For years, I resisted the rectangles of plastic that provided special deals to reward loyal patronage. Invariably, there was a bothersome form to fill out, and what with the AAA, the YWCA, the public library, Visa, Blue Cross and Blockbuster, I had enough cards in my wallet and in my life.
Enter the recession and I saw things differently. If Food Emporium was offering a break on orange juice, if Duane Reade, a New York drugstore chain, was prepared to give me a $5 coupon when I hit the 100-point mark (each point representing a dollar spent), all for a bit of paperwork, why not uncap the Bic?
And so it went—at the local shoe store (buy nine pairs; get the 10th pair free). At the pizzeria where 10 receipts meant a free pie. At The Body Shop, where eight points (the details are more complicated than the plot of “Lost”) earned me a tub of my beloved Satsuma Body Butter.
I even shelled out $25 for a Starbucks card. Hello, two free lattes (one for signing on, one for my birthday) plus a 10% discount on every drink. In my caffeine-dependent family this translated into a saving of $4 to $5 per week. The investment was recouped, you might say, in a shot.
I did make a rule while collecting this laminated lagniappe: one card per market sector in order to accumulate the greatest number of points in the shortest amount of time. Having pledged my troth to Duane Reade, I would shun the rewards program at another drugstore. If that meant passing up a sweet deal on toilet paper at CVS, that was how it rolled . . . until it didn’t.
The 19th-century satirist Ambrose Bierce defined fidelity as “a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.” In early January, my son came home from Duane Reade with the ominous news that the cashier had rejected my card. The chain (which was acquired this week by Walgreen Co., pending regulatory approval) was in a “blackout” period prior to the roll-out of a new customer loyalty program.
Read the full WSJ Article by JOANNE KAUFMAN.