... the fact the prices are inflated to cover the "cost" of giving you the WW scheme.
This is true - well it was initially. There looked to be some teething problems and woollies added the savings before taking them off again. That wasn't cool.
But I haven't seen any of those recently, or if they are there, easy to avoid.
The only orange tickets I buy are either because (a) the final price after orange ticket is lower than the regular price, or (b) the price with orange ticket is the same, but I get $ back.
But I have to be prepared to buy
Pine-o-clean instead of
Ajax, or
Mortein instead of
Raid (ie products which are essentially same same with no reduction in quality).
Sure I might not earn points on every spend, but the points from every second or third spend are far outweighing the one or two points I would have usually gained on each spend.
Why are so many people unhappy? Probably a mixture of not liking change, and not understanding how to make the most of the system. Same with FF programs. If you were casually looking to redeem your points for a first or business class award you'd be sorely disappointed. In order to make the program work you have to know when awards are released, and how to look for space on alternative routings.
Did Woollies add points back because people 'saw through the scheme'? It might have been that some people didn't
want to see the benefits.