Not so bright Sparks

[anneed]

Anyone else having trouble with their M&S Sparks offers? I received some vouchers in the post a few weeks ago which surprised me as I always load the offers online. The note with the vouchers said I could load them online if I wished but my Sparks pages just said my offers were 'taking a break'.

I phoned, emailed and had one of those live online chats. Got various answers but all said I could use the vouchers in store. Of course when I get to the till they don't work and the assistant has to take the discount off manually. All takes a lot longer and needs lots of explaining.

Apparently lots of customers have had problems. After the last palaver I rang customer services and spoke to another very nice person (they have all been unfailingly polite) this time based in a call centre in Cape Town of all places (I was assured my call was being charged at UK local rates). Anyway, this time I was told all would get back to normal on July 13. He said offers would be tailored more to individual preferences in future.

I also raised a question about the invitations to 'special events' I was promised when I reached 14,000 points a long time ago. No invitations have been forthcoming and the manager at my biggest local M&S said they hadn't had any for the past year and had no plans to host any in the near future. So what's the point of all these points?? If you have an M&S credit card you can exchange them for money off vouchers but for people like me they will just accrue for ever and a day.

[JoanneB]

I didn't think Sparks points were anything to do with the separate M&S points (which convert to money off coupons) for using an M&S credit card.
I haven't had any paper vouchers, I have the M&S app on the phone which is also a digital Sparks card, all the offers are on there. A free walnut whip today!

[Manoverboard]

How many Walnut Whips can one get with 14,000 points I wonder

[Mervyn and Trish]

One .

[qbman1]

....and that's without a walnut - they're extra !

[CaroleF]

I must admit I rarely even look at the Sparks offers. I get emails from time to time telling me I have so many days to claim whatever the offer is. I only seem to shop for food these days in Marks - apart from the occasional thing from the Lingerie department and that's usually online. Not sure how useful the Sparks card is. Maybe I just don't use it properly.

[qbman1]

I'm with you, Carole (except for the lingerie bit, of course !!). Seems to me it's more trouble than it's worth

[JoanneB]

We must have been lucky then, we get quite a few food offers 20% off usually, and just after Christmas £25 off £100 on wine. I do find the clothing offers less useful but maybe because, despite what himself thinks, I don't buy clothing as often as groceries!

[Gill W]

I'm a member of the M&S Premium Club, which we pay £10 a month for as part of our credit card. We do quite well out of this, as we use the money off vouchers we earn at the end of the year to pay for Christmas goodies. The free coffee vouchers are great as well, as we usually walk over to the shopping centre once a week and always have a coffee while we are out. There's also £10 off vouchers every so often which are always used. We do make a net gain out of this.

I've also got a Sparks Card and now have about 21000 points. I've never been invited to a special events. The offers are a bit hit and miss. Sometimes there's 20% of something we want, otherwise not. The thing I really like is that you get a preview of sale items 24 hours in advance. That means I know whether its worth going to the store - if there's nothing in the sale I fancy I don't bother

[Dancing Queen]

I must admit I rarely even look at the Sparks offers. I get emails from time to time telling me I have so many days to claim whatever the offer is. I only seem to shop for food these days in Marks - apart from the occasional thing from the Lingerie department and that's usually online. Not sure how useful the Sparks card is. Maybe I just don't use it properly.

I'm sure you do use the card properly Carole, my personal view is the Sparks Card is a bit of a 'con'

I do all my food shopping in M&S so I spend a substantial amount weekly and yet the best offers they seem to come up with is 20% of tomatoes or carrots, they do occasionally offer 3 x small chickens for £10 but I would never buy a small chicken anyway so that's a waste of time, very occasionally they might offer 20% off meat but as my local store is very small you can never guarantee they will have what you want so I tend to buy and freeze when it is in stock which very often means my freezer is full so I can't take advantage of offers.

A prime example is .. this weekend I received an email which entitled me to the first bite of the cherry of the 50% off sale, very useful I thought as I had my eye on several Indigo t-shirts + other items ( which I wouldn't have paid full price for but at half price were a good buy ) I quickly filled my bag but by the time I got to checkout ( less than 5 minutes later ) of the 8 items I wanted to purchase only two were available and yet just 3 days ago when I checked out my local store there were rails of the things so are M&S offering their 'loyal customers' the bargains or is it just a front .. I know what I think !!