What is your fav discount card ?

[uptheos]

The Pun Pun gives 10% discount to TV members, that's as good as any discount card.

Any other restaurants or establishments give 10% discount to TV members?

[Saan]

The Pun Pun gives 10% discount to TV members, that's as good as any discount card.

Any other restaurants or establishments give 10% discount to TV members?

Only if you reveal your true self.

[uptheos]

The Pun Pun gives 10% discount to TV members, that's as good as any discount card.

Any other restaurants or establishments give 10% discount to TV members?

Only if you reveal your true self.

I always go as Saan.

[jaideeguy]

I'm sorry, but I'm anti discount cards because they take up so much room in my wallet and offer so little. IMHO they actually add to the price of products when you think of costs of dealing with them.....advertising, accounting etc and They fool the lame public into thinking that they are getting a good deal.

Why not just discount everything and not mess with cards, games or stamps?? That's the kind of store that I deal with. Like Makro..........no gimmicks, just lower prices.

I think that they appeal mostly to the women shoppers, as my wife is a sucker for a discount card .

[PETDCAT]

My fav is the Holiday Inn card.

[ARISTIDE]

Seed Book Card is totally worth it!

[LawrenceChee]

I'm sorry, but I'm anti discount cards because they take up so much room in my wallet and offer so little. IMHO they actually add to the price of products when you think of costs of dealing with them.....advertising, accounting etc and They fool the lame public into thinking that they are getting a good deal.

Why not just discount everything and not mess with cards, games or stamps?? That's the kind of store that I deal with. Like Makro..........no gimmicks, just lower prices.

I think that they appeal mostly to the women shoppers, as my wife is a sucker for a discount card .

I agree it should be this easy just to get people to spend money ...however the nature is to have these promotions to spur a little interest in a generic store

I have always rejected the big c sticker program ...however this time around as I was buying so much stuff I thought I will give it a try

Got a free paring knife and a kitchen shears over the promotion period ...now I am kinda of kicking myself for rejecting these stickers all these years

I may not need the item but to give it away to the maid and it was worth the trouble

The one with the home pro one was a joke ...you collect a sticker for every 2000 baht spent and after 10 stickers which is 200k worth of products they will exchange that for a Mickey Mouse weighing scale provided u top up 199 baht !!!! That ridiculous and I smiled and walk away from that

[ChiangMai101]

I also scored some knives and shears at Big C with my collection of stickers.

I think Asia Books is a good card to have. For the girls: Oriental Princess Society, Beauty Buffet and Yves Rocher.

Watsons and Boots are a total waste of time. I have a Rimping card but I don't think I am going to receive any of their gift rewards in my lifetime...

Does anybody have experience with a car wash card?

[LawrenceChee]

I also scored some knives and shears at Big C with my collection of stickers.

I think Asia Books is a good card to have. For the girls: Oriental Princess Society, Beauty Buffet and Yves Rocher.

Watsons and Boots are a total waste of time. I have a Rimping card but I don't think I am going to receive any of their gift rewards in my lifetime...

Does anybody have experience with a car wash card?

Hahahha I agree with that I have up on Rimping when you look at the catalogue they have for the exchange program I am curious if anyone has exchanged for a BOSE sound system ever !

The number of poins required means you have to be shopping there like you are in Makro !

[elektrified]

The quality of those knives and scissors at Big C was below garbage - Made in a cheap Chinese factory. We looked and said "No thanks." Come on guys...

That is not true about Rimping points. In 6 years I am now on my 2nd round of about 7000-8500 points. I think we were up to 7,200 when we got the iPod. I don't shop there like crazy. But for items that cost the same there than they do at Big C, Tesco, we always buy them at Rimping so we get the points.

As far as taking up space in the wallet, you don't need to carry them. Just give your phone number. Tesco sends in the post plastic bar codes that are about 1/5th the size and thickness of a credit card. I carry that and give the phone number everywhere else.

[DaamNaam]

The quality of those knives and scissors at Big C was below garbage - Made in a cheap Chinese factory. We looked and said "No thanks." Come on guys...

That is not true about Rimping points. In 6 years I am now on my 2nd round of about 7000-8500 points. I think we were up to 7,200 when we got the iPod. I don't shop there like crazy. But for items that cost the same there than they do at Big C, Tesco, we always buy them at Rimping so we get the points.

As far as taking up space in the wallet, you don't need to carry them. Just give your phone number. Tesco sends in the post plastic bar codes that are about 1/5th the size and thickness of a credit card. I carry that and give the phone number everywhere else.

100 % agree.

Besides, most items in Rim Ping are the same price (give or take) as Makro, Lotut, etc. And you dont have to buy the 50 gallon jar of ketchup (dead horse) as you would at Makro.

Edited July 1, 2013 by DaamNaam

[elektrified]

The quality of those knives and scissors at Big C was below garbage - Made in a cheap Chinese factory. We looked and said "No thanks." Come on guys...

That is not true about Rimping points. In 6 years I am now on my 2nd round of about 7000-8500 points. I think we were up to 7,200 when we got the iPod. I don't shop there like crazy. But for items that cost the same there than they do at Big C, Tesco, we always buy them at Rimping so we get the points.

As far as taking up space in the wallet, you don't need to carry them. Just give your phone number. Tesco sends in the post plastic bar codes that are about 1/5th the size and thickness of a credit card. I carry that and give the phone number everywhere else.

100 % agree.

Besides, most items in Rim Ping are the same price (give or take) as Makro, Lotut, etc. And you dont have to buy the 50 gallon jar of ketchup (dead horse) as you would at Makro.

That is true. Many, many items (cooking sauces, condiments, toiletries, etc., etc.) are the same price - as you said "give or take" (usually no more than 2 Baht on the upside, and often less). Just last week or so in another thread there were a couple of people insisting that Rimping is much more expensive than Tesco or Big C, etc. which is simply not true unless you are buying high-grade beef or something. And yes some of the items at Makro are not practical unless you have a business and need to buy in such large quantity.

[hellodolly]

The quality of those knives and scissors at Big C was below garbage - Made in a cheap Chinese factory. We looked and said "No thanks." Come on guys...

That is not true about Rimping points. In 6 years I am now on my 2nd round of about 7000-8500 points. I think we were up to 7,200 when we got the iPod. I don't shop there like crazy. But for items that cost the same there than they do at Big C, Tesco, we always buy them at Rimping so we get the points.

As far as taking up space in the wallet, you don't need to carry them. Just give your phone number. Tesco sends in the post plastic bar codes that are about 1/5th the size and thickness of a credit card. I carry that and give the phone number everywhere else.

At Rimping you can get a small card to put on your key chain.

[manarak]

The quality of those knives and scissors at Big C was below garbage - Made in a cheap Chinese factory. We looked and said "No thanks." Come on guys...

I'm holding one of those knives now... brand is "Arzberg", the knife is one block of stainless steel, no parts and it is very sharp.

Quite like this one, but bigger:

I can't complain about the quality.

[beb]

Lawerence

Care to do a review on MK restaurant.

They are literally everywhere, not exactly a gourmet's paradise either.

Yes they are every where. My memories of them was not they were not that good.

But I do know Lawrence has a sense of good taste so I was thinking that maybe they had changed.

Not to bother. They are only a chain and not good at all. I went once in about 2006 -- never again. Terrible food. Would you be interested in a review of Denny's or some other greasy spoon chain in the States? Probably not.

I would kill for a grand slam.

[Mestizo]

It always surprises me how people will freak out about simple privacy things (i.e. revealing their ThaiVisa identity), but will sign up for these "registration and monitoring" programs operating under the guise of "loyalty cards" without a second thought. People who freak out about data breaches or the slightest mention of the NSA, are completely willing to hand over all of their personal information to a grocery store (how well do you think that PII data is actually being protected??) and allow all of their purchases to be tracked.

Using current events as a reflection point, apparently its really BAD for the NSA to use telephone record metadata to build a highly protected database of who calls who... BUT its perfectly OK for a department store to build a big, loosely protected database of PII data and complete purchase history.

Think about that for a minute. Anyone with access to the database can do searches like:

• Show me everyone, under the age of 17, who has purchased a pregnancy test kit in the past 18 months.
• show me everyone who's purchased condoms, bottles of ether, rags, and finger puppets ever.
• Show me everyone who buys more than 2 cases of beer per month.
• Give me the home phone numbers and street addresses of all females, under the age of 25, who have purchased KY Jelly and 2 or more bottles of wine in the past 6 months.
• Give me the home addresses of all people of British nationality in Chiang Mai who have made purchases over 4000 THB twice in the past 3 months.
• Etc.

For me, its really hard to justify a very tiny discount or a cheap Chinese steak knife, as appropriate compensation for allowing my personal information to be harvested and then used as an identifier to track my entire purchase history. Just not worth it.

Additionally several studies have shown that stores utilizing loyalty cards are artificially inflating their prices, and using the "discount price" to lower it back to what it would have normally been in the first place.

Something to think about,

-Mestizo

[manarak]

It always surprises me how people will freak out about simple privacy things (i.e. revealing their ThaiVisa identity), but will sign up for these "registration and monitoring" programs operating under the guise of "loyalty cards" without a second thought. People who freak out about data breaches or the slightest mention of the NSA, are completely willing to hand over all of their personal information to a grocery store (how well do you think that PII data is actually being protected??) and allow all of their purchases to be tracked.

Using current events as a reflection point, apparently its really BAD for the NSA to use telephone record metadata to build a highly protected database of who calls who... BUT its perfectly OK for a department store to build a big, loosely protected database of PII data and complete purchase history.

Think about that for a minute. Anyone with access to the database can do searches like:

• Show me everyone, under the age of 17, who has purchased a pregnancy test kit in the past 18 months.
• show me everyone who's purchased condoms, bottles of ether, rags, and finger puppets ever.
• Show me everyone who buys more than 2 cases of beer per month.
• Give me the home phone numbers and street addresses of all females, under the age of 25, who have purchased KY Jelly and 2 or more bottles of wine in the past 6 months.
• Give me the home addresses of all people of British nationality in Chiang Mai who have made purchases over 4000 THB twice in the past 3 months.
• Etc.

For me, its really hard to justify a very tiny discount or a cheap Chinese steak knife, as appropriate compensation for allowing my personal information to be harvested and then used as an identifier to track my entire purchase history. Just not worth it.

Additionally several studies have shown that stores utilizing loyalty cards are artificially inflating their prices, and using the "discount price" to lower it back to what it would have normally been in the first place.

Something to think about,

-Mestizo

it's easy. one has the freedom to opt in and out of these private for-profit programs.

also, the companies collect data to make more profit, not for potentially later using the data against the customer.

and the companies do not have access to the client's private communications - purchase history is mostly harmless, and one can still just pay cash without showing any discount card if he doesn't wish the purchase to be tracked.

it can not even remotely be compared with NSA-style data collection

[amykat]

I have Rimping Card and shop there every week, usually spending between 1500 baht and 2000 baht. After 18 months I still don't qualify for so much as a teaspoon.

Maybe you don't realize ...at the end of the "gifts" book they have an area for cash coupons, in exchange for points. I think it works out to getting about a 1% discount overall. You can get more "money" per point, if you have a certain larger amount of points, but you can exchange points for 100 baht coupons, or 500 baht, or not sure after that. 100 baht coupons cost more points than larger amounts. So it is better, to save up, I think I save up to around 4000 points, and then get 1000? baht gift coupon? I think I spent about the same as the OP per week and end up with at least 1000 baht a year of cash gift certs.

[jaideeguy]

It always surprises me how people will freak out about simple privacy things (i.e. revealing their ThaiVisa identity), but will sign up for these "registration and monitoring" programs operating under the guise of "loyalty cards" without a second thought. People who freak out about data breaches or the slightest mention of the NSA, are completely willing to hand over all of their personal information to a grocery store (how well do you think that PII data is actually being protected??) and allow all of their purchases to be tracked.

Using current events as a reflection point, apparently its really BAD for the NSA to use telephone record metadata to build a highly protected database of who calls who... BUT its perfectly OK for a department store to build a big, loosely protected database of PII data and complete purchase history.

Think about that for a minute. Anyone with access to the database can do searches like:

• Show me everyone, under the age of 17, who has purchased a pregnancy test kit in the past 18 months.
• show me everyone who's purchased condoms, bottles of ether, rags, and finger puppets ever.
• Show me everyone who buys more than 2 cases of beer per month.
• Give me the home phone numbers and street addresses of all females, under the age of 25, who have purchased KY Jelly and 2 or more bottles of wine in the past 6 months.
• Give me the home addresses of all people of British nationality in Chiang Mai who have made purchases over 4000 THB twice in the past 3 months.
• Etc.

For me, its really hard to justify a very tiny discount or a cheap Chinese steak knife, as appropriate compensation for allowing my personal information to be harvested and then used as an identifier to track my entire purchase history. Just not worth it.

Additionally several studies have shown that stores utilizing loyalty cards are artificially inflating their prices, and using the "discount price" to lower it back to what it would have normally been in the first place.

Something to think about,

-Mestizo

Some people, especially baht conscious middle class Thais and [falangs] will sell their souls to the corporate 'devil' just to think that they are saving a baht, when the reality is that these games are really costing them money at the cash register as well as taking up your time, if you're behind someone cashing in their coupons and you just wanna pay and get out of the store.

There is nothing worse than being behind a person who has take her time to dig into her purse for her credit card, then the game card and the transaction takes 2x as long as mine, which is a simple pay cash and go................unless the wife is with me and she wants to play the game.

NOTHING IS FREE!!

[amykat]

Wow, Mestizo and Jaideeguy,

One of you seems quite paranoid. So what if you buy those things and they can compile a database about that? What will they do with it? Who gives a dam_n??? Personally, I don't buy any of the supposed "offensive" items so I could care less ...but even if I did, why would I care? Who would want to buy such information and for what purposes?

And Jaideeguy, you don't seem very jai dee, if it bothers you that people take advantage of their coupons or discounts. I do this, and it doesn't seem to take any extra time, but I am prepared, with my card, my coupons, my money, all in hand while I am just waiting in line. If it is costing money to do these programs, then the main people who would be losing money, are the ones who don't take advantage of the programs. Take some time, aren't you retired? Put your stamps on a piece of paper, turn in your coupons, and you too can save 100, 200, 300 baht or more, and get a free knife, or two, or five free knives, like I have! If you feel like making fun of those of us who do this, do you also make fun of people who only earn that much in day of work? Personally, I am quite happy when I think of things in terms of "massage hours". For example, I save 300 baht at BIg C in coupons, and get some free knife, and I think " I can get a 2 hour massage" in exchange for that ...which would cost me $200 in my home country ...that seems like quite a worthwhile savings to me!

Edited July 2, 2013 by amykat

[jaideeguy]

Nothing paranoid about my rant on games. I just value my [retired] time and dislike the corporate control that I see happening here in LOS more and more. They all got a game and I don't wanna play, simple as that!!

[Mestizo]

Wow, Mestizo and Jaideeguy,

One of you seems quite paranoid. So what if you buy those things and they can compile a database about that? What will they do with it? Who gives a dam_n??? Personally, I don't buy any of the supposed "offensive" items so I could care less ...but even if I did, why would I care? Who would want to buy such information and for what purposes?

And Jaideeguy, you don't seem very jai dee, if it bothers you that people take advantage of their coupons or discounts. I do this, and it doesn't seem to take any extra time, but I am prepared, with my card, my coupons, my money, all in hand while I am just waiting in line. If it is costing money to do these programs, then the main people who would be losing money, are the ones who don't take advantage of the programs. Take some time, aren't you retired? Put your stamps on a piece of paper, turn in your coupons, and you too can save 100, 200, 300 baht or more, and get a free knife, or two, or five free knives, like I have! If you feel like making fun of those of us who do this, do you also make fun of people who only earn that much in day of work? Personally, I am quite happy when I think of things in terms of "massage hours". For example, I save 300 baht at BIg C in coupons, and get some free knife, and I think " I can get a 2 hour massage" in exchange for that ...which would cost me $200 in my home country ...that seems like quite a worthwhile savings to me!

I am a security guy by trade, so yes, I do spend more time than the average person, analyzing the security and privacy implication of things.

Extremely relevant link:

http://www.nocards.org/faq/index.shtml

-Mestizo

[amykat]

Jaideeguy, I wasn't calling YOU paranoid. And Mestizo, can you just explain to us how collecting this info is going to hurt you? First of all, are you a member of any of the classes of people you listed in an above post? Are you a teenage girl buying a pregnancy test? Are you buying loads of condoms and gels? If you ARE, what in the hell would anyone want to do with that info??

Yes, I agree, if I was applying for a job, and they could have my list of shopping for the last 5 years, from every store, AND I had bought loads of alcohol, condoms, KY gel, pregnancy tests, and I can't even think of what else is available in a store, maybe that wouldn't be good ...but I seriously doubt that is available info to any potential employer. Do you have some info to the contrary?

Really, in Thailand, you don't even have to put your real name down, you can spell it wrong, or totally change it, nobody is checking your ID. Put a fake address, nobody will know or care. Saving 300 bath is certainly worth more than anyone would be willing to pay for your personal shopping list, I am pretty damn sure. Go have a free 2 hour massage and then think about your paranoid thoughts ....maybe they will disappear into thin air.

[Mestizo]

Jaideeguy, I wasn't calling YOU paranoid. And Mestizo, can you just explain to us how collecting this info is going to hurt you? First of all, are you a member of any of the classes of people you listed in an above post? Are you a teenage girl buying a pregnancy test? Are you buying loads of condoms and gels? If you ARE, what in the hell would anyone want to do with that info??

Yes, I agree, if I was applying for a job, and they could have my list of shopping for the last 5 years, from every store, AND I had bought loads of alcohol, condoms, KY gel, pregnancy tests, and I can't even think of what else is available in a store, maybe that wouldn't be good ...but I seriously doubt that is available info to any potential employer. Do you have some info to the contrary?

Really, in Thailand, you don't even have to put your real name down, you can spell it wrong, or totally change it, nobody is checking your ID. Put a fake address, nobody will know or care. Saving 300 bath is certainly worth more than anyone would be willing to pay for your personal shopping list, I am pretty dam_n sure. Go have a free 2 hour massage and then think about your paranoid thoughts ....maybe they will disappear into thin air.

Did you even bother to *READ* the link before spouting off the personal attacks? Alot of your questions are answered in the link. Educate yourself. Please!

-Mestizo

[amykat]

Well, I don't think I was doing any PERSONAL attacks, but you might see things differently. I really didn't want to invest so much time to this, but okay, I will go read your link and come back ...sorry if I missed something really important before.

[amykat]

Yes, okay, I went through your link, quickly ...as I did the first time ...but a bit more. There isn't really a lot there. Sorry. "Is collecting shopping data the same as tapping your phone?" No, I don't think it is. But go ahead and tap my phone. Have a good time and try to find someone who wants to buy this info from you ...good luck!! I, make about 5-10 phone calls a month.

In fact, try to find someone who wants to buy a total, 100% complete package of my life, my sex life, my love life (in case that is different), my family life, my financial life, my social life, my drug/alcohol;/medication life, my shopping, my travels, my religion (which doesn't exist), my whatever, what else is there that I didn't list? My food life? My massage life, my medical life, my pet life ...I will help you sell these things if you can, for 10% of the profits!

Do you all live such a more interesting life, that important people/governments need to know what you are all about?

[elektrified]

It always surprises me how people will freak out about simple privacy things (i.e. revealing their ThaiVisa identity), but will sign up for these "registration and monitoring" programs operating under the guise of "loyalty cards" without a second thought. People who freak out about data breaches or the slightest mention of the NSA, are completely willing to hand over all of their personal information to a grocery store (how well do you think that PII data is actually being protected??) and allow all of their purchases to be tracked.

Using current events as a reflection point, apparently its really BAD for the NSA to use telephone record metadata to build a highly protected database of who calls who... BUT its perfectly OK for a department store to build a big, loosely protected database of PII data and complete purchase history.

Think about that for a minute. Anyone with access to the database can do searches like:

• Show me everyone, under the age of 17, who has purchased a pregnancy test kit in the past 18 months.
• show me everyone who's purchased condoms, bottles of ether, rags, and finger puppets ever.
• Show me everyone who buys more than 2 cases of beer per month.
• Give me the home phone numbers and street addresses of all females, under the age of 25, who have purchased KY Jelly and 2 or more bottles of wine in the past 6 months.
• Give me the home addresses of all people of British nationality in Chiang Mai who have made purchases over 4000 THB twice in the past 3 months.
• Etc.

For me, its really hard to justify a very tiny discount or a cheap Chinese steak knife, as appropriate compensation for allowing my personal information to be harvested and then used as an identifier to track my entire purchase history. Just not worth it.

Additionally several studies have shown that stores utilizing loyalty cards are artificially inflating their prices, and using the "discount price" to lower it back to what it would have normally been in the first place.

Something to think about,

-Mestizo

Exactly why the g/f always gets the discount cards and not me (and for the most part, she always uses a fake name). We did run into a hitch one time at Rimping however, where they require the customer to show ID before redeeming points. The ID has to match the name in the computer. Well we were in a bit of a jam there as 7,200 points were at stake! But this being Thailand, the g/f just said she couldn't explain it and didn't know how such a mistake was possible, they gladly corrected the name in the computer. (Gotta love Thailand for the ease of some things).

I admit I did give Central my correct info when I first moved here as they already had my American Express card in hand, but I might shop at Central twice a year so they aren't collecting much info on me.

[hellodolly]

Jaideeguy, I wasn't calling YOU paranoid. And Mestizo, can you just explain to us how collecting this info is going to hurt you? First of all, are you a member of any of the classes of people you listed in an above post? Are you a teenage girl buying a pregnancy test? Are you buying loads of condoms and gels? If you ARE, what in the hell would anyone want to do with that info??

Yes, I agree, if I was applying for a job, and they could have my list of shopping for the last 5 years, from every store, AND I had bought loads of alcohol, condoms, KY gel, pregnancy tests, and I can't even think of what else is available in a store, maybe that wouldn't be good ...but I seriously doubt that is available info to any potential employer. Do you have some info to the contrary?

Really, in Thailand, you don't even have to put your real name down, you can spell it wrong, or totally change it, nobody is checking your ID. Put a fake address, nobody will know or care. Saving 300 bath is certainly worth more than anyone would be willing to pay for your personal shopping list, I am pretty dam_n sure. Go have a free 2 hour massage and then think about your paranoid thoughts ....maybe they will disappear into thin air.

Did you even bother to *READ* the link before spouting off the personal attacks? Alot of your questions are answered in the link. Educate yourself. Please!

-Mestizo

I read it for a bit. the only thing I saw was that in 1999 they took a survey in the UK.

I stopped when I came to the following

"Q. Who cares if they know what I buy at the grocery store?

I could say the same thing about tapping your phone -- "Who cares if they know what you say to your friends?" How about putting a tracking device in your car? "Who cares if they know where you go?" Heck, why not let them install a camera in your shower? "Who cares if they know what you look like naked?"

Seems like most of the article was written along those lines.

Now I would like to ask a question of equal importance.

Who is going to take the time going through all my purchases at Makro?

What could they possibly gain from it.

For that matter what is Makro selling that I should worry about people finding out about.

OK I admit it I did buy a case of 1 1/2 liter Pepsi Max and a 12 pack of Tiger Balm.

Is my life going to come to an end now.

[Chiengmaijoe]

There are so many people that think everyone here is crazy in one way or another. Thanks for clearing that one up, Mestizo.

My favourite card? Rimping (Himping to us locals). A free toaster, coffee machine and a camera are part of the reason.