£10 off when you spend £50 or more. Wonderful if you can manage a large shop. This is not just about affordability, but single, and single older people particularly, may not need to spend that much in a single shop.



Last year this was £10 off when you spend £40 and I couldn't even manage that except vary rarely. Sainsbury's inflation is much worse than the national average...

Few single, older people will spend £40, and even fewer £50, in a single shop, and certainly not those who find shopping difficult and who are unable to take large amounts of shopping home. So, if you are frail or disabled, don't expect to benefit from a Sainsbury's promotion like this.

A recent promotion makes it even worse, as you will only get the points bonus if you use all of the vouchers - which are only valid for specific weeks. This means that in this promotion, Sainsbury's is only targeting benefits to those who spend over £50 each week. This is way out of my reach as a single older disabled person.

This major supermarket chain is unfortunately not alone in this discrimination, as I have seen similar things from Tesco's, Waitrose and Ocado. It may be that all of them are doing the same thing. In fact Waitrose and Ocado are even worse, as I remember recent promotions where you had to spend over £70 to get the money off.

It may be that these supermarkets are not choosing to be discriminatory, but by targeting their promotions at large shoppers, the effect is just the same.

These large corporations spend a lot of effort in trying to gain the loyalty of customers, but seem to seriously miss the point by ignoring their own need to show loyalty back.

I have just had to throw £60 of vouchers away (and lose the points bonus) as I am unable to make use of them. What a waste...

* * * * * *
UPDATE 8/1/2014

I received a telephone call from Sainsbury's today and a very nice lady tried to persuade me that everything was fine and that I was getting vouchers based on my shopping habits. In other words, Sainsbury's was doing everything right.

It took a little while to get through to her, that this might be what she was told, and it might even be what was supposed to be happening, but that, in my case at least, this wasn't happening. My average shopping basket is roughly half the target £50.

Oh well. At least they telephoned me.