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Retailers sensing that members of their loyalty programs are more valuable customers now have hard facts to back up their gut instincts. According to a survey of holiday spending, participants have more to spend -- and they do spend it.

During the past holiday season, loyalty scheme enrollees spent nearly $1200, or 14% more than other consumers. That is, in part, because they have it: 24% have incomes in excess of $100,000, compared with only 5% of non-enrollees.

But just because they have the higher incomes doesn't mean they are averse to bargains, rewards and other perks: Nearly half of all consumers who earn more than $50,000 "always" or "frequently" used their loyalty cards in conjunction with holiday purchases. Among those who made under $50,000, only 36% used their cards as often.

These programs exert a pull on overall spending. Fifty-eight percent of enrollees said their memberships influenced where they shopped -- and that figure jumped to 62% among those who spent more than $1,000.

Loyalty scheme enrollees shop throughout a number of channels. While nearly half of the non-enrolled consumers did the vast majority of their shopping exclusively in-store, less than one quarter of program participants did so. Two-thirds also shopped online, 41% via the mail (both catalog and direct mail) and one-third made purchases over the phone.

The demographics that correlate with higher incomes also link to loyalty program participants. These consumers are more highly educated, and more are in their peak earning years (between 30 and 60) than their counterparts. And women were much more likely to cite the influence of loyalty programs than men -- 63% of the fair sex indicated enrollment made an impact their purchases, compared with 51% of males.

These results were based on a study of 722 consumers. The study was conducted by Epsilon, a marketing services firm.