Talk:loyalty program/Archive 1

Sometimes they are rubbish.

Sometimes they are rubbish. they don't give you what you want ... the person who made them was born in austria. His name is Doctor Limsnitter.Bold text —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.108.68 (talk) 18:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC) The article needs to add a discussion of the use of loyalty cards in the US, plus any other countries where they are used outside of Great Britain and Canada. gK ¿? 04:34, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Merge from cashback/Loyalty programs or loyalty cards?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

This article is supposed to be about loyalty programs but instead focusses exclusively on loyalty cards, without describing the actual mechanism of loyalty programs in the detail required of an encyclopedia article (e.g. discounts, points systems, vouchers etc.) This needs to be rectified. I've also proposed a merge from cashback as this seems (to me at least) to actually contain the type of info this article should contain. Zunaid 08:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposed merge. First, cashback is even more of a mess than this article, with many grammar, spelling, and factual errors. For example, loyalty programs were around in crude paper form long before e-commerce, in forms like the traditional paper ticket with punched holes. Second, many (if not most) loyalty programs do not provide cash back, in the sense of real legal tender or currency that can be spent at any merchant. Instead, they only provide discounts on future purchases from the same merchant.

When I hear cash back, I think of my Visa credit card which gives me 1% cash back on all purchases, and not those Safeway coupons that reward my loyal use of my Safeway Club Card by giving me $2 off my next purchase of milk at Safeway.

I agree entirely, and this is the most common meaning in the UK too. NFH 13:00, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course, it's possible that we may be encountering yet another dialect difference between the U.S. and the Commonwealth. Can anyone in the Commonwealth please weigh in?--Coolcaesar 17:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

In the UK, "cashback" is most commonly used in three contexts: 1. Credit cards, whereby one receives a percentage (usually at least 0.5%) annual rebate of all expenditure on a credit card; 2. Cash added to a debit card transaction, whereby the merchant (typically supermarket, pub, post office) gives cash to the customer, which is added to the transaction amount charged to the debit card (made possible by a fixed fee paid by the merchant for UK debit card transactions) - merchants encourage this cashback because it is free way to offload surplus cash compared to the costs of taking cash to their bank (including insurance costs etc); 3. Mortgages, whereby one receives a lump sum from a mortgage lender (to put towards buying furniture etc) at the start of the mortgage, which marketed as free cash but is in fact paid for through the mortgage interest rate. NFH 13:00, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Green Shield Stamps

There seems to be no Wikipedia article on green shield stamps, the grandaddy of the loyalty card, introduced (I think) by Tesco in the 70s. Should this oversight be corrected?!? Something more on these stamps (scroll down to #3): http://tv.cream.org/specialreport/bringthemback/5-1.htm Richard W.M. Jones 19:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I remember NAAFI also giving out stamps - I believe they were a discount scheme of some sort but being sent by my mum at age 8 or 9 to do some last-minute shopping I had no idea what the lady at the checkout was trying to give me :-) PeteVerdon 00:49, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Unencyclopædic level of detail?

Just going through the article, there seems to be a very high level of detail in describing loyalty card schemes for different stores in each country. One or two examples should suffice for the entire article. Also, is it necessary to describe the different schemes by country? The only factor should surely be the different mechanisms involved (e.g. discounts, vouchers, points systems) regardless of the country. Zunaid 08:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I believe further detail should be given, although it might be better to have links to this information on the articles on the stores in question. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 09:15, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't think providing a description of every loyalty card program in the world is such a good idea. In some places it gives too much detail; a list of loyalty programs may be a better idea. A brief overview of loyalty programs in each region of the world should suffice. What the article needs most is a references section. Richard001 21:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Inaccuracy

Some supermarket customer loyalty cards inadvertently work at the scanners of other non-affiliated stores. For example, a Kroger card has been successfully recognized as a respective loyal club member at stores in the Food Lion, Pathmark and Winn-Dixie chains. [citation needed]

This is not what the article implies. Store cards are printed using the same black bar design as UPC codes and store cards are entered into the computer as a sequence of 11 digit numbers. There are merely recognized differently from product UPCs. So a Kroger card isn't the same as a Food Lion card, as the Food Lion company may have assigned that particular number to a different customer.

References in popular culture

This article could include references in popular culture, like predatory policies in Max Barry's novel Jennifer Government. Any other ideas? --- NaBUru38 19:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

merge suggestions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The result was inconclusive, default to keep separate without prejudice to restarting the proposal. The merger tags on these individual pages were removed by other editors some time ago, the discussion is therefore well and truly stale. -- Debate 木 13:54, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I have added a number of merge suggestions from related articles into this article aimed at improving the present article to make more encyclopaedic. Specilist articles could remain but the present article needs lot more refinement.

• {{Mergefrom|HBC Rewards|date=June 2007}}
• {{Mergefrom|Total Rewards|date=June 2007}}
• {{Mergefrom|TripRewards|date=June 2007}}
• {{Mergefrom|Air Miles|date=June 2007}}
• {{Mergefrom|Online shopping rewards|date=June 2007}}

Kpmiyapuram 14:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think Air Miles (definitely) and HBC Rewards (probably) are significant enough in themselves to warrant separate articles, but the remainder should be merged into this article. Online shopping rewards in particular should be merged back in immediately. Murtoa 13:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

External links

A major problem with this article has been the continual addition of external links to either commercial websites (at worst) or irrelevant websites (at best). Accordingly, I have moved the genuinely informative or relevant links into the article and removed the section so as to discourage this ongoing abuse. Murtoa 13:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Criminal detection

I notice this passage: The possibility exists that law enforcement agencies could be granted access to the stored information during an investigation of a customer's activities. For example, in 2004, a Winn-Dixie key-ring card was left behind at the scene of the crime, which led to the criminal.

Almost any artifact that a criminal leaves behind at the scene of a crime is fair game for law enforcement. I see no difference between the police exploiting such an object as a discarded cigarette for DNA or fingerprints and an object that has identifying electronic data leading to an offender. Electronic data about a person is as individual as is a fingerprint or a handwriting sample. Criminals once concerned with leaving no witnesses no need concern themselves with leaving no evidence of their presence.

Plenty of other objects with very different purposes, such as employee badges and library cards, are as suitable for such use should an offender leave one behind. The statement is factual (I recall it from a news report), but irrelevant. I am thus deleting it from the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul from Michigan (talk • contribs) 17:12, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

LinkPoints

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia that welcomes articles written from a neutral point of view. The claim of 1.1 million members I could only find in sources directly related to LinkPoints so preferably needs independent sources. Pointing readers to the LinkPoints website is promotional. In this regard a relevant guideline can be found at WP:ADVERTISING. Murtoa (talk) 07:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

SPLIT

The "In the United States" section is HUGE, and should be split to its own article for ease of access and organization. Once split, we could seperate each division of the loyalty types (sections such as Hotels, airlines, supermarkets, notes, etc.), because there are a LOT and it is very unorganized. What do you think? --99.157.108.248 (talk) 18:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Disagree I think the US section could be better organised but I think keeping it where it is works well as an overview of the notable programs and categories. My fear if it was split off is that it will become a receptacle for a larger number of potentially non-notable programs. The current article has been challenging enough to stop it becoming a program promoter's paradise. Murtoa (talk) 02:48, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

historical systems

This article needs to expand to cover historical systems where stores locked their customers in by given them company money instead of real money, that only worked in that company's stores. Token coin has examples. 76.66.195.196 (talk) 09:38, 27 June 2010 (UTC)