For many years I have been diligently collecting Shell Plus Points every time I have filled up with petrol. I started using Shell because my cars have usually preferred the higher octane Shell fuels so it made sense to collect the points at the same time.
Over a few years I found that I had amassed almost 30,000 points, so it was with some trepidation that I logged onto their rewards site to see what magical bounty awaited me. Being inquisitive I furiously bashed a calculator to work out that my points had cost approximately £18,000 in fuel. I knew that over the years it was a fair chunk of change, but it still shocked me seeing a figure like that.
Now there are a myriad of different types of award available from carbon offsetting donations (I don’t think so), charitable donations (I prefer to donate to friends doing such things as Race for Life etc), Air Miles (I don’t collect them) and Ferrari merchandise (um, no thanks). I eventually settled for money off vouchers at B&Q / Comet / Woolworths. My 30,000 points, lovingly collected over the past few years are worth a grand total of £150 of vouchers.
I couldn’t believe it, all that money for so little return. So I claimed my vouchers and then cut up my reward card in disgust. I knew you had to spend a lot of money to get anything, but it suddenly seemed so fruitless after so long earning points.
I’m not sure whether to be sensible and use the money in B&Q towards the bits I need to refit my en suite bathroom, or whether t go blow it in Comet on something I don’t need.
Go for the random crap you don’t need. I traded in 80,000 Amex points for an iPod, a Nintendo DS and a suitcase. Not much return for spanking £80,000 on their card.
Definitely blow it in Comet on needless crap. The thing with loyalty cards and whatnot is that I feel as long as it doesn’t stop my purchasing behaviour then it doesn’t really matter and occasionally I’ll get the odd free tank of fuel too.
But the day I start shopping in certain retailers to earn extra points is the day the cards get the scissor treatment.
Another vote for random crap you don’t need! Or save it to put towards something really cool, like… a plasma telly! The way I look at it, you would have spent the money on fuel anyway so – although it’s not much – you deserve a treat.
The only loyalty card I bother with these days is my Boots advantage card, because they usually offer 500 points (which equates to £5) when I buy two items of expensive make-up!!
How many airmiles would you have received? I trade in my Tesco vouchers for Airmiles, I have enough for 2 return tickets to zone 7 and back – Austrailia etc. I think it’s worth it – but you could have sold the airmiles on ebay?
It only works out as 1,500 Airmiles
damn it: I just worked it out
https://www.shellsmart.com/smart/about/Partners.html?site=en-en
Yeah 1500 miles : 30000 / 20.
You could have donted them to me
Arrr well – spend the vouchers on a TV 
or a wii.
That’s lame. I hate reward systems for that reason! I would buy something you don’t need but want, just for the fun of it.
It’s so shit…I’ve used my tesco card loads but never seem to get points which actually reflect that. It’s all a load of shit.
I only use my Boots advantage card which actually gives you money to spend, like they said above. And necter card.
But shell is just cheeky…Thanks for spending what some people earn in a year on our product, here, have enough money for one family shop to say thank you. Cheers.
I vot for random crap! It is a rewards card…you should reward yourself not buy boring bits for the bathroom.
Buy yourself something pretty
go to comet and get a new ipod – i like the new ones they are pretty.
the bird in boots keeps nagging me to have a reward card she told me my shopping of £72 would give me £2.82 back in reward money i cant work out if thats worth bothering with or not!
Perish the thought they might have given you money off the cost of your petrol!