Marketeers at Boots have told millions of pensioners that the loyalty benefits on their Advantage cards have been “upgraded” when in fact they have been downgraded.

Until recently the over-60’s got a 10% discount on own-brand products, and then 4 Advantage points (4 pence) for every pound spent. This meant that products priced at £10 would cost £9 with the 10% discount and then attract a further discount of 4 pence in the pound on £9 (36 pence) making a total of £8.64. Now, under what Boot’s slippery marketeers describe as an upgrade the number of Advantage points has been increased to 10 per £1 but the 10% discount scrapped, so what used to cost £8.64 now costs £9.

Unfortunately for Boot’s wily marketing department other Boot’s staff were more honest with customers telling them that under the new scheme “You are actually slightly worse off”, a comment that was picked up by the BBC’s Watchdog programme, along with some comments from pensioners such as “Boots are obviously assuming that anyone over 60 can’t do the maths”.