Oh the shame! I've been caught out by inflation. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact, I spend a lot of my time pointing out to others the dangers of inflation. Now I'm looking in the mirror and admitting to myself that I took my eye off the ball. And it's not a new thing, I took my eye off the ball almost 8 years ago and only recently got my eye back on the ball.
It came home to me shortly after my last shopping trip at Sainsburys; they are part of the Nectar Reward Card programme. I was at the check-out (and for a change it wasn't one of the self service ones), and I handed my Nectar Card across so that it could be swiped and my points credited.
"Oooh" said the checkout girl, "you've got a lot of points on your card, you should spend them".
"How much are worth to me" I asked.
"Oh I don't know, maybe £80" she replied.
£80 I thought, surely that can't be right. The points were worth at least that amount in 2002, which was when the Nectar Reward scheme started. Prior to then I had been savings points on the BarclayCard scheme, which eventually merged into the Nectar points scheme, and all my accumulated points transferred across.
In 2002 I had sufficient points on my BarclayCard to exchange for goods valued around £80 - £100 but there was nothing in the catalogue that really inspired me, so I let my points roll over. Over the ensuing 8 years I've been accumulating the odd couple of hundred points here and there. I'm not a serious collector, but in the back of my mind I figured I had built up a sizable number of points that I could exchange for something slightly better than the food mixer I could have had in 2002.
I didn't believe that my points value would have remained static so I went online to check how many points I had, and what I could exchange them for. I was shocked to find that I could exchange my accumulated points for the same bleedin' food mixer I could have had in 2002! What was going on?
The fact is, inflation is what's been going on. The value of my points has been reducing almost as quickly as the rate that I've been accumulating them. In short, inflation has eaten into my points value. These Reward points are hardly rewarding - particularly over a long period of time.
There is a lesson to be learned from this; and that's to spend points often, don't wait to accumulate a large number of points unless you can do it over a short space of time. It's the same with Airmiles. The most recent statistic I read estimated that there were 20 trillion (that's 20,000,000,000,000) unspent airmiles in circulation, across various airline loyalty schemes. I've got enough to fly first class to Tokyo and back, and again to New York and back, but I notice that the number of miles needed to redeem a free flight increases every year, so my points value is slowly deflating.
There's no interest for loyalty it seems. So, if like me you rarely get round to spending them, it might be better to give them to someone who will. I'm going to go online and transfer my Nectar points to charity - that way someone will get their value today. I think I'll keep the airmiles though - I have some travel plans for 2011.
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