Nationwide 5% cashback on supermarket spending

Altior

Nationwide is obviously a building society, so is meant to prioritise its members. Theoretically a different dynamic to a bank maximising shareholder equity.

It's open to question whether this is the best way of distributing resources across the membership. It's been obviously trying to cultivate a reputation of being a caring financial organisation, and this is another part of that overall strategy.  

Rich2808

Section62 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

RG2015 said:

The idea though that exploiting these offers somehow deprives poorer people, by denying them the chance to benefit from Nationwide's altruism, is a bit of a stretch. 

It's not altruism, it's marketing.

Altruism would be Nationwide donating the £99 million to the Trussell Trust. Anonymously. 

Please don't give them ideas.

The Nationwide's CEO has a base salary of £1m a year and could earn up to £3.4m with bonuses. They have made lots of money giving mortgages to buy to let landlords which works against the interest of first time/primary home buyers who they were set up to help when they were founded as a mutual.

https://www.cityam.com/bonanza-pay-deal-of-up-to-3-4m-for-new-nationwide-chief-executive/

The Nationwide stopped being a caring, sharing, altruistic entity a long time ago - and given the mutual structure (which makes it impossible to remove directors given you would need to mobilise millions of individual members) they can pretty much do what they wish, pay what they wish to themselves and appoint who they wish to the board within the society rules which only they can propose changing.  At least bank boards can be held accountable by investors and pensions funds.

So if they Nationwide you an offer so you can make more money out of them I feel no guilt in taking it. 

Its still very annoying though that you can't earn cashback it seems at Waitrose or M&S food or Fortnum and Mason - their board will have to changing their spending habits to qualify for the cashback!!

flaneurs_lobster

I thought Waitrose and F&M were in?

RG2015

I thought it was any retailer that VISA categorised as grocery that qualified for the cashback.

You don't think the Nationwide directors would deny themselves a quick £30 or even £60 on a joint account.

We decide whether to pay cashback based on how the retailer or the goods you are buying from that retailer are categorised by VISA. Retailers are categorised by VISA based on the type of things they sell. We use these categories to work out whether you can earn cashback on a transaction, because we will only pay out for the two categories specifically used for ‘Grocery stores and Supermarkets’ and ‘Convenience Store’ transactions. We don’t control how a retailer or store is categorised. For this reason transactions at some stores won’t qualify for cashback, even if the transaction otherwise looks eligible. We have provided a list of some of the stores where you could earn cashback on our website, as detailed in condition 5, but this list may change from time to time.


https://www.nationwide.co.uk/current-accounts/help/terms/cashback-terms/

wmb194

Rich2808 said:

Section62 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

RG2015 said:

The idea though that exploiting these offers somehow deprives poorer people, by denying them the chance to benefit from Nationwide's altruism, is a bit of a stretch. 

It's not altruism, it's marketing.

Altruism would be Nationwide donating the £99 million to the Trussell Trust. Anonymously. 

Please don't give them ideas.

Its still very annoying though that you can't earn cashback it seems at Waitrose or M&S food or Fortnum and Mason - their board will have to changing their spending habits to qualify for the cashback!!

Waitrose is part of the promotion: "Whether you do your shopping at Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda or Aldi. Or if you shop at Morrisons, Lidl, Waitrose or the Co-op. These are just some of the shops likely to be included."

RG2015

flaneurs_lobster said:

I thought Waitrose and F&M were in?

Yes, both on the list.

However VISA may categorise them as posh nosh rather than supermarkets, grocery stores or convenience stores.

wmb194

RG2015 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

I thought Waitrose and F&M were in?

Yes, both on the list.

However VISA may categorise them as posh nosh rather than supermarkets, grocery stores or convenience stores.

Fortnum & Mason offers more than just a supermarket or a convenience store, though, so it's probably the reason Visa classifies it as something else. It might not be as low rent as a Tesco or Aldi but  I wouldn't describe Waitrose as anything other than a supermarket.

MouldyOldDough

How do we know that a purchase has been registered for the 5% cashback ?

They claim to pay out in 6 weeks but not all stores in a chain qualify - this seems a bit of a cop out -  open to interpretation

plus it says "Whether you do your shopping at Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda or Aldi. Or if you shop at Morrisons, Lidl, Waitrose or the Co-op. These are just some of the shops likely to be included."

What does anyone else think ?

flaneurs_lobster

MouldyOldDough said:

How do we know that a purchase has been registered for the 5% cashback ?

They claim to pay out in 6 weeks but not all stores in a chain qualify - this seems a bit of a cop out

plus it says "Whether you do your shopping at Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda or Aldi. Or if you shop at Morrisons, Lidl, Waitrose or the Co-op. These are just some of the shops likely to be included."

What does anyone else think ?

I think that much like most conditional cashback offers you should assume that your purchases will generate no cashback at all.

If by happenchance the stars all align and you do manage to score (up to) an extra tenner a month then think yourself blessed and carry on.

I've swapped my grocery shops to my Nationwide debit card and if it works, good.

MACKEM99

ZeroSum said:

I still haven't been officially told about this. No emails, no app messages etc.

Me neither.