Use Someone Else's Frequent Buyer Card for Savings and Rewards

I have recently run into a few cases of needing/using frequent buyer cards in a creative way to save money for the users as well as earn points for the owner. Oh, do you think the user and the owner are always the same? Well in these cases, they are not. That's what made these situations so interesting to me.

Have you ever needed a frequent buyer/member card in order to save on purchases but you don't have (or want) a card? We found ourselves facing this predicament recently.

Every year we visit my brother-in-law and his family in Pennsylvania. And every year we end up at the same Giant Eagle grocery store stocking up on supplies (so he doesn't have the burden of having to feed us.) Giant Eagle is one of those grocers who has two sets of pricing -- one (lower) price for those with member cards and one (higher) for those who don't.

Now we could sign up for a member card (they're free) but we really don't want to be part of a club (and carry around a card) that we only use once a year. Besides, in the past we have asked the register clerk if she would simply swipe her card, and she's helped us out -- enabling us to get the lower price. So why do we need a card?

But this year as we approached the register, my wife tried a different strategy. She called her sister (who shops at Giant Eagle and has a card), got her number, and we used it. So we got the savings (almost $20) and my sister-in-law got the points -- it was a win-win proposition!

A similar situation happened to my boss while his family was on vacation in New Orleans. They were at a restaurant and his daughter was texting with a friend. The friend happened to have a coupon for free desserts from the restaurant because she was a frequent customer there. She emailed the coupon to my boss's daughter and they family enjoyed free desserts from the restaurant.

Finally, I ALWAYS use my wife's frequent buyer card when I go into Panera Bread (I occasionally meet a business contact there for breakfast.) I don't get any savings out of the effort, but she gets points, and has so far received a free smoothie, a free danish, and a coupon off a salad (which is what she usually gets there.)

So, I've seen lots of creative ways to use frequent buyer cards recently. I'm sure you all have additional suggestions or stories of your own. Please add them in the comments below.

Comments

[mdb]

I have noticed store clerks use their own when I didn't have one. This practice had to rack up substantial rewards, and I would equate it with stealing. Borrowing a card if you have one and forgot it, I see no issue. If you use one and don't have one - I am sure the store would rather have the sale. In the end all cards have the same purpose, track cash buyers, make it slightly easier to track other buyers and then target marketing towards them. So stores are not doing it out benevolence.

[Lance@MoneyLife&More]

My girlfriend uses my grocery card but I never use the points so she gets discounted gas whenever we accumulate enough points. She drives more so it works out for us.

[Robert]

I shop at one of the two Giant Eagles here in Maryland. Often the store puts items on sale that my coworkers (who live closer to DC and far from these stores) use. If I see something for a good sale price that I know they use I'll ask if they want me to pick some up for them. If they end up wanting some, they simply pay me what their items cost. The result is that they get a good sale price, I get the free gas credits and the store makes a sale that it would not otherwise have made.

Another thing I do is pay close attention to the sales flyers, as Giant Eagle often offers bonus savings on certain items. This week I've been buying Starkist tuna pouches at 4 for $5. I ended up buying about 100 of these. Giant Eagle is offering 30 cents a gallon in bonus fuel perks for every group of 4 I buy. 30 cents bonus times 30 gallons (I take several 5 gallon gas cans with me when I redeem my fuel perks so I get the maximum amount of discount gasoline) means every $5 I spent earned me over $9 in free gas. I'm getting almost 2 dollars worth of gas for every dollar I spend on this item. And no, I wasn't "clearing the shelves" and selfishly keeping others from being able to buy some. The 100 I bought was only a tiny fraction of what the store had stocked up with prior to the sale.

[Adam]

If you don't have a friend's to use, have them look up Jenny's number (867-5309). I think most chains in america have had someone sign up with it, so it always works!!

[K D]

I don't want any more rewards cards so I use my friend's phone number at a couple of places - at Barnes and Noble I save 10% while at DSW she receives the rewards from my shopping. It works for us.

[Matt]

We now have the in laws Kroger rewards card seeing that they have a gas station at there Kroger and we don't so they get our points and reduction on gas thru the rewards program.

Whenever they go see there grandson at college we make the reservation using our rewards card and our rewards credit card. They pay us and we get the extra points on both counts.

Works out nice for both of us.

[LotharBot]

some grad students at my university (who didn't like the "tracking" associated with these cards) had a store reward card exchange program. Basically, it was just an envelope on their office door with about 8 cards from the nearest major chain store. The idea was that anybody could get the savings, and whatever statistics the store gathered would be useless for identifying any individual shopper. People who had their own cards would often drop theirs in and take a different one.

[Catherine]

We had one tied to our old land line phone number. Since we switched carriers and wound up with a new home number 2 years ago, but I never felt the need to update the grocery store or dry cleaners accounts with the new one. Well, the market researchers caught up to us and our old # doesn't work.

But Jenny's does.

[K D]

I love the system LotharBar described. It must mke you feel like you're beating the system.

[Kelly@FinancialBailoutNews]

I live in Tampa and my mom lives in Massachusetts. Whenever she comes here she insists on going to Steinmart (a discount retailer much like Marshalls). She always picks up my aunts frequent buyer card before heading there, and it saves her a large percentage on her purchase. We're always astonished at how much we get for such little money there, and my aunt loves receiving the benefit points! Great post.