Common to get a big discount on the first purchase. That way it looks something like “just take 5 minutes to sign up here and you’ll get $30 off your purchase today”. I feel bad for the staff that have to push it, which gets me frustrated because I just want to buy my things and go, so I end up being rude to them.

I think part of the solution is to add some regulation that say that you should be able to close the account in the same way you open it. Let me sign up, get the $30 discount, pay the bill, close the account, and have them delete my personal information so I can do it over again next time. Few people doing that and it won’t be worth the effort for business to process everything.

In the US, most grocery stores have made it so that you don't get their sale prices unless you have their membership card. So you're going to pay several dollars more for declining that membership card.

We were at a grocery store halfway across the country last summer during a road trip, and the woman asked if we had a card for that store, and of course we didn't, because it's not a chain near us. She held up a bag with 16 different grocery store chains on it and asked if we had any of those, and one of them was a chain my in-laws have in their area, so she tried their phone number and it worked.

In my Electonics store chain in Italy it was "if you have our card, for every 5€ spent you get 1 point. For 100 points you get 5€ discount".

I opened a Macy's card and never used it after the initial purchase because it never gave me any discounts.