Loyalty Cards

Loyalty Cards for supermarkets and other stores are vital in your quest to live a frugal life. While it may seem slightly backward to arm your wallet with cards designed to get you to spend more, they can, with planning, produce great dividends for little to no layout.

A small selection of my loyalty cards!

Here’s a rundown of my favourites:

Waitrose – sign up for a My Waitrose card online, you’ll get it in the post. Then go in to the store, scan it at the tills and collect a cup (you can use a travel cup too but you still have to scan the card) You can then get an Americano, latte, cappuccino or tea from the self service machines. If you’re going to one with a cafe and you want to sit in to drink you have to buy something but if you’re taking away then you don’t. You can also get a free newspaper by spending £5 (£10 at weekends), however this spend includes the cost of the free coffee, so actually it’s only around a £3 spend to get both the coffee and newspaper for free. Coupled with the 20% off Pick Your Own offers that they often run, this can be a great moneysaver.

Paperchase – you’re entitled to a free coffee once every 7 days from the Tinderbox cafe – in the Market St branch it’s on the top floor. Again no other spend required. It’s a filter coffee but you can upgrade to any other drink and just pay the difference. You’ll need to collect a card in store, then register it here.

Booths – one regular hot drink per Booths cardholder per day. To enjoy your free regular hot drink use the take-away coffee machines located in store. If you wish to claim your free regular hot drink from a store café, the drink may only be claimed alongside a food purchase from the café (which does not include children’s meals or drink upgrades). Pick up a temporary card from your local store; you can start using it straight away to claim cardholder pricing.

Boots Advantage Card – generally no out and out freebies here aside from the Health and Beauty Magazine, but often there will be points coupons that, used wisely, can match or outweigh the value of the product you are buying. For example, I once found Ruby and Millie eyeliners reduced to clear to £1 – and there was a coupon in the magazine for 500 points when you bought one. This equated to a £4 profit (as long as you were happy to spend that £4 in Boots).

Tesco Clubcard – again no actual freebies as a rule but if you shop here anyway it’s well worth using a Clubcard as the points you build up can be redeemed for days out, restaurant meals and much more. We’ve just used £30 of Clubcard points to purchase an annual family English Heritage membership meaning, with a picnic and petrol, we can have some great days out on a budget. You may also get till spit coupons for free items, especially at Christmas.

The Body Shop Love Your Body – this gives you points when you spend but also a £5 gift on your birthday with no further spend required. I have been told that you need to use the card once on a purchase in order to activate the birthday gift, but whether this is true or not I don’t know.

Marks and Spencer Sparks Card – again, no freebies per se, but you may get something good added to your card once in a while. Last week I had a free coffee added with no further purchase necessary.

Ikea Family Card – free tea or coffee Monday to Friday, cheaper food in the cafe and some discounts on store items and free product insurance. All good!

Most larger stores will have loyalty cards, so grab them all and see what you can get!

What have you got for free using loyalty cards?