Loyalty cards offer genuine savings, says watchdog

Supermarket loyalty cards do offer genuine savings, the UK’s competition watchdog has found, but it said people should still shop around.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it examined 50,000 products on loyalty price promotions across Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Co-op and Waitrose.

It found “very little evidence” that supermarkets were inflating their “usual” prices to make promotions look like a better deal.

But it said that while the discounts were legitimate, its review “has shown that loyalty prices aren’t always the cheapest option, so shopping around is still key”.

“We know many people don’t trust loyalty card prices,” said George Lusty, the CMA’s interim executive director of consumer protection. “Which is why we did a deep dive to get to the bottom of whether supermarkets were treating shoppers fairly.”