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My mother's Nectar card was stolen by the cashier in Sainsbury's about 12 years ago. The cashier was taking cards with a high points balance (she had the equiv

My mother's Nectar card was stolen by the cashier in Sainsbury's about 12 years ago. The cashier was taking cards with a high points balance (she had the equivalent of over £100 on the card), and swapping them with a new, unregistered card. We reported it to the store and they could see this happening on CCTV, so the cashier was fired. They gave my mother a Sainsbury's gift card for the monetary value stolen, plus a goodwill gesture. Personally, my lesson learned from all of this is to spend loyalty points/rewards ASAP. While there are some "double up" offers every year that reward saving up, these are less common than they used to be. I think Sainsbury's ran a trial last year where only some people could use the "double up" promotion.

varispeed 3y ago
Today they would most likely say they'll "look into it" and that would be it. Then you would get a boilerplate message (indicating they didn't read your complaint) and that they are sorry and ask for an address to send some gift card. If you point out they didn't read your complaint, you'll get no further response. Customer service is more than useless across the board.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Hence why you post it to social media so PR who is empowered has to deal with it, rather that CS which is not.
- arp242 3y ago
  Except the article has: > Sainsburys DID send us a new card with our points back on it after a few weeks, and a thousand or so for the inconvenience. And at a local shop (not a "customer service assistant" on the phone having to follow a script) people are usually quite helpful, especially when (potential) theft from an employee is involved, which tends to be taken quite seriously. This is just generic undirected negativity and cynicism.
  - varispeed 3y ago
    Your comment is disingenuous as you cherrypicked a sentence from the article. Further it goes like this: "But it meant that with our new card we were seen as ‘new’ customers, so all the carefully algorithmically picked shopping items that we buy regularly and got extra Nectar Points on, or Nectar Prices were forgotten. It’s taken MONTHS for us to get the new card to learn what we buy, and give us relevant offers based on it." So clearly the customer service had no understanding of the issue and it suggest it took them weeks to issue a new card - from what I gather - after the author created a video, but that doesn't seem clear. But that matches my comment - his problem has not been resolved and it took weeks.
evulhotdog 3y ago
The other part of this about “saving” points for anything that I’ve learned is that they will generally never increase in value. Most companies are not going to give millions of dollars away by doing that, so it’s usually worth it to spend the points as soon as you can, to recognize their current value (and not less.)
- drpgq 3y ago
  I've always wanted somebody to calculate the inflation rate of the frequent flyer programs I've been a member of.

varispeed 3y ago

Today they would most likely say they'll "look into it" and that would be it. Then you would get a boilerplate message (indicating they didn't read your complaint) and that they are sorry and ask for an address to send some gift card. If you point out they didn't read your complaint, you'll get no further response. Customer service is more than useless across the board.

pixl97 3y ago
Hence why you post it to social media so PR who is empowered has to deal with it, rather that CS which is not.
arp242 3y ago
Except the article has: > Sainsburys DID send us a new card with our points back on it after a few weeks, and a thousand or so for the inconvenience. And at a local shop (not a "customer service assistant" on the phone having to follow a script) people are usually quite helpful, especially when (potential) theft from an employee is involved, which tends to be taken quite seriously. This is just generic undirected negativity and cynicism.
- varispeed 3y ago
  Your comment is disingenuous as you cherrypicked a sentence from the article. Further it goes like this: "But it meant that with our new card we were seen as ‘new’ customers, so all the carefully algorithmically picked shopping items that we buy regularly and got extra Nectar Points on, or Nectar Prices were forgotten. It’s taken MONTHS for us to get the new card to learn what we buy, and give us relevant offers based on it." So clearly the customer service had no understanding of the issue and it suggest it took them weeks to issue a new card - from what I gather - after the author created a video, but that doesn't seem clear. But that matches my comment - his problem has not been resolved and it took weeks.

evulhotdog 3y ago

The other part of this about “saving” points for anything that I’ve learned is that they will generally never increase in value. Most companies are not going to give millions of dollars away by doing that, so it’s usually worth it to spend the points as soon as you can, to recognize their current value (and not less.)

drpgq 3y ago
I've always wanted somebody to calculate the inflation rate of the frequent flyer programs I've been a member of.