K-Plussa kortti ... is it worth it?

pinguin · Post by **pinguin** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:55 am

Hi, I am thinking about getting a K-Plussa kortti and was wondering if it was worth it. Does anyone else here have one? Do you honestly save good money with it or do you just end up spending more money on things you wouldn't normally buy in addition to the things you usually get? The one here in my neighborhood costs 17€. I' m not sure how long it lasts (one year from purchase? expire in December?) so if it's worth it it seems like a good investment long-term but i it's not worth it then I don't want to throw away Euros on a card that doesn't benefit. Please tell me your experiences!

I have already seen the other posting about bonus cards below but I am looking for personal experiences. Plus I am not interested in the Mastercard, just the card that you can swipe to get discounts.

Thanks.

Kati

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NanaM · Post by **NanaM** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:02 pm

Depends on your consuming habits. If you often or regularly buy food in K market, the Plussa kortti will be paid back quite fast. Even faster if you also visit Anttila/Kodin1 shops. There are regularly discounts on products if you have a Plussa kortti.

You also get some money back depending on the amount you paid together with Plussa kortti monthly or so. Not big money, by default you get some coupons but you can ask for automatic transfer of the sum to your bank account. I get a few euros each time.

If you go more often to S-market and S-group shops, consider having the S-etukortti. Many residents in Finland have both cards anyways, any discount is good to take here

wicked lewis · Post by **wicked lewis** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:15 pm

Paid 8,40 for two cards since were a couple. The more you buy, the more bonus you get. Why your paying 17, i have no idea.
Theres some good deals especially on thursdays on cityk-market but prisma is also tempting. If you really want to save, then get the best f both, if you know what i mean.

ajdias · Post by **ajdias** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:00 pm

pinguin wrote:I' m not sure how long it lasts (one year from purchase? expire in December?)

AFAIK these cards can last up to a life time.

K-plussa is another loyalty program, much like the s-etukortti mentioned above. I got mine for 8 Eur when I wanted to buy something that costed a few hundred euros and had a small discount (some 50 or 100 eur) for k-plussa members.

The way to have these cards work for you (as opposed of you working for them

) is to not base your purchasing decisions on their bonuses systems. You'd be amazed how so many people are tricked in their regular purchasing decisions by these programs - from gas to furniture, groceries and home accessories. Sometimes you'll fall for their persuasion, we all do, but if you find yourself shopping on one chain rather than another because of these bonuses you should evaluate your decisions.

Please notice that many of these promotions (eg, a 300 EUR discount in a laptop) in stores affiliated with these chains and programs are only possible because these products are often grossly overpriced. And not only the ones that are discounted

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:45 pm

Cash card is 8.4 € ( https://www.plussa.com/wps/portal/pluss ... eiskortti/ ) which is payable only once (no expiry date) (and secondary cards for family members should be free).
Mastercard is option is free (recent immigrants likely will not qualify), the other based on the policy of individual bank.

Although most of the time I shop in S-market or Lidl, occasionally I want something the other local options don't either have or something that is cheaper in the K-group. The 'bonus' for small family that mostly shops elsewhere than in K-markets is only 0.5%, but some of the discounts are quite OK.

mita · Post by **mita** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:13 pm

The k & s cards are useful. If I get much bonuses at the end of the month it reminds me that I shopped to much at their stores and need to visit Lidl more often.

QUINCY · Post by **QUINCY** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:05 pm

K - plus card can give you a free entrance to some night clubs in town if you like the night life too.

Mark75 · Post by **Mark75** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:49 pm

I don't think you can technically consider yourself a Finnish resident unless you have at least 15 bonus cards in your wallet

But I think if you shop at the K stores, you might as well get it. If you think about it most of the places to buy groceries are S or K and if you are shopping there anyway, might as well use the card and maybe youll get some discount or something in return... If you remember to buy what you went in for, rather than what you can get to get the deals, youll be OK.

I've had my K card for about 9 months and finally today received a 5euro coupon thing that I am guessing is good.. and I rarely shop at K so if I shopped there on a daily basis I'd probably get more sooner.

safi · Post by **safi** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:06 am

well heres my personal experience. I wanted to buy a camera from antilla. It was for 350 eur. The shopkeeper told me that if i had a k-plussa kortti i could get the cam for 200 eur. So i paid 8 eur first to get the card, and then got the cam for 200. So my k-plussa started off with a very good value for its 8 eur price. It saved me 150 eur straight away.
Unfortunately the cards just lying useless with me ever since, since i seldom visit k market, the nearest to my home is alepa, and that only takes s-kortti.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:04 am

safi wrote:well heres my personal experience. I wanted to buy a camera from antilla. It was for 350 eur. The shopkeeper told me that if i had a k-plussa kortti i could get the cam for 200 eur. So i paid 8 eur first to get the card, and then got the cam for 200. So my k-plussa started off with a very good value for its 8 eur price. It saved me 150 eur straight away.

My experience with Anttila "plus" offers is that you'd likely got the camera elsewhere for perhaps 220€ (possibly less). It wasn't bad purchase, but not a great bargain. Of course, if you wanted the camera and did not want to spend more time shopping what you did made perfect sense.

BTW: Referring to the other question you had: You can give your K-Plussa number to Helsingin Energia and get a tiny bit back from your electricity payments. Same applies for phone calls you if you're a Sonera customer.

jmakinen · Post by **jmakinen** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:13 pm

Remember that S and K people making prices ADD up to 5% (eg ABC gasoline!!) to compensate for people getting bonuses (boni?

) so you might as well get cards to get that extra back - you're already paying for it!

safi · Post by **safi** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:21 pm

Rip wrote:My experience with Anttila "plus" offers is that you'd likely got the camera elsewhere for perhaps 220€ (possibly less). It wasn't bad purchase, but not a great bargain. Of course, if you wanted the camera and did not want to spend more time shopping what you did made perfect sense.

Thats quite true, because the same camera was for 200 on gigantti too, but considering that i would have to take time out to visit gigantti, as opposed to just grabbin the stuff from antilla in the nearest mall which i frequently visit, i didnt mind paying 8 eur extra for a card that might benefit me in the future as well. (which it did when i had to go back to buy the memory card for the same cam)

Rip wrote:BTW: Referring to the other question you had: You can give your K-Plussa number to Helsingin Energia and get a tiny bit back from your electricity payments. Same applies for phone calls you if you're a Sonera customer.

Thanks for that piece of advice!

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:32 pm

jmakinen wrote:Remember that S and K people making prices ADD up to 5% (eg ABC gasoline!!) to compensate for people getting bonuses (boni? ) so you might as well get cards to get that extra back - you're already paying for it!

That is my approach too. We have both S-Etu and Plussa cards, but by default favour the S-Etu card. For supermarket shopping we generally prefer Prisma over Citymarket as the selection in our local Prisma is slightly better than Citymarket.

I've tried to summarise below what we spend, what the offers we get are and what we recoup as a percentage of our outlay with both S- and K. I don't consider here the spends of larger, one off items like a Plasma TV or Blu-ray player that we bought at citymarket, as the Plussa card served mainly to bring the price back down to the normal price level in other EU countries.

The reason we mainly use S-chain is that we live over the road from a Sokos which has an S-Market, so it's convenience. We spend on average €5-600 per month there which nets us a bonus of €15-€20 / month. When you factor in the €450 of our "If" insurance payments, then once every three months we get around €35 back. Occasionally (usually November) they have a double bonus month, so if you would normally get 4% back, you get 8%, we've then had around €45-50 back in a month.

Once a year they send out 2x "spend €50 get €10 off" vouchers, and occasionally you get offers of a discount in Amarillo, but that's about it... saves maybe another €50 per annum.

Summary of S-card - spend €6600 p.a., get back €325 = 4.9%

Most of my Plussa spending is at a K-supermarket on my drive home from work, they have an excellent fresh vegetable selection, but little else. We spend around €250-€300 per month on average on K-shizzle, with Neste petrol purchases also counting, about €5 each month lands in our savings account = €60 / year.

We used to get €0.02 / litre (1.5%) heti-etu at our local Neste, worth perhaps €30 per year, but that has ended.

K-supermarket also send offers every few months that save a Euro or two, and if they have decent discounts (on groceries we'd buy anyway), it's only accessible with the Plussa card. That probably saves about €60 again per year.

Summary of Plussa card - spend €3300 p.a., get back €120 = 3.6%

Of course that money is in the price of everything we purchase, but if we didn't bother with the cards we'd be letting them keep around €450 per year of our money. IMO it's worth letting them know our purchasing patterns to claw back €450 of our own cash.

jmakinen · Post by **jmakinen** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:18 pm

http://www.kauppalehti.fi/5/i/talous/uu ... 0110368051

Mark75 · Post by **Mark75** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:18 pm

Rip wrote:BTW: Referring to the other question you had: You can give your K-Plussa number to Helsingin Energia and get a tiny bit back from your electricity payments. Same applies for phone calls you if you're a Sonera customer.

How exactly do you do that? I heard they take the card but don't know how you submit it to them. I just send the money from my Nordea account, so is this something I need to contact them via phone to add to my account?

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