shopping there for baby stuff - as it is they seem to price match and therefore Boots is cheaper with the card.

b) easy to use the points - you can use them to pay for anything at Boots. Only wierd tweak is that the purchase must be smaller than your points balance - you can't part-pay for items with points.

c) no opportunity to use points more effectively (the equivalent of Tesco Deals) which may be a missed opportunity

d) occasional postal mailings offer extra points on various things, but the coupons have a very annoying habit of being rejected by Boots tills - big lack of joined up thinking

e) oddly, the fact that Boots is able to give 4% cashback to card holders always made me think that Boots was somehow ripping people off because its profit margins must be too high if it can happily give away 4%!

f) I occasionally feel a bit of a twat faffing about for a loyalty card that will get me a paltry 40p back on a £10 purchase - it somehow seems too much trouble (although we still have the card). For this reason, I never bothered with one in pre-baby days even though I've always bought stuff in Boots.

Have to agree 100% with this. I mean how many loyalty cards are you supposed to carry around with you? Homebase, Tesco, Sainsbury & Boots are all places I frequent. I give my wife the Boots receipts and she adds them to her account when she remembers. I've lost my nectar card. My Homebase card has an uncanny ability to disappear and reappear at will and Tesco is the only one i'm consistent with, usually because I use the credit card rather than the classic club card.

How about creating a multi-loyalty card that allows you to accrue through several stores with a single piece of plastic???

I think that's a peculiarity of Homebase cards - I found three of them hiding in a drawer the other day...

I guess that's what Nectar was meant to do, but the number of stores seems to fluctuate (and I've yet to find anything useful to do with the 211,000 points I've got accumulated!

a) Indeed. The 4% cashback is the main seller of this scheme.

e) I'd reflected on that from time to time as well. Perhaps someone should come up with an escallating loyalty scheme, where your rebate ammount goes up and down with level frequency of spend?
[Although as someone who spends most of his actual time outside of the UK that really would hurt me!]

I was meaning a single piece of plastic that could be presented at POS and at Tesco credit points to clubcard, Sainsbury to nectar, Boots to Advantage etc etc.

Everyone gets their data to mine, everyone gets their points to keep and it's only one piece of plastic to worry about.

Priority Club have something similar in that you can get a PC card custom made with various other FF scheme numbers on the back.

Homebase does this and Tesco used to...

[EDIT: Swiss Tony clarified his own post!]

Re: need to carry bits of plastic:
Perhaps it could be done on an opt-in basis by having you register your payment cards with the scheme?

I think that the UK Government is trying to do something similar, and peole have some very real concerns... ;)

Please keep the comments rolling in, guys!

I'm not familiar with the homebase scheme, but I recall how Tesco used to work.

However I was envisaging the variation swings being far bigger than anything I've seen applied before!

The Mrs has a card and it does seem to be one of the more generous/useful loyalty schemes. It's certainly sufficiently worth it to her that she forces the card into my hand on the odd occasion that I shop there.

The ability to exchange points for BA miles would be good though.. :D

The same goes for Nectar too!

Nectar is very close to becoming a farce, since the cashback element is basically 1%. That really isn't worth the trouble of carrying around a card. In Scotland they are currently trialling a reduced 0.5% Sainsbury's cashback!

However, it saves itself (for me) because
a) I use the points for gym sessions at 500 points a time for Cannons City, one of the UK's most impressive fitness centres, and so the points are worth more than 1p to me;
b) I get points from two Talk Talk contracts that literally turn up with no effort on my part
c) Nectar runs 5-6 100 point surveys a year which take 30 seconds to complete for easy points
d) you get points on Amazon purchases via Nectar E-Stores, and Amazon is not on Quidco, BA E-Store etc