Nectar Points

Nectar-Large

When most people think of Nectar points they immediately assume that they are only for people who do their food shop in Sainsburys, which is correct but also far from the only place that offers these beautiful golden points of awesomeness. So for my first money making post of the year I will explain exactly how these can be of use to those who don’t necessarily shop at this particular supermarket.

Like most savvy shoppers, the husband and I don’t put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to our monthly shop; we tend to split it between Aldi and Sainsburys with Aldi being our main shop of the month. There are some things, however, that we need to get from Sainsburys such as the cats food because she is a fussy thing. Also our local is situated in a shopping centre/retail park so if we need to be out that way we will do a top-up shop while there to save on petrol. The bulk of our points do come from our shops and this year will be no different.

So, why should you get a Nectar card when you don’t shop at Sainsburys?

  • Petrol: If you drive then filling your car up at Sainsburys or BP garages will reward you with points. You’ll gain 1 point per litre of regular fuel purchased at BP and 1 point per litre of fuel at Sainsburys garages.
  • Gas & Electric: If you receive your energy supply from British Gas then you could be earning points by simply paying your bill, they also offer points when you take out other services such as boiler cover. If you are thinking of switching Sainsburys fuel offer points too.
  • Credit card: The Nectar Credit Card offers 2 points per £1 spent on the card with additional bonus points when buying things with Nectar partners.
  • Online: The biggest earner for many in this area will be eBay, for every £1 you spend on the auction site you will gain 1 point which is great for all you bargain hunters. That said eBay isn’t the only site to offer points for online purchases; we recently discovered that Just-Eat also offer 1 point per £1 spent. You can also collect online with Argos, DHL, Oxfam, Expedia, First Trains and Virgin Trains.
  • In Store: As well as the obvious supermarket purchases you can earn points on every spend at Homebase and Hertz rentals.
  • Bonus points: Certain sites will also offer double or triple points for limited periods. At the time of writing Mothercare were offering 4 points per £1 spent. Check out bonus point offers here.
  • No purchase: Believe it or not there are a couple of ways to earn bonus points that don’t involve a purchase. The first is having the Nectar Toolbar installed on your web browser, it is pretty unnoticeable but will alert you to any sites you can accrue points on (which is how I found out about Just-Eat); just for installing it you get a bonus 100 points. Then using it to search the internet will earn you 1 point for every 2 valid searches (up to 200 points per month)

A full list of where to collect can be found here.

You may be thinking that collecting these points is all well and good but you don’t have a Sainsburys near you to use them. Not a problem! Whilst I will be saving my points to pay for gifts and food in Sainsburys for Christmas there are still many other ways to spend your accrued points. Handing over your card at selected stores and venues can see £2.50 per 500 points knocked off your purchase, even more at certain retailers. Argos, VUE Cinema, Pizza Express and eBay are a few of the companies that will allow you to use your points for payment. Where to spend them can be found here.

If that wasn’t enough, selected members can “bank” their points in what is called the Hive which is currently in beta, I will do another post about this if/when it comes out of beta and is launched.. Points transferred to the Hive will collect 10% interest which is paid every Friday; great if you are wanting to save for something special, like Christmas.

To get your Nectar card click HERE to be taken to the registration page.

I started this challenge with 1658 (£8.29) already collected which are being discounted for this challenge and so far, 6 days in I have accrued 264 points. I will admit we did a rather large shop on Saturday which will have added to this.

I hope you have found this useful. There are many other places that offer rewards like this such as Tesco with their Club Card and more recently Morrison’s with their Match & More card, so if a Nectar card still doesn’t appeal to you then check those out. I don’t use them so don’t feel that I can honestly tell you all the benefits.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will try my best to answer them.

6 thoughts on “Nectar Points

  1. Great post. We use Sainsburys for clothes, and to get gluton-free bread. We go when we are at Home Bargains as it is next door. Anyway, will get the toolbar now 🙂

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