Material World

Heres one club with a difference. Membership wont give you access to tennis courts or a swimming pool. Neither will there be any bar to gulp down a drink or a lounge to relax in and grab a bite. Its USP lies in an entirely different direction.

Customer Club is all about convenience. Promoted by the Rohan group of companies, members are offered a host of benefits. As of now it is only available for Mumbaites but plans to start operations in Bangalore and Delhi are on the anvil.

Discounts galore

To start with what you will get here in plenty are discounts. They range from 15 per cent right up to 50. How do these discounts work? Once you sign on the dotted line, you are handed a fat glossy diary-sized book called the Value Plus Guide which has endless pages of discount coupons. Should you visit any of the establishments listed, just hand out a coupon. The Value Plus Guide has over 1,000 such discounts. Impressive, no doubt. A caveat though: all the establishments are Mumbai based.

So if you decide to buy your spouse a diamond ring, Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri and Sons, for one, is offering a discount of 50 per cent. This is just a one-time discount. Other establishments may provide an all-year discount. Sampan at Holiday Inn has a yearly discount of 15 per cent.

Interestingly, the establishments covered are totally varied. Besides jewellery, you have a choice of clothes (for instance Benetton), car rentals (like Kent Cars) and beauty products (Shehnaz Herbal, Lakme). Those frequenting fast food joints can check out the coupons for Birdys by Taj, Baskin Robbins and Croissants, to pick just a few. On the entertainment side is a discount offered by Essel World. And for the health conscious there is 10 The Health Spa. Dining out? Restaurants such as Casa Mexicana at The Oberoi and Copper Chimney are listed. However, if you are thinking of entertaining your corporate clients, maybe you should save the coupon for a later date. Picking up the bill and then presenting coupons to get discounts is certainly not good business etiquette.

Travel facilities

Heres a great bonus if you travel abroad frequently. You can get the Countdown book at a discounted rate (the company is still mum on the actual discount). On the similar lines of Customer Club, Countdown is an international club whereby the member can avail of discounts at 70,000 merchant establishments across the globe. So depending on where you are headed: Canada, United States of America, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand or the Caribbean, pick your book (each country has a different one).

Customer Club has also tied up with Cox & Kings to offer what is known as Travel Desk, a one-stop shop to look after the nitty-gritties of all your travel requirements. So members who decide to opt for the services of Travel Desk can request for complimentary airport transfers, free access to the Taj Business Lounge at the Mumbai and Delhi international airports, discounted car rental facilities, free delivery of tickets and tailor-made holiday packages made to suit various budgets. The latter in all probability can be obtained directly through Cox & Kings.

And if you are lucky enough to be selected as a special member who travels frequently, the Club management will offer you a Privilege Gold Card. This card is the result of a tie-up between Cox & Kings Finance and Customer Club. And what you will get are commission-free travellers cheques and on enchashment and surrenders of the dollar or the pound, a 10 paise higher rate than the normal one.

Add-ons

Apart from discounts, the Club is dangling two juicy carrots to woo you. One is a discount offered by Countrywide Finance. You will be able to avail of loans at 16 per cent. That means two per cent less than what is offered to other loan applicants. However, eligiblity for a loan is far from automatic. You have to fulfill whatever be the criteria set by Countrywide.

Another freebie is the insurance cover from the National Insurance Company Ltd. No premium to be dished out by you. And the cover: Rs 10 lakh in the case of death and Rs 1 lakh for permanent disability.

Membership

Interested? Lets see if you qualify. The club is targetting the upper middle class. Professionally speaking, you should be in the rank of a senior executive or above or even self employed. The ideal profile is those with a high spending capacity and who are frequent flyers. Plus points if you are in possession of a car and a credit card, either from Citibank, Standard Chartered or HongkongBank.

On an average, the applicant should be earning around Rs 8,000 a month at the minimum. However, a spokesperson for the company insists that that figure is not a fixed criteria. Factors such as the number of dependents the applicant has or if his spouse is an earning member are taken into account.

Nevertheless, gauging from their target profile, it seems unlikely that a person with a salary of less than Rs 8,000 will qualify. If you fit the bill, membership is not instant. The company takes two to four weeks to carefully scan your application before the card is handed to you.

Should you or should you not? The annual charges are just Rs 4,000 a year. Pretty cheap. And add-on cards, either for your spouse or child, cost just Rs 300 each. But you will be able to make the best of it only if you shop frequently, dine out a lot and travel fairly often.

If you do not fulfill at least two of these criteria, give this club the go-by. As for the promise to refund your money after 10 years, big deal! Rs 4,000 a decade later would be worth peanuts. But remember, these charges are only annual, you have to to renew your membership every year. And no guarantee either that the cost of membership will not jump substantiallyin the future should the concept take off.