Two-word warning issued over Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons loyalty cards

Supermarket loyalty cards give genuine savings, a watchdog has said. The Competition and Markets Authority has found a whopping 92 per cent of loyalty-price items are real deals, but it has also urged customers and shoppers to "shop around."

The CMA reviewed 50,000 products with loyalty price options and found 92% offered a saving against the supermarkets’ usual price. On Wednesday, the watchdog said shoppers could make an average saving of between 17% and 25% buying loyalty-priced products at the five supermarkets examined: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, the Co-op and Morrisons.

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

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“After analysing tens of thousands of products, we found that almost all the loyalty prices reviewed offered genuine savings against the usual price – a fact we hope reassures shoppers throughout the UK.

“While these discounts are legitimate, our review has shown that loyalty prices aren’t always the cheapest option, so shopping around is still key. By checking a few shops, you can continue to stretch your hard-earned cash.” Sue Davies, at the consumer group Which?, said the CMA should continue to monitor loyalty pricing to ensure retailers stuck to the law, which demands that the “usual” price flagged by retailers has been in place recently and for at least as long as the discount.

“Two-tier loyalty pricing has become a common practice across retailers. It’s therefore reassuring that the CMA has found that most of the prices it looked at across supermarkets offered genuine savings against the usual price. Which? has also looked at prices for thousands of products and repeatedly found examples of loyalty price offers that aren’t as good as they seem.”