Your Bank Card and Shopping Discounts - Part 1: Intro
Published May 13th, 2007Here is a shopping related question for you all, when you place all your items on the counter and get ready to pay do you ask the person at the cash register if your bank card entitles you for a discount?
If you replied yes, I’m glad you’re aware of the benefits that comes with your card. If you replied no, I want to know why you don’t take advantage of the special offers your bank provides. To my dismay, when I asked my friends this question most of them replied no. I hope you are more financially savvy. Fashion can be costly at times but I don’t support uninformed shopping. Banks go through a lot of trouble to find stores their customers would be interested in and some of these stores never mention that your card applies for a discount. One friend said she gets embarrassed asking about it. There is no shame in asking for a discount. You’re entitled to it. It’s a service your bank provides as a way to thank you for banking with them.
I decided to write up a series about our local banks and the shopping discounts they offer. For this series I’ll focus on apparel but I may update the posts to include jewelry and beauty products. The goal of this series is to educate you on what discounts are available and at what stores so that you can take advantage of these offers.
OMG! I always used my bank card to pay when I shopped at the malls but I never asked about discounts, I lost all my privilege
Thanks for the info.
ALWAYS ask! What bank do you use? I’m going to write about them alphabetically so stay tuned.
umm just thought i would mention this:
ever wonder why you get a discount if you use the card instead of cash? well its not cos the bank has done a good deed and decided to reward you. sorry tot burst your bubble there.
the way it works is this, the bank and the shop get together and have a chat. bank tells shop to give a 10% discount which bank will cover. shop goes yay! bank goes muahahaha!
now where does bank cover 10% ? not out of its own wallet. that 10% and maybe more monthly comes from you.
statistics show that most people delay paying in full to the point where the interest actually gets huge,…25%, 50%, or more.
so unless you pay your bill off as soon as you see a branch,…in which case you should just go get cash,….and unless the discount is greater than your monthly interest, then youre not exactly getting a discount. they just make it more conveient for you to buy stuff, and you pay for that conveniance.
oh and dont believe what you read about interest being a tiny percent. buy 100KD worth of something and leave it on your card and see how much they really charge. what happens is that they only charge you on stuff from date A to date B. so if you bought something on date B+1 you gotta wait alllll the way to the next bill before it registers, which is where they charge you interest.
credit cards are evil.
skunk those are valid points consumers need to know before they start spending using their credit cards. However not all banks base their store discounts on credit cards. You’ll find after reading my series that many of the banks have special accounts that offer discounts with debit cards (K-NET). K-NET, as I’m sure you know, automatically withdraws the funds from your account. You get a discount and no interest will be accumulated. It’s a win-win situation.
I agree with you credit cards are evil. The only thing worse is credit card debt. Thanks for visiting my site and taking the time to comment. I appreciate it
ahhh i didnt know hey also gave out discounts on Knet.
do the Knet ones first cos i havent been on a shopping spree in a while
Haha! Who do you bank with?
These are great points ! I always use Paypal where possible because of the protection they offer.
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