- Guides
- Best Loyalty Cards 2020
Loyalty Schemes
Written by: Rory
Published Nov 11th, 2020
High street loyalty schemes allow you to earn points on your shopping, give you access to exclusive in-house rewards, and could even offer substantial price discounts. But is one service, better than all the others?
It all depends on what you, as a customer, want. You may want to save some cash on your daily coffees, or reduce the sting of your weekly groceries, so what should, and shouldn’t you sign up to? Below, we’ve compiled a list of the best high street loyalty schemes.
Sainsburys
The Nectar Card is Sainsbury’s loyalty card of choice. But this isn’t exclusive to Sainsbury’s stores. In fact, you can gather points at hundreds of different brands, including Argos, eBay and Expedia. However, for many of these establishments, your points can only be collected if you are shopping online.
Online, or at Sainsburys, one Nectar point will be accumulated for every £1 you spend. Therefore, 500 Nectar points are worth £2.50 – which you can spend at the till or online. On top of this, you will receive weekly updates with personalised offers every Friday, via the app.
Tesco
Similarly, to Sainsburys, the Tesco Clubcard allows you to collect one point for every £1 you spend in store and online, and one point for £2 of fuel. You can also earn points if you have a Tesco credit card, account with Tesco mobile or current account with Tesco bank.
Every three months you will receive vouchers based on the numbers of points you have accumulated previously. Or, you can use the codes presents on these vouchers at one of Tesco’s Reward Partners, where points are often tripled in value! Partners include Pizza Express and other restaurants.
Additionally, you can complete a short survey on the Tesco website on your latest shop with Tesco to earn an extra 25 ClubCard points.
Boots
The Boots Advantage card offers one of the best point-to-pound ratios, earning you four points for every £1 you spend at Boots.
To use these points, simply present your card at the point of payment, or select the Advantage card icon at the online checkout. Other ways to earn extra points include, downloading the Boots App for 200 points, and signing up to the Boots newsletter for 100 points.
However, one downside of the Advantage Card is that you cannot earn points on pharmaceutical staples such as prescriptions or gift vouchers. Also, you cannot use your points to part-pay for an item and if you do not use your card for two years, your built-up points will be lost.
Superdrug
Superdrug’s scheme is the Health & Beauty Card; allowing you to collect points instore and online. In line with their competitors, Superdrug offer you the chance to earn one point per £1 spent. However, unlike their fellow high street brands, Superdrug want you to use your points in multiples of 100.
This means that you can to have use 100, to get £1 off, and so on. But, unlike Boots, you can part-pay for items with your points. For example, if your total comes to £3.50, you can spend 300 Health & Beauty Card points, equating to £3, and then pay the difference, 50p, in real money.
Also, members do benefit from free standard delivery on online orders worth over £10 (it is £15 for non-members), special discounts every Thursday and a special treat every year on your birthday!
Co-op
Co-op do not offer you points per purchase. Instead, when you buy certain Co-op branded products in store, 5% of what you have spent will be put onto your Co-op Membership account. This total can then be spent on anything in Co-op food stores. However, you will not benefit from buying items such as postage stamps, fuel, cigarettes or clearance items.
One benefit of owning a Co-op Membership card is that 1% of your totally shop will be donated to local charitable causes in your local community, a principle held exclusively by Co-op. Another upside is the discount you will receive on Co-op branded services, such as insurance and legal services.
Starbucks
To use the Starbucks card, you have to load money onto the physical card using their app. You use this to pay for your purchases, earning you ‘Stars’ for every beverage bought. At the beginner stage of card ownership, or ‘Green Level’, you will earn a free drink every 15 stars. If you purchase 50 beverages in a year, you will then be upgraded to ‘Gold Level’, where you will earn the same star-to-beverage ratio, but you can add extras to your beverage free of charge.
However, one downside is the requirement of 50 purchases per year to remain at this ‘Gold Level’ alongside as the necessary presence of pre-loaded money on your card. Plus, if you do not use the card for two years, your stars will disappear.
Costa
With the Costa Coffee Club loyalty scheme, you can five points per £1 spent. This also applies to the Costa Express machines you see in supermarkets and service stations.
Other perks include, if you’re near a Costa Coffee, you can speed up the ordering process you can order before you arrive using the mobile app. Then you can just pop in and pick it up! Aside from this, Costa offers regular offers to earn extra points per purchase at random times of the year.
However, to earn enough points to get a free drink, you will have to order just under 30 cups of coffee – costing you close to £70!