I’m in California where we have a grocery chain, Safeway. They’ve had a loyalty card for decades, which works great, gets you good deals, can be scanned by the checkout clerk or at self checkout. It also racks up points which can be used for discounts.

About 2 years ago I started seeing signs in the store offering even greater savings through the app. There will sometimes be 2 signs side by side for the loyalty card vs the app. The app is always a better deal.

So I downloaded the app and learned

• the app cannot scan your membership at self checkout, you have to be checked out by a clerk
• the app’s membership number is different from your loyalty card number and the two cannot be merged.
• because of that your points can’t be transferred to the app

It’s the dumbest thing ever. Why not just offer the better savings to the loyalty card? Isn’t that the whole point behind loyalty? I literally shop at Safeway less often now.

Yeah what could possibly go wrong?