Nearly every supermarket and financial service provider has some sort of reward or loyalty programme. Banks, medical aids, insurance companies… Before you sign up, ask yourself these three questions:
1 How much does it cost?
Some loyalty programmes are free to join, like Clicks Clubcard, Pick n Pay Smart Shopper, Checkers Xtra Savings and Woolworths WRewards. In exchange for some personal info and your purchase history, these retailers may offer you discounts and perhaps some customised weekly deals.
Other programmes have a monthly membership fee, or they have an indirect fee where you’re required to pay for certain products like medical aid cover or some form of insurance policy. The question is: Do you already have these products (maybe you already have medical aid through your employer, for example) or are you buying the product just to get access to the rewards? If it’s the latter, you need to make sure that the rewards are worthwhile! Will you get more than what you spend? If not, you’re losing out and simply subsidising the other members.
2 How are the rewards earned?
A typical reward programme allows you to accumulate rewards or loyalty points based on your spending or engagement. There are usually lots of rules and limits for earning and spending. There will also likely be membership tiers – in order to earn enough rewards to cover your costs, you might need to attain a higher tier, which might require you to spend more actual money or spend more time engaging with the programme.
3 Will the programme change?
Certain goals, like fitness goals for example, might be dynamic. In other words, it gets progressively harder to meet the goals, until you reach a maximum required threshold. At first you’ll find it easy to hit the gym once or twice a week, but soon it won’t be enough even if you go every day – you’ll need to get a fitness device to measure your heart rate and complete specific heart rate and time-related workouts. Before you commit to such a programme, take the time to understand if there’s a goal ‘cap’ in place, and whether you’ll realistically be able to reach it.
Spending goals can also increase to a point where you end up purchasing things that you don’t need in order to meet a target, or you try to game the system by artificially inflating your spend. (Raise your hand if you always get the bill at Bootlegger and your friends pay you back…) This can be detrimental to your overall financial health, not to mention a waste of time as you figure out how you can meet a goal that doesn’t fit naturally into your lifestyle.
If you do happen to be in the market for rewards, you can earn with Old Mutual Rewards just by using 22seven – here’s how! There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but as long as you do your research and don’t overextend yourself (or your wallet), rewards can be a great way to earn a little something extra.
