Most shoppers' wallets nowadays are filled with a variety of discount and member cards. This is a relatively late development in Thailand.

Arguably, the Central Group and Tops Supermarket were the first to implement shopping discount cards in their stores. Reward (or spot) can be collected and card holders receive discount coupons for groceries. Most other retailers started providing shopping discount cards later. We will try to summarize some of the cards and discounts available. Some cards are worthwhile, some just increase the weight of your wallet, with little real benefits.

In most cases, cards are actually not heavily promoted. Only on occasion, a cashier will ask you if you want to get a discount card. I guess it only happens when it is not too busy in the store. You will usually have to fill a form, and some of the questions asked may be a bit intrusive.

Spots Rewards Card (Tops supermarkets, Central Food Hall at CentralWorld and Central Chitlom)

10 baht spent will get you one reward point. 10 reward points have a value of one baht. Certain goods purchased will earn you extra reward points. In summary, 100 baht spent will get you one baht discount.

For many years, a lot of discount coupons were sent by mail, like 60 baht discount coupon, if you spend 1000 baht in the shops and so on. On top of that there would be a discount coupon that could amount to hundreds of baht, depending on how much you spent at the supermarket.

As of 2020/2021 Tops supermarkets and Central Food Hall have done away with the 'paper' coupons. Nowadays, you have to check the points you gathered on your sales slip, and then ask the cashier to use to points for a discount, at check-out. You should have your mobile phone with you, because you will need to give an OTP code (or something like that).

Occasionally, if you spent a certain amount, you will get an extra discount coupon, which you pick up at the customers' counter. The whole system has become a bit more cumbersome, just to save some paper costs, we assume.

 

M Card (The Mall Group, Gourmet Market at Siam Paragon and Emporium)

The M Card is also used to accumulate points at the department stores. For groceries it works as follows :

Every 25 baht spent will earn you one 'point'. 800 points collected can be exchanged for a coupon valued at 100 baht. So 20,000 baht spent, earns you 100 baht. This is a discount (from collecting points) of 0.5%.

Gourmet Market (at Siam Paragon) offers locally produced and imported groceries.

 

When checking out groceries, you will receive a discount for purchases of more than 800 baht, of approximately 5 %. Some goods are excluded (discounted products, alcoholic beverages, tobacco). If you go shopping daily at Siam Paragon and spent more than 800 baht each time, you would be able to 'save' more by getting discounts, than by using the coupons sent to you by Spot Rewards card. But in our opinion, similar goods, are priced higher at Gourmet Market, than they are at Central Food Hall or Tops supermarkets. You can also accumulate points on your total sales, for which you can collect discount coupons. In this case, have some identification ready, when you collect your coupons (copy of passport, seems OK for this purpose).

Villa Market

Villa Market introduced a card at the end of 2010. The card is called 'Villa Market'. 20 baht spent will earn you 1 point. 500 points will earn you a 100 baht discount. So 10,000 baht spent, earns you 100 baht, for an overall discount of 1 %.
There are no obvious other coupons on top of this, and in the store we did not notice (if there are, there are few) any specially discounted goods for card holders.
We found out later that Villa Market now charges 50 baht for a member card. So basically, you have to buy 5,000 baht worth of goods, to just recuperate the money you spent on your membership.

Other cards, beside those available from grocery retailers :

Home Pro

HomePro has issued a discount card called 'Card Home'.
30 baht spent will earn you 1 point. 1000 points have a value of 100 baht.
So every 30,000 baht spent, will earn you 100 baht, a discount value of 0.33%
When becoming a member, you also receive a number of discount coupons for a selection of products.

Asia Books (includes Bookazine) :

Paying 200 baht will get you the discount card for books at Asia Books and Bookazine (the card has no name). With the card you get a discount of 10% on books (that are not already discounted). This is a substantial discount for once. Remember though, that recent publications still may be cheaper if you get them at Kinokuniya. Kinokuniya also offers discount card, but we recall it is rather expensive, and not really of great benefit to the casual reader.

SF Senior Card

If you are older than 60, you can get the SF Senior Card which allows you substantial discounts at all SF Movie Theatres.