Everyone falls into the trap: behind the points, gifts and discounts, loyalty programs suck the wallets of the most loyal customers.
Each time, it’s the same scenario: you give your number at the checkout, you scan a code on your phone, you accumulate points each time you go. In exchange, some discounts, free products, exclusive invitations. But, in reality, these loyalty cards are not just for rewards. They record everything: what you buy, when, at what price, and even how often you take advantage of promotions.
Thus, each purchase becomes information. Brands know if you are more impulsive or rational, if you buy at full price or only on sale, if you are loyal to a brand or ready to change at the slightest discount. These profiles then make it possible to predict your behavior and adjust offers accordingly. This is where a still little-known phenomenon appears: “surveillance-based pricing”. Privacy expert Mark Weinstein sums it up this way: “It involves companies using your personal data to determine the price of a product or service.”
Clearly, instead of displaying the same price for everyone, brands calculate what you would be willing to pay. And there is no shortage of examples. A Starbucks program member found that his app offered fewer promotions in months when he drank more coffee. Airlines already adjust prices according to profiles. “Two people sitting side by side (on a plane) often paid very different prices, not only because they booked at different times, but also because the algorithm, powered by artificial intelligence, assessed their willingness to pay differently,” explains Mark Weinstein.
In distribution, same logic. Amazon changes the average price of a product every ten minutes. These deviations are not errors: they are permanent tests to see how far the customer can go without giving up on the purchase. Nothing illegal here. This is “price discrimination”, an old business practice, simply perfected by technology. “What has changed,” says Mark Weinstein, “is the means they now deploy to obtain your data and the way in which they use it.” Loyalty cards, which have become connected applications, are at the heart of the system. The system therefore does not create loyalty: it identifies it, measures it and makes it profitable.
Clearly, the faithful are not always rewarded. It sometimes becomes the pricing reference, the one the company can count on, even without a reduction. While newcomers benefit from promotions, regulars pay full price, convinced they are getting a good deal. It’s up to them to compare prices and open their eyes to check if the offer is worth it…
