Supermarket Cards

Jay Solo has an interesting post "Please Don't Card Me" in which he discusses the pros and cons of the supermarket customer loyalty cards - and also why he doesn't like them.

I got to agree, they are a pain in the butt. Anything like the loyalty cards, where they demand an address and/or phone number (or a zip code) before I get some benefit, I'm going to screw around with. No one with one of those programs has the right address or phone number for me. The address I always give them is for a PO Box I closed a while back; the phone number is my old one, which has been changed - without a forwarding number being available. Stores that ask for zip codes? I usually tell them something along the lines of 33311 (a South Florida zip code). I figure that if they want to get real demographic information, they need to do some real work for it. Just because I buy a package of hot dog rolls from you does not mean that I want you to know where I live or my phone number. It simply means I wanted a hot dogs for dinner.

Go over and take a look at Jay's post. He hit most all of the upsides and downsides to these kind of loyalty programs. It is well worth the read.