Hi @Garrett-Neo,
Thanks for quick response! I usually fill up at Mobil when I get groceries at Superstore and get PC optimum points + rewards on non-Neo card.
One reason I don’t use Shell is that it uses Airmiles. While Neo rewards are easy to redeem, I find Airmiles to be confusing. With Airmiles, 95 Cash Miles = $10 worth of value at participating reward partners. This exchange rate makes it difficult to calculate what the miles are worth and there is extra hassle involved with redemption because Airmiles only work with participating reward partners. Learning who participating partners are is extra work for the user, which I would rather avoid. I prefer things that are easy to use.
The second issue with Shell is that their locations are in random places and not tied to any grocery store. In practice this means that I would have to make a separate trip just to fill up the tank with Shell when I can fill up the tank and buy groceries at the same time by going the Mobil + Superstore route.
Costco and their gas stations have a similar model that bundles up buying groceries with buying gas. I find Costco’s model to be less convenient because there are so few Costco locations, they are far away and they are not open late. I also think Costco is not good value for money so I don’t shop there regardless.
Safeway and their gas stations also have a similar model, although it does not provide great value because Safeway charges more for the same items as elsewhere and their rewards system incentivizes overspending.
PC points are easy to convert (10k points = $10), provide good value, and can be easily redeemed at the checkout for anything at Superstore, which is conveniently located right next to the gas station. PC Optimum system is most similar in their philosophy to what I found at Neo, but since it’s not supported by Neo, I use a different card that provides a higher cash back on gas to stack it with PC points. Sometimes I use Neo, esp. when I have a premium bundle that gives a boost for cashback on gas, but I can’t easily verify because transactions aren’t searchable in the app.
I joined Neo in 2022, back when it was in the “What if?” mode. I think that a lot of people joined Neo then because they like simplicity, no hassle approach and don’t like being ripped off with hard to understand fees and confusing redemption mechanisms.
The key insight here is that Neo users who chose Neo for convenience, simplicity and value are unlikely to prefer using Neo partners that don’t provide the same level of convenience, simplicity and value.
I understand the temptation to onboard as many partners as possible but for key categories like gas, flights, groceries etc there is value in being more picky with partners to make sure that partners are aligned with Neo values and meet some minimum standards for ease of use. The best scenario is where Neo users can find what they already like about Neo in partners associated with Neo.
I understand that Neo has been expanding the user base beyond those core supporters who don’t like hassle and being ripped off. This could be an opportunity to design user journeys that lead to users to partners based on their user profile (e.g. active Airmiles users would probably like Shell so they can collect miles etc).
