Boost your Nectar Points Discussion Area

Syman

At the moment, i have about 10000 points (or thereabouts). We do part of our weekly shop in Sainsbury (part in Aldi)

I use them when i buy from Argos.

Rachie_B

Currently have £145
Have only ever used nectar points for Vue & pizza express so far !

Girl_Overboard

Just over £400. I used to spend some of my points at eBay, Amazon and Sainsbury's, but for the last year or two I've been solidly saving them up. Unless there's a Sainsbury's Double Up, when I usually buy some clothes or homeware.

I'll probably wait until I'm up to £500 (by which point I'll hopefully be at my goal weight) and then I'll blow it all on Tu clothes Or maybe half on clothes and half on groceries. I feel a bit uneasy at having too many points in my account incase Nectar goes bust or something.

apga

I used to use my nectar points for Easyjet flights (was even better when they gave you back 10% of your fare as nectar points). Alas, that is now gone too. I have tried Expedia twice. Once was a disaster as I was charged for the full amount and they used over £200 worth of nectar points - it did get resolved eventually. The latest attempt has appeared to go through as expected. I have about £165 worth at the moment.

NBLondon

Since our main shop is at Sainsbury - it just accumulates until Easter or Christmas when it gets spent at the till on the special items. Which means only about £12 at the moment.

APennySaved

( BTW: Hope this is the correct area of the forum : )

Anybody know the BEST shop to get VFM out of Nectar points?

Ever since they shopped allowing card holders to accrue points at Amazon, then in Homebase, then stopped other places to buy &/or spend - it's a minefield!

Then found out that the same amount of points are - annoyingly! - NOT worth the same £ at each shop - grrrRRRR!! :mad:

Just want to use some of the points up. Am buying bits for the house at the moment - & after yesterday's £26 spend of Tesco Reward points at the local supermarket - yay! :money:- am in the mood to get more "freebies" in-store with the matching Nectar points we've accrued.

Anyway, have been gathering Nectar points for YEARS & never seem to get around to spending them. 'Buying' access to entertainment/social places with Nectar points is of no interest to us, so it'll have to be spending the points at 1 shop or another!

Is Sainsbury's a good place to spend them? Or Argos? Or elsewhere?

VodkaSorbet

Sorry if this has been answered before, I did a search but couldn't find anything.

Is there any benefit to spending Nectar points on something other than shopping at Sainsbury's (e.g. like Clubcard does 2/3/4x the value on restaurants etc)?

I've never spent any before and find the website a bit hard to use. There doesn't seem to be an increase in value in your points if you redeem them on e.g. a flight, and you seem to have to pay a fee as well.

Am I missing something, or do they have periodic special offers or anything, or am I just as well spending them on my food shopping as I mostly go to Sainsbury's anyway?

Oddjob

Every so often, they have a week or so where you can buy a voucher to double up your points in a certain department, not food.
For example, you might see something in TU that you like that costs £20, you would buy a £20 voucher from customer service which would cost you £10 of points. Similarly with something in household.

I don't know when the next one will be.

System

The past few summers Sainsburys do a deal with Pizza Express and Vue cinemas where you exchange 1000 points for a coupon for 2 cinema tickets or 2 mains at Pizza Express. Even better if your Vue and PE are in the same complex. So if you have 2000 points, you can exchange your points for a coupon for both the cinema and pizzas

APennySaved

Thanks for your ideas. Great advice, so thanks for those suggestions.

But sadly no definitive answer re at which type of mainstream/gen purpose shop I can use the points:

APennySaved wrote: »

'Buying' access to entertainment/social places with Nectar points is of no interest to us, so it'll have to be spending the points at 1 shop or another!

Is Sainsbury's a good place to spend them? Or Argos? Or elsewhere?

(I suppose I was trying to avoid having to trawl through the endless points comparison data I might find elsewhere, with a bit of an answer/advice here at the MSE! So now I'll just have to Google away myself! LOL!)

I reckon the REAL problem is that Nectar points have an ever-changing value . . . that way the points companies keep us points collectors confused! Ha-ha!

So to find out more, I have now trawled the Net/Googled for more advice. One of the articles most recently written (it's dated March 2017) is:

The best ways to collect and spend Nectar points [Be Clever With Your Cash] (https://becleverwithyourcash.com/best-ways-collect-spend-nectar-points/)

The key data in that article - re my own query - is:

Best ways to spend Nectar points
I wish I had more to say here but sadly, it!!!8217;s rare to get many boosts to the value of your Nectar points, though from time to time there are special offers.

Regular Nectar points offers
Usually 500 points are worth £2.50. You also have to spend them in chunks (usually 500 points or 1,000 points) rather than choose how many you'd like to use.
The obvious place is Sainsbury's, though you can exchange them for the same value at the following retailers.

• Sainsbury's; 500 points for £2.50
• Vue; 500 points for £2.50
• Argos; 500 points for £2.50
• eBay; 500 points for £2.50
• Virgin Trains East Coast; 500 points for £2.50
• Easy-Jet; 500 points for £2.50
• Laithwaites Wines; 500 points for £2.50
• Expedia; 2,000 points are worth £10
• Virgin Experience Days; 2000 points for a £10 gift card

Slightly better value options include

• Pizza Express; 500 points are worth £3.75
• Caffe Nero; 350 points (£1.75) gets you any drink in any size
• Theme parks such as Thorpe Park or Chessington; 500 points are worth £5

Some of these retailers let you swipe your card or link your card to use points. Others require you to exchange the points for a voucher or code via the Nectar website.

So it looks as if the UK-wide unspecialised shops to spend Nectar points are just: Sainsbury's, eBay, & Argos. And each shop takes 500 points in place of £2.50.

Here I go off to them then, to spend some of our Nectar points at least! £2.50 value for 500 points is better than nowt!!

HTH somebody else too . . .