Sainsbury’s Bank: it feels like loyalty isn’t on the cards

While I was obtaining a home insurance quotation of £183 from Sainsbury’s Bank, my husband reminded me that we have a Nectar card, so I went back to the online form and added its number.

I was very surprised to see that the price rose as a result – to £194. When I deleted the card from the order, the price reverted to £183.

This seems like a very odd way to treat loyal customers. Had I remembered to enter the card number in the first place, I would have assumed that this was the best price. I’d never have thought of deleting it to reduce the premium. You wonder how many others may have overpaid as a result of this.

SP, Hitchin

I have long felt that life is too short for Nectar and other reward schemes, but have never thought that people could be being charged more to use them. Sainsbury’s Bank has blamed a technical error for your experience. It has apologised and provided a £10 Nectar credit as a gesture of goodwill.

Its explanation is that the system recognised that a Nectar card was registered to your address, and that it had automatically applied the “Nectar preferential rate”. The act of you adding the number should not have changed the quoted price, it says, and claims it is not aware of this happening to other customers.

This week I went online and did a home insurance quote with Sainsbury’s Bank and the price barely changed when I added my wife’s Nectar card.

Has anyone else noticed this happening? Perhaps readers should get two quotes – one with their loyalty card added, and one without.

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