Money Tips | Financial Crooks

The other day I was paying my bill at Longo’s and the cashier asked me if I’d like to redeem some of my Longo’s points. I had been collecting them since their promotion was launched but I’d never bothered to find out what, if anything, they were worth. I said sure, and was pleasantly surprised to get $50 off my bill. As I unloaded the groceries at home, I began to wonder what each of the chains in my vicinity had to offer grocery shoppers.

Many of these chains also offer short term promotions and rewards. For example in 2014, Sobeys has a program for collecting points towards discounts on Jamie Oliver merchandise. I won’t be covering those types of programs here: I’m just interested in the “I bought my groceries and they swiped my card and here’s what I can or might get.”

Some of these stores also offer credit cards that earn points. I’m not covering those here either.

Why Only South-Central Ontario Grocery Reward Information?

I should have realized that grocery stores do things differently across Canada. After all (thirty years ago anyway) in Calgary you could buy potato chips in boxes and strawberries in bulk but in eastern Ontario you had to buy chips in bags and a collection of strawberries that contained ripe perfect, unripe and bruised fruit all jammed into one plastic container.

So when I started researching, I realized this article would explode into a massive mess of contradictory offerings if I tried to cover all of the provinces and territories.

And to be honest, I also don’t know the names of all of the common and popular grocery chains in various places. Maybe I’ll be able to do a follow-up sometime of other provinces. In the meantime, my apologies to those living elsewhere!

What Rewards Does Fortinos / Loblaws / Real Canadian Superstore s Offer?

It appears that what Loblaws now offers is a PC Plus Program. This is a free card or a free app.

You will be sent personalized offers to earn points. You have to load the offers and then buy those items at the store. When you make your purchase you earn points.

The points can be redeemed to get $ off your next bill. There is no incentive to accumulate lots of points before redeeming.

The minimum redemption is 20 000 points for $20 off your bill.
You must redeem points in groups of 10 000 if you redeem more than 20 000. You can’t redeem 25 000 points, for example.

Your points are forfeited if you don’t use your account for two years. I was surprised by that.

Frankly, this sounds like a bit of a pain to me. The offers are not automatically loaded: you have to remember to do so.

What Rewards Does Longo’s Offer?

Longo’s has a free Thank You Rewards card. You swipe the card when you are paying for your purchases.

You earn 50 Thank Your Rewards points for every $25 you spend per week at Longo’s.

So, for example, if you spend $48 on a Wednesday and $3 on Thursday, you will get 100 points. But if you don’t spend that $3 till Monday, you’ll only get 50 points.

As with many other stores, you can earn “bonus” points by purchasing various products.
The Thank You Reward points can be redeemed for cash off your next purchase. As with Sobeys, there is an incentive to waiting to redeem your points. For example

2200 points saves you $10 off your bill, so each point is worth about 0.45 of a cent.
4000 points saves you $20 off your bill, so each point is worth about 0.50 of a cent.

What Rewards Does Metro Offer?

Metro doesn’t run its own reward card. Instead it accepts a free AIR MILES Collector Card.

You can earn AIR MILES at a rate of 1 AIR MILE for every $20 spent. They also offer bonus AIR MILES on certain purchases.

If you enroll, you will probably get offered special AIR MILES coupons customized for your Metro store.

You can use the AIR MILES a few ways, including

You can enroll in the AIR MILES Cash program.
You can redeem 95 AIR MILES for $10 off your grocery bill.
That makes each AIR MILE worth about 10.53 cents.
Or, you can save your AIR MILES to redeem for “Dream Rewards” including flights, admission tickets for events and merchandise.

Metro has been connected with AIR MILES for a long time. I remember when the Dominion stores first brought in AIR MILES cards. A friend of mine signed up for one but refused to give their name because they thought gathering the marketing data on them would be creepy. I don’t know whether they ever got any rewards, though!

What Rewards Does P.A.T. Offer?

P.A.T. has a free rewards card. It only applies if you pay cash or debit. I’m still trying to check the details on how or whether you redeem points.

They sell the best brand of pork Grand-Peres, though, so that’s a pretty big reward in itself!

What Rewards Does Sobeys Offer?

Sobeys has a free points card called Club Sobeys that is swiped when you buy your items. In September 2014, you get 1 point for every whole dollar spent (before taxes.) They also give bonus points on various items.

Points can be redeemed

to take dollars off your grocery bill, or
you can use them to get rewards from their catalogue, or
you can also have all of your points converted to Aeroplan miles, if you want.

It’s worth understanding how the cash rewards work. You get more $ per point if you wait till you have quite a few points to redeem.
For example,

725 points will get you $5 off your bill so 1 point is worth about 0.69 of a cent.
3200 points will get you $25 off your bill so 1 point is worth about 0.78 of a cent.
12500 points will get you $100 off your bill so 1 point is worth about 0.80 of a cent.

I met one person shopping at Sobeys who saves their points all year to pay for their extra Christmas groceries.

What Rewards Does Starsky Offer?

Starsky has a free Starsky Loyalty rewards card that offers instant savings. Shoppers receive a 2% discount on all regularly-priced items.

Items that are on sale do not qualify for the discount.

That’s pretty sweet! You just swipe your card to save money immediately.

What Rewards Does T&T Offer?

I’ve seen various contests at T&T where based on the total amount you spend, you get more tickets to enter in the draws. I haven’t seen any type of loyalty card program yet though.

Which Grocery Store Has the Fastest Rewards?

Based on my research, and as of September 2014, it looks like Starsky offers the fastest reward. They give you a cash discount off your bill immediately. No collecting or redeeming points.

Which Grocery Store Has the Highest Rewards?

That one is really difficult to determine. Because several stores offer “bonus” points on various goods they sell, the highest reward may vary depending on what you like to purchase and how often.

Based only on base points per dollar spent in the store, though, as of September 2014, it looks like it might be best to spend your money at Starsky.

Not including the effect that bonus points might have on your shopping, and assuming everything you need to buy at Starsky is not on sale, four of the grocery stores rank like this:

To get $1 back

From Starsky, spend $50 on regularly priced items
From Longo’s, you need about 200 points which takes about $100 of spending
From Sobeys, you need about 125 points which takes about $125 of spending
From Metro, you need about 9.5 AIR MILES which takes about $190 of spending

But then you also have to check on the total cost of your usual grocery purchases at each store. It’s no good getting $25 back every 6 months if you spend $50 more than you need to during that same period than you would purchasing the same goods somewhere else.

Not to mention if you can buy your groceries at one store without driving but at another store you have to drive 7 km to get there and another 7 km home, you should really factor in the cost of gasoline if you’re trying to compare savings. Argh! I have no interest in doing that!

How Do I Use Grocery Shopping Rewards?

I sign up for the free programs and then shop exactly the way I did before. I don’t care if they offer me 1000 points for buying 2 loaves of bread if I only want one I only buy one. I don’t want to buy some strange brand of pasta just to get more points. I still won’t buy bagels or facial tissues unless they are cyclically at the lowest price, even if I could earn a zillion points.

The grocery stores probably don’t like shoppers like me very much. But they still get all sorts of marketing insights into my buying habits for free when I swipe my card, so tough.

Related Reading

Join In
Is there a different grocery chain near you that offers rewards to customers? Please share the details with a comment. Or feel free to comment on whether you take advantage of any of the rewards described in this list!

Instead of offering a good interest rate year round, many banks now offer short-term higher interest rates to try to win new customers. Tangerine and PC Financial often do this. For example, on September 1, 2014, Tangerine started offering an annual rate of 3% on new savings deposits made between September 1 and September 15. [UPDATE: On September 16 they extended the deadline to September 30.] The catch is the higher rate only lasts until November 30. And it only applies to new deposits, not to money you already had in your accounts which continues to earn only 1.3%. These kinds of offers have led some people to start transferring their cash savings between Tangerine or PC Financial depending on which bank currently has the highest promotional interest rate: are you one of them?

3% for a Daily Interest Savings Account Sounds Great! Is it?

If you could get 3% for a full year on a no-fee, no minimum balance, daily interest savings account it would be pretty sweet. Many savings accounts are offering 1% or less a year. So at first glance, the Tangerine promotion seems great.

The reality, though, is the rate is not being offered for a year, only for 92 days. And if you didn’t deposit your money September 1, it’s fewer than 92 days.

Say you deposited $1000 on September 1. It would earn about $7.50 if you kept it there until November 1. That’s good, but it’s not epic.

And remember, you already were earning some interest on that money. For example, say you had the $1000 originally in a BMO High Interest Smart Saver Account. According to the posted rate today, September 2, of 1.05% per year, you would have earned about $2.63 if you kept it there until November 1.

So the Tangerine promo is only offering you about an additional $4.88 in interest for hosting your savings for three months. That’s good, of course, but again not amazing.

Why Do People Transfer Cash Savings Back and Forth from Tangerine to PC Financial?

In general, these promotional high interest rates are only offered on “new” savings. When they are announced, they state that they are calculated based on how much you have in all of your savings accounts at the bank as of some DATE already PASSED. You don’t know what that date will be until they make the announcement.

They only pay the higher rate on any money in your savings which is above the amount you already had on that date.

For example, in the new promo, Tangerine picked a past date of August 31 2014. (The full rules for this promotion were at https://www.tangerine.ca/en/landing-page/backtoschool/termsandconditions.html.)

So if you had $2500 in your Tangerine savings account on August 31, you will only earn the 3% rate if you have $2501 or more in your account, and even then you will only earn it on the amount exceeding $2500. (For example, if you have $2501, you will earn 3% only on $1! The other $2500 continues to earn the regular 1.3% interest.)

The trick is that often PC Financial will come out with a competing offer a few days after Tangerine. (and vice versa)

If you have a savings account at each bank, you can literally move the money to take advantage of the newest promotional rate.

For example, say on August 31 you had $2500 in your Tangerine savings account and $10 in your PC Financial savings account. Now, if things follow the usual pattern, in a few days, PC Financial will offer a special savings account rate. You can then transfer your $2500 from Tangerine to PC Financial to start earning the new rate.

Yesterday, September 1, if you had a way to spy on PC Financial transfers, I’m sure you would have seen many requests go in electronically to move savings money to Tangerine.

Because transfers are free at both Tangerine and PC Financial and because neither bank requires a minimum balance in their savings accounts, this technique works.

When Might It be Worth All This Savings Account Transferring?

The actual interest earnings are not huge even with these higher promotional interest rates. If you only have a few hundred dollars in savings, they are not very interesting.

But if you have a large amount in cash savings, perhaps because you plan to buy a house in the next few months, or you have a major trip or renovation or tuition bill coming up soon, these rates can be more attractive.

For example, say you have $50 000 in cash which you need in 6 months but not now. Most short-term GICs are offering under 2% and you can’t get your money as simply as you can withdraw it from a cash bank account.

If you could put $50 000 in at 3% annually for a 3 month period, you could earn $375.

That would buy 2 new bicycles and helmets for your children. (Can you tell what we had to do recently?)

More Info on this New Tangerine 3% Promotion

Tangerine is also offering some incentives on new deposits to its TFSA, RRIF and RRSP cash savings accounts. You’d want to read the details of the promotion carefully to see if you would actually be eligible for this temporary higher rate.

What If I Don’t Have an Account with Tangerine? Can I Get This Rate?

Yes.

Just open a new account with Tangerine and write a cheque to deposit your savings.

If it’s like most promotions at Tangerine, they will start paying you interest from the day they receive your cheque.

Remember, though, that the bonus rate only applies to funds deposited between September 1 and September 15, 2014 [UPDATE: now September 30], and it only lasts until November 30. So you’d have to move pretty fast to make any money.

What Am I Doing?

As you may know, we have savings accounts at both Tangerine and PC Financial. Right now, ironically, most of our money is at Tangerine. So we’ll be hoping for a matching promotion from PC Financial. But since we don’t have $50 000 just sitting around, we won’t be devastated if PCF ignores this latest round in the rate wars.

UPDATE: The matching promo has launched!

Our TFSAs and RRSPs are already maxed out, so there’s no way to take advantage of the higher rates there, either.