OK, so, lets say that your brother has saved £45 per month. That is a very small price for any super market chain to pay for the info they now ave about your brother and his family. Especially since that is not actually money in your borthers pocket. That would be far too expensive for the cahain to supply to every customer how ever. From the point of view of saving money your brother thinks he's getting a good deal. From the point of view of stores look at it like this.

They buy a tin of beans for 5p and sell it for 25p. Of course they can offer buy one get one free because they still make at least 10p profit per can. They dont give away anything. When it comes to air miles and money off fuel the same principals apply. They buy 10 million air miles for 1 million pounds the make 20 million on selling products to people who think they are getting a good deal.

The loyalty cards ARE a way of gethering customer info. I got my info from working for a chain of stores that has loyalty cards. British customers know them as GAME, American customers know them as ELECTRONICS BOUTIQUE. The sole reason for bringing in the cards was so that they could identify more easily with the people spending money in-store. What age group, what lifestyle etc. Lets face it, without loyalty cards they would only know which products are sold, thats it, no other info could be gathered except credit card numbers and even if they have your credit card number it is of no marketing use unless they know about you personally. It really is all done so that they no which sectors they should spened money in and which sectors bring the most profit back to them.

Good luck with the golf hehe ;)

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FPRULES