Which loyalty card should you stay with?

Loyalty cards _ stamped or swiped _ are swelling a greater number of Wairarapa purses and wallets every day.
Even Masterton budget adviser Grant Howard has a OneCard, which he encourages clients to use despite his cautionary approach to other points-based systems. The Wairarapa Free Budget Service manager said he frequently used the Countdown and Woolworths OneCard as savings at the checkout were immediate and every few months members were sent a reward voucher based on what that member spent, which were redeemable for products.
''I use the OneCard because you're eligible for on-the-spot savings and every few months you get a voucher,'' Mr Howard said.
''I'd encourage my clients to use the OneCard but generally they don't seem to make a big difference _ especially the points-based cards.''
Mr Howard said the points systems ''takes money to accumulate any benefit'' and that works against the adage that a true bargain is secured only if you were planning to buy that particular product or service.
Simple Savings website spokeswoman Jackie Gower said the loyalty cards would only benefit when common sense was used when buying and she shared with Mr Howard the same basic outlook.
''We have always had this mantra, that it's only a bargain if you were going to buy it anyway,'' she told the Bay of Plenty Times. ''There's a lot of people that rush out and buy things they can't afford, just because it's got triple Fly Buys on it for one day.''
She said many strategic shoppers successfully used their credit cards for all they buy, in order to earn reward points.
But that strategy only works when discipline and planning paces the purchasing and the card is paid in full each month to avoid interest charges. ''If you don't [pay it off] you are digging yourself a bit of a hole _ you're robbing Peter to pay Paul,'' she said.
Mrs Gower said loyalty schemes work best for shoppers only when points are earned on goods and services which they were already planning to buy.
Collecting stamps at the Fish takeaway shop or Strada coffee shop in Masterton or collecting savings at Countdown supermarket with a OneCard made sense, she said. ''I absolutely love my Whitcoulls reward card, that's something I use quite a bit, but it's only on stuff that I would buy anyway.''
Enlightened consumers saved their Fly Buys or Qantas points for Christmas and used them to ''buy'' presents for the season.
Others shoppers split a grocery expedition into three forays to receive three petrol discount vouchers, for example, instead of just one over the same pay period. Mrs Gower said she was unsurprised to hear that some shoppers travel relatively significant distances to capture a petrol discount or supermarket loyalty points. But she advised against that sort of behaviour.
''It's like anything, you need to use common sense. I know people that run from supermarket to supermarket to get different specials but how much is it costing you in petrol?''
Mrs Gower said the superior approach to loyalty cards is to ''do your research'', weighs up the pros and cons and remember the retailers' motivation.
''They want you to think they are nicer than all the others but really they just want to sell you things.''