Usually loyalty points are reserved for the purchase of toothpaste and toilet paper, but now you can rack up bonuses on designer spends. Mywardrobe.com has become one of the first luxury e-tailers to offer customers a loyalty card.

The online fashion company, which stocks brands such a Mulberry, Anya Hindmarch and Ossie Clark, says it has launched the scheme to fit in with the nation's new frugal mentality.

Lauren Cleak, PR and Marketing director of the website, says, "We wanted to give something back to our returning customers. As a retailer of designer brands, we can not compete on price, so a loyalty card was a perfect alternative to give something back"

The website's traffic has increased 144 per cent in the last year and Cleak says she believes luxury customers' confidence is increasing in shopping on the web. "People have been scared to put their details online, but we find if customers have used us once, they come back again."

Cleak says they have launched the scheme in time for the debut of menswear on the site in January: "Our research showed that men really rated schemes like the Liberty in-store loyalty card, so we're hoping this will appeal to them."

For every pound a customer spends, they receive one point. After earning 500 points, customers are sent a £20 voucher. It may sound like a slow process, but on a website that sells £500 IT bags like they're going out of fashion (which - depending on whom you ask - they are) you'll be totting up vouchers in no time.

So in these economically turbulent times, as you make your end-of-the-world style splurge on designer gear, you now pick up loyalty points just in case the credit crunch doesn't turn out to be Armageddon.

As an added incentive for the next two days (until Friday evening), customers can get double reward points on purchases. Cue a virtual fashionista trolley dash to the checkout.

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