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> What was the point of the loyalty card then?

the main point of loyalty cards was (and still is) data collection (which you've managed to work around) but they are also being used to help condition the public into accepting the idea that some people get (or even "deserve" to get) different prices than other people for the exact same items because of who or what they are.

For example:

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/supermarkets-introduce-perso...

https://risnews.com/safeway-offers-personalized-pricing-prog...

Businesses always try to frame this as allowing them to offer "deals" to you, but honestly what they want is to raise prices just for you. They stand to make a killing on personalized dynamic pricing. It could massively inflate their profits (entirely at your expense) but what has been standing in their way so far is that consumers find personalized pricing to be invasive, unfair, and discriminatory. Businesses are working very hard to get the public to accept personalized pricing though and loyalty cards/programs are seen as a way to help that.

Unless you like being ripped off and being taken advantage of, try to resist and push back against personalized pricing when you see it.

See: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41272-019-00224-3