§2.3 Loyalty programmes and personalised price reductions

COMMISSION NOTICE – Guidance on the interpretation and application of Article 6a of Directive 98/6/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on consumer protection in the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers · European Union

Article 6a of the PID does not apply to seller’s customer loyalty programmes, such as discount cards or vouchers, which entitle the consumer to a price discount on all seller’s products or on identified product ranges during extended continuous periods (e.g. 6 months, 1 year) or which allow accumulation of credits (points) for future purchases. Article 6a of the PID does not apply either to real personalised price reductions that do not have the nature of ‘announcing’ the price reduction. A typical example of such price reductions are those resulting from the consumer’s prior purchases with the seller concerned, such as when the consumer receives a ‘20 % off’ voucher upon the purchase, valid for the next purchase until end of the month. Other examples of real personalised price reductions falling outside the scope of Article 6a are reductions granted on special occasions for that consumer, such as upon signing up to the loyalty programme or on the consumer’s marriage or birthday, as well as reductions applied at the time of the purchase that have not been ‘announced’ in advance. Such loyalty programmes and personalised offers continue to be assessed under the UCPD (see sections 2.8.2. and 4.2.8 of the Guidance on the UCPD (17)). In contrast, Article 6a of the PID will be applicable to those price reductions, which, even though presented as personalised, are in reality offered/announced to consumers in general. Such situation could occur where the trader makes available ‘vouchers’ or discount codes to potentially all consumers visiting the brick and mortar shop or the online shop during specific periods. Examples could be campaigns such as: — ‘Today 20 % off when using the code XYZ’; or — ‘This weekend 20 % off on everything for loyalty members only’. where the code/the loyalty programme is accessible/used by many or the majority of customers. In these cases, the trader must comply with the requirements of Article 6a, i.e. ensuring that the ‘prior’ price for all the goods concerned is their lowest publicly available price in the last 30 days (see section 2.1. on general price reduction announcements).

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07