I Should be a Quadruple Platinum Member at the Grocery Store

My excitement over a $12 coupon I received from the checker at the grocery store turned to frustration after thinking about how much money I spend on groceries each month and the best they can do is give me $12??? If this was an airline, I’d be a quadruple platinum member.

Groceries are the second most expensive item in our budget after the mortgage each month, which is why I go nuts when food (especially milk) is tossed out daily. This was until I got my $12 coupon. I appreciated the gesture at first, but then I began to think about it and just became annoyed. If I spent thousands of dollars on airline tickets each year, then I would be riding in first class, be served free drinks and get free tickets to Hawaii. But at the grocery store I get $12, a nickel a gallon discount on my gas (sometimes) and a thank you. Now I understand the grocery stores would argue they don’t have the profit margins to buy their customers free airline tickets, but the last time I checked Wal-Mart and other grocers were profitable and the airlines were filing for bankruptcy. Maybe that’s the point, but what about a REAL rewards program at the grocery store.

If you walk up to the ticket counter and flash a Quadruple Platinum (QP) member card at the airport, then you get free luggage check, go through the non-existent line for security clearance, get preferred seating, early boarding, free upgrades and other goodies. Why can’t the grocery stores do that for me???? Here’s the idea. For starters, in the parking lot I flash my QP card and get a decent parking spot so I don’t have to push my two grocery carts full of stuff a half mile to my sun-baked car when I am finished. Or, maybe free valet parking for me and the lady who has her baby, toddler and 5-year-old at the store buying two different sizes of diapers, boxes of wipes, gallons of formula and another grocery cart full of food (they must live in a tent or out of their car because I’m not sure how they have any money left over for anything else each month, or they’re billionaires).

Then, once in the store, QP members have a special cart that is clean and the wheels run straight, free upgrades on certain items – orange roughy for the price of catfish and maybe some tickets for a free drink to take the edge off for the times when you are there with your kids. I think special lines for QP members would be nice as well, so instead of taking a number and waiting 20 minutes at the deli counter, meat counter…etc., there is a special line just for the QP members. Then, at checkout, you get another special line for QP members that’s separate from the regular line that is 19 people deep and the express lane that is filled with mostly single people that spend $20 a week on groceries and can carry everything they just bought on their bike.

If all of this is too much to ask, then 4 roundtrip tickets to Maui will work.

© Johnny Hea – 2012 All Rights Reserved