Yes it is due to discount supermarkets having thinner margin - but it still works out cheaper for us on the whole.
When I replied to that post I was responding the avios recommendation. Nectar hadn’t come into the thought process for me yet!
No source, just anecdotal from my own social groups and the work discourse when the supermarket surveys come out. No one shops at Sainsburys or Morrisons.
Kantar’s sample size is quite small and is based on item value. More expensive super markets will fare better here, and the likes of Lidl, Asda (who I would have expected to be at the top), and Aldi are hindered because of it. The data is up for interpretation, and Kantar make no claims of their own other than to present it as is. Which is to say for me, it doesn’t bear much weight. And 15% is a relatively small share regardless. (There are only 4 big supermarkets). Perhaps if you’re someone who shops there, you could make one of these cards work for you. But if you don’t, you can’t.
Amazon will deliver almost anything Argos sell next day. The product will almost always be cheaper on Amazon too. You can certainly click and collect if you’d prefer, but Argos are in the process of shutting that business down and relocating employees to Sainsburys. Some collection points will remain in the larger stores, but they ultimately want the customer to be buying online for home delivery. At least that’s the plan last I was updated on it.
But if the goal is saving money, you’ve got to factor in your travel costs to and from the collection point as well. It quickly adds up and diminishes the savings you’ll make.
It does, but not when you take advantage of statistics to vastly misrepresent the data by using percentages like that. 30-50% more rewards isn’t as much as it sounds when the value of said rewards are tiny to begin with.
The Barclaycard Avios for example, the free one one. If you spend £5000 you’ll save £40 on something. It’s roughly the equivalent to earning 0.75% on cashback.
Now if you spend £5000 on a 0.5% cashback credit card, you’ll get £25 back. So the real saving with Nectar is £15. Might sound like a lot, but you’ve had to spend £5K to get there, but that’s not where it ends either. You can only benefit from that little extra by restricting where you’re actually allowed to spend it. And you have to spend it, you can’t just funnel into savings like you could with regular cashback.
Let’s say I want to use my Nectar points on some AirPods, and I have to buy those from Argos: £179 + £3.95 for delivery. Most online retailers will ship them for free, so that’s £4 off your savings with Nectar already, diminishing it to £11.
So now it’s a case of, can I save £11 or more elsewhere? At which point I’m not better off going through all this hassle, and limiting myself to a company who are dreadful to deal with in aftercare support, and slower to deliver. Particularly if you click and collect and forego your protections under distance selling. Don’t forget to deduct your fuel expenses from that £11 saving too! 
The answer here isn’t only yes, you can save £11 or more, but you can often save a lot more than just £11. They’re £10 cheaper on Amazon, with next day delivery (or even same day with prime in some locations) as standard. And if you don’t have prime the free standard shipping is still faster than Argos. So you’ve saved £1 there for a lot of effort, hassle, and inconvenience. I’m not so sure that’s worth it. And even if it is to you, that’s definitely not something that’s for everyone.
The AirPods are cheaper elsewhere, can be bought under some 10% off promo codes at places like o2, saving you almost £20 on RRP, and Amazon regularly discount them by as much as 11% which saves you more than £20.
This isn’t even a specific example I’ve picked selectively. It was just the first one that popped to mind. It’s similar for the vast majority of things Argos sell. Their own home furniture range too. It’s just China made drop shipped stuff that other companies sell under their own brand for cheaper too. So it’s not just limited to branded tech goods.
If I shopped at those places regularly anyway, there’s probably a benefit to them. But I don’t, so there isn’t. My whole point here was just that avios isn’t for everyone. I feel like you’ve conflated that with anyone.
It might work for you, and that’s great. You might be happy to put the work in, or maybe you don’t need to because it fits your lifestyle as is anyway. But for most people that’s not going to be the case. And the best you have to counter that is that 15% of folks shop at Sainsburys. It might make them the second largest by your metric, but that’s still serving a minority of people.
Strongly disagree with this. Avios has saved my friend several thousands. But they travel a lot in first class, and stay in expensive hotels. So it’s saved them relative to what they would have paid, but they certainly could live the lifestyle cheaper if they wanted.
15% market share does not mean 85% of people don’t shop there.
I think you’re making the mistake of assuming you have to be loyal to Sainsburys, Argos or Ebay to get value. You don’t.
You need to be able to use them enough to redeem, so 0.66-1% of your spend. You might even build in a contingency where you accept it’d cost 10% than you’d pay otherwise plus fuel or whatever (which is highly conservative), and you’d still be miles ahead.
The value only exists on those high end redemptions though - unless you’re megarich you’re not travelling first class on a regular basis so it’s not a legitimate saving. You’re also giving up on your ability to make deep savings by moving your flights to whoever is offering the best deal; which you might argue is similar to taking Nectar points instead of cash but that ignores how flexible Nectar points can be - you can redeem them for £2.50 worth of groceries or a £500 smart phone - and there is bound to be something you buy which cannot be had cheaper. With flights your opportunities are limited to… well, flights.
Hotel schemes are decent.
No it doesn’t, but that’s the issue with your data source. It doesn’t really tell us anything in context of the discussion. And in that sense isn’t much different from my own anecdotal knowledge.
No I’m saying you have to actually shop at these places to benefit from it. I personally don’t know anyone who ever does with the exception of Argos. So they’d need to be going out of their way to make it work. But I think it’s moot anyway.
Hence my initial point which began this cascade. Avios (evidently, subsequently Nectar) is not for everyone. Nothing you’ve said changes that fact, even if you bring nectar into the foray.
It works for you, and that’s great. But you’re not everyone. It doesn’t work for me. Or @Graham or @MikeZ and probably many others. We’re not everyone either, but everyone is inclusive of all of us.
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I only spend £3-4K a year on cards so we’re talking small amounts. Anything with a fee would almost wipe it out.
It tells us that your unsubstantiated claim that “Sainsbury’s is arguably one of the least popular supermarkets to shop at” is objectively a load of cobblers.
So you’re conceeding then that even tho you hardly ever use those stores, even you could make it work via Argos. Cool.
No, not hence that at all. If you collect air miles for use as primarily intended (i.e. flights) you are accepting that you are not getting optimum value in the true sense (as in, a saving on something you would actually buy). That might work for people, but it’s not a way to actually save the most. You are probably better off earning straight up cashback.
If you use Nectar, unless you legitimately never spend money Sainsburys, Ebay or Argos and you saw no way of doing so (on a period which could be measured over years) without spending 30-50% more than what you’d actually spend in cash - you are better off earning Nectar than cashback.
Or you choose to earn less and keep things simpler, which is also a legit choice - it doesn’t prove that you couldn’t make use of Nectar/Avios tho.
Edit: or you can choose to do absolutely nothing because you feel like cashback/rewards incentivise spend, also totally legit but again doesn’t preclude the viability of Nectar and thus Avios as a way of saving.
Fair enough. You could still earn a touch more via the free Avios Barclaycard tho, so the point stands but I accept there’d be relatively little to be gained.
No. For the very same reason
15% market share doesn’t objectively demonstrate that they’re not arguably one of the least popular ones to shop at. It doesn’t measure popularity at all.
They’re #4 among the big six according to one data set that does actually try to measure that:
No I’m not. Please don’t put words in my mouth. It’s a one way ticket to my blocklist. It makes engaging with you a deeply unpleasant and uncivil experience.
We don’t agree, clearly, and aren’t going to. So it’s a pointless bit of discourse.
Well we don’t have a Sainsburys on the island, so that’s out of the question.
I don’t like shopping at Argos for my tech needs, so I’d need to go out of my way to benefit from that, and in the event something goes wrong, settle for dreadful customer support. As I demonstrated with AirPods, I can almost always get what I want cheaper, faster, and with a better aftercare support somewhere else. So it doesn’t work for me here either.
I’ve used eBay once in my whole life. Never again.
It doesn’t work for me. I don’t know why you’re trying so hard to convince me that it does (unless you’re secretly Aayush Phumbhra David Johnston [wrong Nectar] I give up trying to google who the boss of Nectar is) when you can’t possibly know my circumstances. My word that it doesn’t, should be enough to dissuade that argument.
I’m willing to concede there’s perhaps a small gain to be had (but we’re talking a few quid at best over a year) if I deliberately went out of my way to capitalise on it. But that to me is not worth the hassle. So again, it doesn’t work for me. It’s not for me.
That’s me out. 
Yes, I know - but I value the ability to spend in foreign currencies without a fee more than a couple of quid 
OK cool, please now continue to explain how 4th in a list of 20 is vindication of your statement that they’re one of the least popular. Even if you reduce scope to big 6, which is clearly not the intention of the dataset, you’d surely conceed they are a middler?
So buy s’tn else where that’s less important. Obviously.
There’s no expiration (so long as there’s continual account activity) so you can bide your time and use them optimally.
Your point wasn’t that it didn’t work for you tho. Your statement, which I disagree with, was that Avios are not for everyone, which was understandable given you were ignorant of their interchangability with Nectar.
Funny, because you did exactly that in your previous contribution.
I’m not going to block you, because it’s fun pointing out your errors and contradictions, and it’s also kind of a dick move to threaten such a thing. I can totally live with being blocked by you tho.
Way to completely miss the point of my sharing it.
Whatever makes you happy. As I already explained in my first reply, my statement was anecdotal and that’s all. I’m sorry you read more into it that. Though I’m not sure why someone’s personal criticism of a brand would offend you so.
So waste money buying something I don’t need is your solution to make it a good deal for me? Gotcha.
And it still is. Learning about the Nectar conversion doesn’t change my opinion. You’re arguing over opinions like they’re objective facts.
Please quote at which point I’ve put words into your mouth. I’ve gone back over the post you claim I have and I don’t see it. I can’t tell if you’re trolling or gaslighting at this point.
Either way I’m blocking you now. confrontational contributions like yours, which to me feel very baity, ruin little communities like this for me. It’s why I avoid MSE.
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…
meanwhile, further up in the same wall of text
…
Cool
OP - have you decided on credit card or debit card 
Well…… that’s 19 minutes reading I can’t get back….
But then again, I’m not sure I’d want it back - I rather enjoyed much of the discourse, even though:
(a) I’m still unmoved as far as my position is concerned &
(b) the flow was momentarily interspersed with an unfortunate harshness of tone (sone might think).
I reckon that particular facet of the topic has played out (please ? 
).
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I just scrolled and saved 19 minutes 
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No point reading the whole thing when the ending is:
“As this is a consultation, it means that there has current been no change to the Sectin 75 legislation and shoppers will continue to be protected by Section 75 for the foreseeable.”
Copy and paste includes spelling and grammatical errors.
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I’ll give my 2p just as I’m here. racked up a load of CC debt 5-6 years ago (£20k ISH) as had no budget and I was a complete patsy for the cc companies.
currently budget with YNAB and it’s amazing. the way it handles cc purchases is beautiful. can use credit cards with impudence now.
that being said, psychologically I still don’t really like them as I don’t like having a negative balance, even if paid in full each month. once bitten twice shy I guess. I do use my RBS card for normal shopping as 1% back from supermarkets, however.
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