Rewards. It’s half-term as I write, after all, so why not reward yourself with something, like a trip out in the car?

Well, ‘why not’ is because, in my experience, roads during half-term are filled with people driving at 35mph absolutely everywhere, regardless of the conditions and speed limit. But still, suggests an advertisement on the radio, you should go to places you wouldn’t otherwise bother with.

It’s an advert for Sainsbury’s, which is offering 10 times the usual number of reward points on its loyalty card – 10 instead of one – for every litre of fuel that you buy.

And so, the advert has it (you can tell that I’ve been on the road a lot recently), there’s a reason for you to invent journeys – to places that you’d never usually go to, ones that are bleedin’ miles away, just so that you can fill your car with fuel and gain these valuable loyalty points.

Now, look, I’ve absolutely no idea if the Sainsbury’s loyalty card scheme is any better or any worse than any other supermarket’s, and I’m damned sure I’m not goingto look it up. But what I do know – because I did look this up – is that if you put 50 litres of fuel in a car to gain 500 loyalty points, then they’re worth £2.50 as in-store savings. 

Which is, I will admit, a recognisable saving on a tank of fuel, but rather a lot less than the £54 it would have cost you to fill the tank with petrol you didn’t need if you hadn’t decided to go to a zoo in a different region of the country in the first place.

Curious strategy, then. Although, if the advertisement instead said: “Fill up with fuel and you can have a free cup of coffee” – which is probably about £2.50 – “to keep you occupied while you sit behind somebody driving at 35mph absolutely everywhere”, it would be the only place I’d ever fill a car.