PnP and BP tie-up hardly rewarding

COMPARISON: BANK VERSUS RETAILER REWARDS

Depending on the bank Smart Shopper members use, they may lose out if they start filling up at BP.

Pick n Pay’s (PnP’s) Smart Shopper partnership with BP is running, with customers earning points for their fuel purchases. For the “launch offer” – until March 31, 2019 – motorists who swipe their Smart Shopper cards when they fill up at BP will “earn” 20 points on each litre of fuel purchased. This translates to 20c per litre. After the launch, Smart Shopper members earn 10 points per litre, or 10c.

Banks led in rewarding customers for fuel purchases as they had the merchant fee (interchange) margin to play with when a customer swiped.

The retailer partner model is fairly straightforward: in return for higher volumes, fuel companies offer a sliver of margin to partners, who reward their customers with points.

In 2016, Clicks became the first major retailer to offer its ClubCard loyalty programme members points for filling up at Shell. Dis-Chem copied this in late 2017 with Total, while Edcon’s Thank U loyalty programme linked with Engen thereafter.

The “rewards” one earns in these retailer partnerships are hardly generous, and the Smart Shopper-BP tie-up is no different.

The launch offer is rather obviously designed to shift behaviour (read habits below) and will be used by Pick n Pay and BP to measure the success of the programme.

Generally, one could earn significantly more back from their bank’s reward programme than from retailer partnerships. None of the major banks use BP as a partner for their rewards programmes, Card.

Points can’t be earned at BP Express stores and one can’t earn on both Smart Shopper and Avios in the same transaction.

This tie-up will make sense for Discovery Card or Discovery Insure customers, who can already earn handsomely on BP fuel purchases, if they’re regular PnP shoppers too.

Hilton Tarrant works at YFM besides Discovery

Generally, one could earn significantly more back from their bank’s reward programme than from retailer partnerships. None of the major banks use BP as a partner for their rewards programmes, besides Discovery Card.