Make the most of your loyalty cards

Follow these tips and double, triple or even quadruple the value of your loyalty points!

Britons are sitting on 5.2 billion pounds of unused loyalty card points, according to a new survey by the SUBWAY food chain.

Three-quarters of those questioned said they thought loyalty cards were a good way of saving money. However, a third don’t use them because they forget to carry them around; and a quarter can’t be bothered to work out what the points mean.

In The best loyalty schemes in the UK, here at lovemoney.com, we recently outlined the main benefits of each scheme, and analysed how they compared with one another.

Here, I’m going to highlight some top tricks to use if you want to make the most of three of the UK’s main reward programmes.

Boots Advantage card

First, it’s worth using the Extra Offers Kiosks you’ll find in many Boots stores. These machines will often give you money-off coupons and time-limited offers that you won’t otherwise find.

Just stick your Advantage Card in the machine and it will tell you what discounts are available.

You can also score extra points by joining one of Boots’ membership clubs, particularly if you regularly buy a particular group of products.

For example, the Boots Parenting Club gives double points on over 1,000 baby products.

It’s also a good idea to pick up the Boots Health & Beauty magazine in-store. It’s free to Advantage Card holders, and often carries extra points offers and incentives.

Finally, check out the Boots Recycle website to get more Advantage Card points under your belt. The initiative lets you swap your old mobile phone, MP3 player, digital camera or sat nav for points, which you can then collect from any Extra Offers Kiosk.

For example, you can currently trade an Apple iPhone 3G 8Gb for a substantial 10,333 Advantage Card points.

Nectar card

One of the best ways to boost the value of Nectar points is not to spend them in high street stores like Sainsbury’s. This is because each point is usually worth a lot more when spent online, via the Nectar website.

If possible, wait until Nectar launches a seasonal promotion like its big summer sale - your points will often be worth twice as much as before. And make sure you’re signed up to receive email updates from Nectar, so you hear about the special offers as soon as they happen.

At the moment, you can also get double Nectar points on your Sainsbury’s shopping for two years when you take out a Sainsbury’s Finance product. And if you take out two new products, it means you get three times your normal points.

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You can find full details of the offer on the Sainsbury’s Bank website. Remember that it’s only good value if your chosen product is right for you; don’t be tempted into taking out a mediocre financial product because of the extra points!

A slightly different way to double your Nectar points is to take out a Sainsbury’s Finance Nectar credit card, and use it to pay for your Sainsbury’s shopping.

This way, you’ll get double Nectar points on your Sainsbury’s shopping for two years. And you’ll also earn Nectar points when you use your Sainsbury's Nectar Credit Card elsewhere - although you’ll only get one point for every £5 spent.

Just remember to always clear your card balance on a monthly basis - or the interest you’re charged will almost certainly outweigh any points benefits.

Tesco Clubcard

The best way to boost the value of Tesco Clubcard points is to trade them in for Tesco Clubcard rewards tokens. This will make a huge difference, because every £10 in Clubcard vouchers turns into £40 worth of rewards tokens.

These tokens can then be spent on a wide range of items and events, including books, toys, gifts, cinema tickets and hotel breaks.

At the moment, you can also earn points when you register your Clubcard with eon and pay your energy bills. Customers who register for the scheme now will receive one point for every £2 spent.

As always there are plenty of terms and conditions - you can find out more about the initiative here.

As with the other loyalty schemes, it’s worth joining the Tesco Clubcard mailing list, so you find out about any points promotions as and when they come up.

For example, there’s currently a double points promotion, which means you can collect two Clubcard points for every £1 spent in-store or online.

And if you join a particular Clubcard club, points promotions and other discounts will be sent to you quite regularly.

When you use a Tesco Bank Clubcard credit card, you can get five points for every £4 you spend at Tesco, and one point for every £4 you spend elsewhere.

However, remember that you already get four points for every £4 spent at Tesco using your Clubcard alone; so this isn’t a very substantial points boost.

Finally, remember that you can exchange Clubcard points for Airmiles. And Airmiles can be used to save money on all sorts of trips and items, not just flights.

You can check out the full list of things you can spend your Airmiles on right here.

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