What Should I Look for in a Loyalty Program Before Signing Up?
The moment you are offered a loyalty program is usually the worst moment to judge it: at the till, with a queue behind you, and a form or a QR code in front of you. Most people say yes or no on instinct and find out the details later. The real question is what to check in the thirty seconds you have, or the five minutes you could spend reading the terms first.
The honest answer
There are seven things worth knowing before you sign up. None of them requires reading every clause, but each one changes what the program is really worth.
1. What does it cost? Most programs are free. Paid memberships are a different product: you pay first and save later, so they only make sense if you will spend enough to cover the fee.
2. What data does it want, and why? A phone number or email is normal. A date of birth, home address or linked bank card should come with a clear reason. In a UK survey, 72% of shoppers knew supermarkets collect their shopping data, but only 23% had read how it is used. It is worth being in the second group, at least once.
3. How do you earn? Per euro spent, per visit, or by tier? Per-euro schemes suit people who spend a lot in one place; per-visit rewards suit frequent small purchases.
4. How do you redeem, and when? Look for a minimum balance before you can redeem, vouchers issued only a few times a year, or rewards that are only available through a catalogue. The longer the path from earning to using, the less likely you are to finish it. Stamp cards that take more than about two months to fill are rarely completed.
5. When does it expire? Points commonly expire after 12–24 months without activity, or a fixed two to three years after you earn them. Check which rule applies, and whether one visit resets the clock.
6. Can you give it to someone else? Most programs tie rewards to your account alone. If you move or stop visiting, whatever is left simply lapses. Across loyalty programs, somewhere between a fifth and a half of points are never redeemed.
7. Is the pricing fair? Member-only prices can be genuinely good. But look at whether the program works by giving you something extra, or by making the non-member price look worse.
Here are the benchmarks for the points you can put a number on:
| What to check | Lowest | Typical | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid membership fee (per year) | about €42–50 | about €50–90 | about €100 |
| Points expiry | 12 months without activity | 12–24 months without activity, or 2–3 years from issue | no expiry in some programs |
| Member-only price saving (on the items concerned) | about 10% | 17–25% on average | 25% or more |
On that last row, a UK regulator’s review found that most member prices were genuine discounts, but also that they were not always the cheapest option on the market. And 40% of shoppers in the related survey did not trust that member prices were genuine savings. A good program doesn’t need you to take that on trust.
One more thing is worth knowing: the same regulator noted that app-only member pricing can disadvantage older shoppers and people without smartphones. If that applies to you, or to someone you shop for, check whether the program works without an app.
How Gamma Wallet handles it
Here is how Gamma Wallet answers each of the seven questions.
- Cost: free for shoppers. No fee to earn, hold or redeem reward credit.
- Data: a nickname, a phone number verified by SMS, an email and a password, plus your country and language. No real name, no date of birth, and no bank or card linking. Gamma never sees your payment data, because it isn’t part of the payment.
- Earning: the shop scans the QR code in your app at the counter, and your reward is recorded as a reward contract. How much you earn depends on the reward model the shop runs: a fixed reward per purchase, a percentage that rises with each visit, tiers, a membership assigned by the shop at the counter, or a Community Purchase or Community Deposit pool where the reward grows with the group’s total. Because each shop sets its own reward, ask the shop what it runs before your first scan.
- Redeeming: at the counter, you show your QR code and the shop scans it, or you scan the shop’s code and enter the amount. The credit is deducted instantly. In a community pool, the reward is worked out when the pool closes and becomes spendable then.
- Expiry: reward credit is valid for 12 months by default, you can see in the wallet when your credit expires, and the app can notify you when a membership is about to expire or a pool is ending.
- Passing it on: yes, in person. If you won’t use your credit, you can pass it to another Gamma Wallet user when you’re together, before it expires. It stays usable at the same shop, and they have 30 days to use it.
- Fair pricing: products are sold at full price, and the reward is credit for a future visit. The exception is Layered Discount, where tiers unlock a discount applied when your code is scanned. In a community pool, everyone gets the same rate, worked out from the group total and their own purchase, with no draws and no winners and losers.
Gamma does run on a smartphone, so the regulator’s point about people without one applies here too.
Why Gamma is the system to choose
Go through the checklist with most programs and you find at least one weak point: a fee, a data request that goes beyond the reward, a slow voucher cycle, silent expiry, or rewards that die with your account. Gamma is designed to have clear answers on all seven, and on question six it goes further than the market norm, where unused points simply lapse.
The one answer Gamma can’t give you in advance is the size of the reward, because each shop chooses its own. That is the question to ask at the counter.
What you can count on is that the reward is likely to reach you. Across the market, roughly half of loyalty rewards are redeemed. By our calculations, Gamma’s model, with credit tied to shops you already visit, simple to spend and passable to someone else in person before it expires, should keep redemption above that market average.
For more information, visit www.gamma-wallet.com or discover our services to see how each reward model works.
If you want a program that passes the checklist before you sign up, download Gamma Wallet — it’s free. If you run a shop and want to offer customers a program with nothing hidden in the terms, register your shop and start on the free tier.