Do loyalty points, gift vouchers expire?

Listen to today's Consumerwatch topic below, then read the details under the podcast.

For many who lack the means or discipline to save, passively accumulating loyalty points is a form of saving - it can help fund the big Christmas spend, for example, or buy a longed-for appliance without getting further into debt.

Pick n Pay’s Smart Shopper is the second most used loyalty programme in South Africa, with more than 12 million people having been issued those blue cards; Clicks Clubcard being the number 1.

So last year Pick n Pay added some personalised discounts to its offering, but slashed the points rewards in half - in other words you had to spend twice as much to get the same number of points as before. So that didn’t go down too well with many.

Then on January 1 many discovered that they'd lost a whack of points - everything they’d earned more than a year previously. The major points hoarders lost hundreds of Rands worth of points.

Phil Greager lost R500 worth of points and told Consumerwatch she’s hopping mad.

PnP says it sent emails and SMSs to Smart Shopper customers and because many people have opted out of being contacted, they put the notification on till slips from last November. But the message was fairly vague - ‘"Your smart Shopper Points valid for a year.” 

Use of the word “expire" would have been helpful.

Since then some consumers have told me that on approaching their store managers they got their points reinstated so I asked PnP’s national spokeswoman what the criteria was. She said the requests were considered on a case to case basis and naturally she didn’t want to tell me which stories resulted in the reinstatement!

But it’s definitely worth stating your case, especially if you got no direct warning.

For the first time on Friday I got a personalised text from PnP: 'You have no points that will expire on 1 February 2018. Remember your points are valid for 12 months from the time they are earned.”

So it looks like the points expiry crisis has resulted in clearer messaging and less likelihood of customers unwittingly losing their points.

And so to gift vouchers…

A pre-paid gift voucher must be redeemable for three years, according to the Consumer Protection Act. But you wouldn’t believe how many companies, mostly spas, tell people after six months that a gift voucher has expired. 

This isn’t one of those cases - Beverly Moodley got a gift voucher last month for Perfect 10 Nail and Body Studio, bought from the Pavilion branch, but nothing on the voucher stipulated that it had to be redeemed there. There are Perfect 10 branches all over the country.

So Beverely booked a nail treatement at the Gateway Perfect 10, and when she went to present the voucher for payment, the manager said the voucher wasn’t valid at that branch, and she was made to pay for her treatment.

Contacted for comment, the owner of Perfect 10 Gateway apologised, saying Beverly should have been refunded, and the money recovered by the Pavilion branch.

She will get that refund now. Happily the new Perfect 10 vouchers are redeemable at any branch.