Club Peroni ‘price’ hikes

Stcoolio

Hi all,

I joined the Club Peroni loyalty scheme and saved enough for a cooler bag (175 or 200 ‘points’ iirc), but it had disappeared when I went to redeem. 

When it reappeared it was at nearly three times the number of points (500!). Emailed them and they basically said tough and hope it doesn’t put me off collecting points again. Strangely enough it does!

I get they need to balance demand and might need to adjust pricing, but tripling it is nuts and seems like a blatant breach of the spirit of the scheme, and probably a bunch of consumer protections and other guidelines.

I asked them to provide a method to complain formally, but anything else I can do?

Appreciate it’s just a cooler bag, but the principle is important.

Phil

PHK

This isn't really a consumer rights question.

But in general, retailers can set their own price and don't have to honour previous prices. Whether something is paid for in cash or tokens.

eskbanker

I asked them to provide a method to complain formally

As retail is an unregulated sector, there is no obligation to have any sort of complaints process…

seems like a blatant breach of the spirit of the scheme, and probably a bunch of consumer protections and other guidelines

I'm not aware of anything that such a change would breach, were you thinking of something in particular or was it just a general sense of frustration?

Aylesbury_Duck

Is there anything else you can do? Not really, unless you want to try the self-humiliating ritual of going to the local paper with a compo face pointing forlornly at a space where the cooler bag would have been.

Prices of things change, whether in real money or points. A good example is Tesco's Clubcard, where their rewards have gradually diminished in value from what used to be 4x face value to what is now mostly 2x face value, and in some cases they're not even worth that because they can only be used against full ticket prices. Admittedly, they did heavily trail the change well in advance, but they didn't have to.

born_again

Manufactures raise prices all the time.

In effect what they have done is nothing more 🤷‍♀️

Stcoolio

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82070645#Comment_82070645

thanks but my point is more about the scale of the price increase being totally unreasonable.

born_again

It's hot.

Coolbags are in high demand & maybe short supply.

Sellers market.

Stcoolio

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82070519#Comment_82070519

it’s a general frustration, but the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has something about unfair commercial practices, and they specifically mentioned loyalty schemes in the spring I think.

the Consumer Rights Act 2015 has guidelines about transparency and fairness also.

The point is this: they launched a scheme last year, sucked in people (including me) to buy their products to gain points; then at a time where a reasonable person might have gained enough points to earn anything of value, they removed ALL rewards (except spending to enter competitions) for about a month, and the reintroduced them again at nearly three times the points requirements.

Stcoolio

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82070656#Comment_82070656

the cool bag was the item I was chasing but they did it across all the merchandise as far as I can see

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82070657#Comment_82070657

Those citations sound a bit tenuous and vague but happy to be corrected if you identify specific provisions that you're contending have been breached?

I notice that the club terms include "The Promoter reserves the right to change the quantity of Points required to redeem products, merchandise, offers and competition entries at any time without prior notice", and perhaps there may be a case that such a contract term fails the fairness test, for example? There are some posters on here who know this stuff better than I do…

flaneurs_lobster

My favourite was cigarette coupons. You had to smoke 60 fags a day for 35 years to get a table lamp.