I am a loyal customer of Sainsbury’s and Nectar and these are close partners in the UK where all purchases made with the former automatically qualify for loyalty points in the latter. I have explained before that I prefer Sainsbury’s to other local supemarkets not necessarily in terms of quality but simply because I want to be consistent in my grocery purchases and maximise the number of Nectar points earned. It has worked reasonably well for me as over the years I have taken advantage of countless deals and have accumulated millions of points which have fed into loads of discounts and reductions elsewhere. This year I have been quite active in my Nectar activity and have stored an equivalent of more than £100 worth of Nectar points which I have been planning to use on some cool merchandise at the end of the year (Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Christmas etc). A few days ago, however, I decided to use my Nectar points differently, as I received an invitation from Oxfam to make a donation with my Nectar points to the relief fund for the recent Indonesia Earthquake and Tsunami crisis:
This seemed like a much more powerful incentive for using my loyalty points so I duly donated almost all my Nectar points (> £100) to the recovery process in Indonesia. I have no idea who will benefit from this donation, nor will the recipients ever know the identity of their benefactor, but somehow making this donation seems entirely the right thing to do, even though I no longer have the opportunity to use my hard-earned Nectar points for myself. Rather, I have used them for the benefit of the community, especially those in desperate need. This is an uplifting gesture which has heightened my spirits probably much more than splashing out my Nectar points on some nice gadget (sweet though this may and would have been). Don’t give up.