I love the fact you're showing the 225 signatures image which was posted when the petition was under a week old! So who's the one spinning it when you deliberately quote old info and the petition was over 600 when you actually did post? The petition is relatively new (about 3 weeks old) as it was created by a new contributor to the campaign.
That's over 600 people who've bothered to sign up to change.org to sign the petition. I can't see that many people caring if they scrapped Nectar.
As someone else pointed out, unfortunately we can't FoI VTEC. I would love to know how many people have stopped booking third party tickets through the ECML site, the commission of which was more than enough to fund the scheme. There's now NO incentive to book third party tickets through this site, if you want Nectar then you need to book through FirstGroup to get points on all tickets.
Can I just say what a crazy thing to say? Of course we know most people used their points on train tickets. That was the main point of the scheme! I don't think we need a FoI request to prove that most people did that, it was pretty much a given. But to get the free tickets you needed to earn the free tickets. That's the whole idea of a loyalty scheme (which Nectar fails at) it encouraged us to (a) travel by rail, (b) book tickets through their website and (c) upgrade to first class. On the other hand Nectar (a) is currently giving more points for fuel than rail travel, (b) encourages booking through a FirstGroup website and (c) offers no incentive to upgrade.
So you want me to give up because YOU said so? I ask you why? What makes you say what I can dedicate my time to? You may be surprised but the support has risen since March. That's how we've appeared more active because there's more people working on it. Even if I moved on, they wouldn't.
It was the best loyalty scheme in the UK and now we've got one that actually gives you more points if you drive (10x offer on Sainsbury's fuel) than take the train!
As someone said to me a few days ago, the good thing about those that tell you to give up is they quickly give up telling you to give up. We had something great, we have rights to stand up for what we believe in, why should we give up when some company takes over with loads of marketing spin of how great they are, describing Nectar as a 'truly rewarding experience', we've had proper loyalty schemes on the ECML since GNER days!
Some people may be happy to sit back and let changes for the worse happen, doesn't mean we all have to.
I think that SaveECRewards is doing a brilliant job. The thing that really winds me right up with Virgin is not particularly that they have scrapped the scheme its self (although it does) but that they are forever crowing on about listening to customers.
I was a rewards customer pretty much since the beginning. I had a first class return to Inverness and two to London out of the scheme. These were all off peak and probably cost EC very little to provide. In return I booked all my tickets for every journey with them and I will guess the commission they earned for trips like Manchester to Birmingham must have more than paid for my 'free' trips.
I can not ever see myself having enough nectar points to get a free trip anywhere so I'm not even bothering to collect them - it's not worth the hassle. Now I'm booking all of my rail trips through another operator's website.
The only way that a company will know that their customers are unhappy is if people keep telling them. VTEC keep burying their head in the sand though.
It seem that there is a very easy get out to save face for VTEC. Keep Nectar and bring back Rewards. Make rewards redemption available against rail related products (upgrades, lounge access, tickets) only - so no more cases of wine. Keep nectar for occasional travellers who just want a few points but who won't be travelling enough to make rewards worth their while.
SaveECR keep up the good work!