Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons join forces to link their loyalty programs

Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. and Tim Hortons are hoping to perk up their customer bases by linking their loyalty programs.

Under a partnership launched between the home goods retailer and cafe giant on Wednesday, customers who link their Triangle and Tims Rewards accounts will earn between two and five per cent in Canadian Tire money in addition to Tims points on select Tims purchases.

The arrangement is meant to draw Tims customers to Canadian Tire and vice versa.

Right now, 53 per cent of Triangle Rewards customers are enrolled in both loyalty programs. Canadian Tire has about 12 million Triangle Rewards members and 1,600 locations across its banners. Tims counts eight million loyalty program users and 4,000 restaurants in Canada.

By uniting, “both Triangle Rewards will grow and Tim Hortons reward members will grow,” Darryl Jenkins, Canadian Tire’s executive vice-president and chief development officer, said in an interview.

How much Canadian Tire money shoppers earn will depend on whether they use a Triangle credit card to pay and what they buy.

Canadian Tire money can be redeemed for savings on purchases at the retailer as well as its other banners, including SportChek, Mark’s and Party City. Tims points can be used to purchase food and beverages at the chain.

The arrangement came about organically, said Jenkins and Hope Bagozzi, Tims’ chief marketing officer.

Canadian Tire and Tims executives sit on many of the same boards, often network with one another and their companies sponsor many of the same events, so it made sense for them to explore if they could boost the reach of their loyalty programs together.

“Wouldn’t it be great to add more value together” was the thinking, Bagozzi recalled.

But Liza Amlani, principal and co-founder of the Retail Strategy Group, suspects “this is less about customer delight and more about two legacy brands scrambling for incremental share in an oversaturated loyalty market.”

“Canadians are already juggling too many programs, and unless the value proposition is simple, transparent and genuinely rewarding, this risks becoming just another corporate tie-up that benefits the brands more than the shoppers,” she said in an email when the partnership was teased last September.

Canadian Tire first announced the partnership almost a year ago but waited until Wednesday to launch it and reveal how it will work.

The year in between both milestones was spent ensuring the mechanics of the partnership will work on a technical level.

Jenkins said it was by chance that it’s launching “at a really interesting time” — just after the U.S. hit Canada with a fresh round of tariffs and as Canada prepares to implement its own round of retaliatory levies in September.

“We certainly didn’t plan it this way,” he said.