Tricks to turbocharge your loyalty card factors – and little-known ruses to squeeze additional from Nectar and Clubcard

Almost all UK shoppers know the benefit of joining a loyalty scheme – as many as 97 per cent of shoppers are members of at least one. 

But few are aware of the little-known tricks and ruses that can turboboost your point earnings.

Money Mail has unearthed the best strategies to get the most out of the UK’s most popular loyalty schemes: Tesco Clubcard, Sainsbury’s Nectar and Boots Advantage Card. Some could help you earn as much as ten times more points – without having to spend a penny extra.

In addition to the points earned, loyalty schemes also increasingly offer lower prices to members.

A report by the Competition and Markets Authority last week said that supermarket loyalty cards do offer genuine savings amid recent fears schemes were not offering true discounts.

So, if you are planning to use your loyalty membership to cut the cost of your festive spending – and want to boost your points balance at the same time – here is what you need to know.

Follow Energy price-cap – and receive at least 6,000 points

Sainsbury’s Nectar loyalty card scheme is one of the UK’s most popular with around 18million customers owning one. 

Points can be earned by shopping at scores of companies, such as Asos, Cafe Nero and Just Eat. They can be spent at a select few stores including Argos, Sky and Sainsbury’s.

Customers typically earn one point for every £1 spent. Each point is worth 0.5p when you spend them in Sainsburys, so you usually need to spend £200 to get £1 worth of Nectar points.

But you can earn three times as many points on your Sainsbury’s shopping by switching your gas and electricity supplier to Sainsbury’s Energy.

Its 12-month Track and Reward tariff is in line with the Ofgem price cap, which is the amount that all households pay by default unless they sign up to a particular energy deal. 

The average cost of this tariff is £1,567.82 a year, according to comparison website Go.Compare. In addition, you will receive up to 6,000 Nectar points – 750 per fuel each quarter.

To switch to Sainsbury’s energy, visit sainsburysenergy.com/our-energy-plan and select your tariff. It will organise the switch for you.

Ofgem says it can take up to five working days to switch your energy supply. But if it takes any longer, then you could be entitled to compensation.

…or fix for cheaper bills – and savings on festive shopping

But you can get an even bigger points boost by fixing your energy tariff for 12 months – plus you are likely to save on your fuel bills.

Sainsbury’s Energy offers a 12-month fixed-rate deal, which is set below the current energy price cap. The current price cap for a typical household is £1,717 – this will increase to £1,738 in January 2025.

The Sainsbury’s 12-month fixed tariff is £1,638 for a typical household, according to comparison service Uswitch.

With this tariff, the cost of your energy is fixed for a period of 12 months. That means that if the price cap rises over the next 12 months, you will be better off on a fixed tariff. 

However, if the cap falls you could lose out on savings. It is impossible to know exactly how the price cap will change over the next year as it depends on global wholesale prices for energy, which can be volatile.

However, EDF Energy makes predictions of prices for the year ahead, based on the current information available.

At the moment, it predicts that the price cap will increase to £1,795 in April before falling to £1,750 in July and then £1,759 in October. 

If EDF Energy is correct, prices will not fall below the current price cap over the next 12 months. This means that locking into a price below the current rate is likely to benefit you financially.

You need to weigh up which tariff will suit your needs most. Also, check the quote for your postcode and compare against Ofgem’s regional unit price caps.

There are points in store for those who switch. You’ll get up to 4,000 Nectar points with the 12-month fixed tariff – 2,000 per fuel – when you join Sainsbury’s Energy. 

This is worth £20. Plus, you’ll get ten times the number of Nectar points collected in Sainsbury’s in December.

But you have only two days to take advantage as you must switch by December 6.

The average household is expected to spend in the region of £317 on festive food and drink this year, according to data company Pureprofile. 

You’d normally collect 317 Nectar points from this shop if you did it at Sainsbury’s, worth £1.59, but with the ten times deal you’ll get 3,170, worth £15.85. 

So by switching gas and electricity to Sainsbury’s and by doing your Christmas shop there, too, you’ll get 7,170 points, worth £35.85. You would ordinarily need to spend £7,170 to get this many points. And you’ll likely also save money on your energy supply, too.

There are also 18-month and 24-month fixes. The 18-month contract will give you up to 4,000 bonus points and three times the points on your Sainsbury’s shop, while the two-year deal will also triple your points, but give you up to 8,000 in bonus points.

Get a Nectar credit card to save money on weekly shop

If you shop regularly at Sainsbury’s, or at any of its Nectar partners, an American Express Nectar credit card is worth considering. If you use it to shop at Nectar partners, you will earn three times as many points as you would using any other cards.

If you use it at any other store, you will collect two points for every £1 spent – twice as many as usual. The only snag is that the card has a fee of £30 a year.

To earn £30 in points to break even, you would have to spend £2,000 at Nectar partners over the year.

You would need to spend around £38.50 a week on shopping at Sainsbury’s to cover the fee. Households typically spend £82.60 on their weekly shop, so this may well be achievable. 

The interest rate is 30.7 per cent, so be sure to pay off the balance in full every month, otherwise the cost of the card far outweighs the benefits. Your points will show in your points account but may take three days to show up there after purchase. They are transferred to your Nectar account around six days before your statement date.

Cancel your credit card after a year and refer a friend

To make your credit card work even harder, there is one more trick you could try. The card has no fee for the first year – so you could use it for a year and then put a note in your diary to cancel it just before the £30 fee kicks in.

There is a 5,000 Nectar card point bonus on offer if you refer a friend and they also take out a card. 

You could even refer your partner so that your household continues to receive bonus points for an additional year after you’ve cancelled your card – and you’ll gain 5,000 points for inviting them.

They’ll need to apply via the link you share with them to get the bonus points. To earn this number of points in the traditional way you would have to spend as much as £5,000 on shopping at Sainsbury’s. If you close your account, any points will be transferred to your Nectar account.

If you’ve not held an American Express card in the past two years you can get a 20,000 Nectar card boost if you spend at least £2,000 in the first three months. This is worth £100 – you would normally need to spend £20,000 to get this.

Keep in mind that any application for a credit card generates a hard credit check which will show up on your credit score.

Swap points for fuel at Esso and do a shop there too

It is always worth using your Nectar card when filling up at Esso petrol stations. Download the Esso app and get 1,000 points when you buy fuel.

Outside of this, you’ll get just one Nectar point per litre of fuel. As the average price per litre of unleaded petrol is around £1.41, according to fuel card Allstar, this is less than the usual Nectar card rate of one point for £1 spent. But it’s still worth collecting the points if you’re filling up your car.

But £1 spent in an Esso shop gives you two Nectar points. This is double the amount you get when shopping at Sainsbury’s. 

It’s the same rate for every £1 spent in an Esso carwash. You can also choose to swap 300 Nectar points for 5p off per litre of fuel. You

must buy at least ten litres. To make the swap worthwhile, only do this when you plan to buy at least 30 litres of fuel in one transaction. 

That is because each Nectar point is typically worth 0.5p, so 300 points are worth £1.50 – 30 litres of fuel would save you £1.50 at current prices.

Recycle your ink cartridges – if you can’t refill

Tesco Clubcard has gained an enormous 23million members in the 29 years since it started. Each £1 spent earns one Clubcard point.

They are worth double the value of Nectar points as each point is worth one penny. You’ll need to spend £100 to get £1 in Clubcard points. But you’ll need to convert them into vouchers to spend them and they can only be swapped in multiples of 50.

You can gain them by spending with partners such as Evri and Tesco Mobile.

One lesser-known trick to boost your Clubcard points is to recycle your ink cartridges with The Recycling Factory and receive up to 125 points per cartridge. 

You can recycle up to 100 of the selected cartridges per year – meaning some 12,500 points can be gained in this way, worth £125.

Get a recycling envelope from a Tesco store and fill in the tearaway slip, or use your own envelope and download the slip from therecyclingfactory.com/tesco.

Return the envelope to your Tesco store and place in the ink cartridge recycling units.

However, you may find that you can save even more money by refilling your old cartridges instead of recycling them and then buying new replacements.

For example, a Canon PG-510 costs £18.49, but a refill with three sets of 30ml of black ink costs £14.95. 

Some cartridges cannot be refilled; if they can, this can only be done three to seven times. Then recycle them through the scheme and gain points.

Slash your Disney+ fee with Clubcard

You can halve the price of your Disney+ subscription with Clubcard points. To do this, you convert £7.50 in Clubcard vouchers for a three-month standard plan with adverts.

A subscription usually costs £4.99 a month, which amounts to £14.97 for three months, so you save almost half. You would typically need to spend £750 to get £7.50 in points.

Use points to save when travelling by train

If you regularly take the train, you can double £1.50 in Clubcard vouchers to £3 towards the cost of a Railcard. A one-year 16-25 Railcard costs £30 and so does a senior Railcard for those over 60.

Use the website (secure.tesco.com/clubcard/vouchers/1-year- senior-railcard/UK-009982.prd) to convert the vouchers to use with a Railcard. A code will be emailed to you which you can then enter on the Railcard website.

But think carefully about spending your points in this way. If you weren’t going to buy a Railcard or Disney+ subscription, think twice before using your points to do so, no matter how good the deal.

Clubcard points can pay for a flight upgrade 

Another attractive deal for travellers is the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, where £1.50 in vouchers – or 150 points – is converted to 300 in Virgin points.

These points can be used to pay for flights, upgrades or towards a holiday getaway.

There’s no set value of a Virgin point, but points website The Points Calculator says they’re worth around 0.5p for economy flights. 

This means you’re getting an equal value of Virgin points for Clubcard points. Points used for first and business class seats are worth as much as 2p.

Plus, if you sign up to automatically exchange your Clubcard points to Virgin points by January 23, 2025, you’ll get 5,000 bonus Virgin points.

The lowest priced reward seats as part of the saver reward seats start from 6,000 points for one way. This is based on an economy seat from London Heathrow to New York in standard season. They never expire so you can save them for a special holiday.

However, only convert your Clubcard points if you’re absolutely sure you’ll be able to use them on Virgin Atlantic – if you have a particular holiday or upgrade in mind.

Join the over 60s rewards club for extra points

The Boots loyalty scheme, Boots Advantage Card, has more than 16.7million active members.

Shoppers gain three points for every £1 spent and each point is worth one penny.

Customers who are over 60 year receive a huge eight points for each £1 they spend on Boots and selected brands with the Over 60s Rewards card. Eligible brands are Boots, No7, Liz Earle, Joules, Champneys, Soltan, Soap & Glory and Botanics.

For example, Joules Body Butter, at £6 for 330ml, generates 48 points, worth 48p. Other customers only get 18 points – worth 18p – for the same purchase.

So ask your mother or a grandparent to buy your products for you – and promise to pay them back – to boost the Advantage card points gained.

You can join up for the Over 60s Rewards club on the website. Go to: boots.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/over60s.

Earn extra points – and get a free hearing test

Those in the Over 60s Rewards club also get 300 points when they get a free hearing check at Boots Hearingcare.

All over 18-year-olds are eligible for a free hearing check, but those with the Over 60s Reward card get the additional points when they attend the appointment. You can do this only once a year.

Recycle five items in store – but only on a big shop

Advantage cardholders can get a 500-point uplift by bringing five hard-to-recycle items into participating stores through the Recycle at Boots scheme.

But there’s a catch – you’ll have to spend at least £10 to earn these points.

You can bring in items you typically can’t put in the recycling bin at home, such as smaller items like travel beauty minis or products made of composite materials like make-up palettes. They can be any brand.

Items must be approved via the Scan2Recyle website, which will give you a voucher to scan when you make your £10 purchase.

You would typically need to spend £167 to get 500 Advantage points. But don’t spend £10 just to get the points boost if you weren’t going to spend it anyway as 500 points are worth just £5.

[email protected]