The pastel pink card... (Boots Advantage Card)

Member Name: LauraElliott

Product:	Boots Advantage Card
Date:	27/03/02 (619 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good amount of points per money spent, Easy to sign up to gain a card, Good Boots Advantage Card Website

Disadvantages: Sometimes the card won't process properly, You need the total amount of points to cover the amount of points the whole products costs, you can't do part cash, part points buys, You can only redeem the points on certain products (those with *'s next to them)

*~*The Girl...*~*

This opinion is coming from a girl who must have a reward card for all of the high street stores that she shops in. When the Boots advantage card was introduced, as you may have guessed, I snapped one up straight away.


*~*The Start...*~*

As I was filling out the form I realised how nosy Boots really were. I hate it when forms involve questions about how much your annual income is, and all about your household, they don't need to know that information, it isn't necessary, and that might be one of the first things that out me off. It was soon made up to me though when I found out that as a special introductory offer, after you spent ten pounds you got an extra bonus of two hundred points on your first transaction.


*~*If you want one...*~*

So, you want a card? It's fairly easy to apply for one, you don't even have to be a certain age because my young cousin who is only in her early teens managed to sign up for one last month. You can either join up on the official boots website, you can ring the special number on the website or you can go into your local store and ask for a form to fill in. Then you can hand it into one of the member's of staff who will be more than happy to put in the request and will tell you that your card will be with you shortly (when really they mean that you wont hear anything from them for about 4 weeks in which time every purchase you make in the shop, you will be kicking yourself about because you have missed out on all of those important points opportunities that you wanted and could have snapped up, if only you had had the card a little sooner!)


*~*The Look...*~*

The card is a nice shiny pink one. The pastel shade with the Boots logo in a blue oval shape, takes the femininity off of the card. Some boys might be embarrassed to have a pink card like this one, but then again, not many boys I know shop in Boots that of
ten, only occasionally.


*~*The Points...*~*

The money makes points system is as follows...the more you spend the more points you earn and for every one pound that you spend, you earn four points, so after spending ten pounds you earn forty points. This means that for each 25p you spend, you gain one point, which doesn't seem too bad to me. If say you buy something for £4.99, they round up the pence to the next pound and give you the extra four points, that's how generous they really are! Often they have double points weekends where you'll get a fantastic eight points per pound instead of the usual normal four.


*~*The Advantage...*~*

Regularly Boots send me a cool catalogue telling me all about the latest bargains and what's in fashion and all of the new products. Included with this are vouchers for you to get more points when you give in the vouchers at the till after spending a certain amount of money (often quite a big amount - such as fifty pounds or more).


*~*The Machines...*~*

I like the way that in most stores they have the big advantage card machines where all you do is pop in your card into the little slit, just like a normal credit card machine and then it has a personal welcome message for you such as Welcome Mr. Smith to your points balance. On the machines you can check your total balance and look through all of the good offers in store. You even get to print out vouchers that give you the option to gain more points if you present the vouchers on purchasing the product specified.


*~*The Disadvantage...*~*

One of the problems is that you have to have the total amount of points or more to cover the amount of points a product costs, therefore if you don't have enough points, you can't do a part points, part money concept like you can in some stores such as Tescos. The only way that you would be able to buy something is if you have the whol
e amount in points, so if you are looking to get an expensive product just with points, you?ll have a lot of spending to do in the shop first! Also...you can only redeem your points against certain products, only those which have asterisks (stars) by the sides of the labels on the shelves. Although this is a great majority of the shop, some items don't have them next to them, which means you will not be able to spend your points to buy them.


*~*Receipts..*~*

On the end of the receipts, you will usually find an updated points balance, so this will keep you informed of how many points you have gained altogether. Sometimes though, the message 'Points status is not available' crops up, in fact recently it has been on the end of my receipts a lot.


*~*The Problems...*~*

When I give my card in for them to swipe it through, after purchasing products in their shops, often it takes tem at least three attempts for their machines to accept it and recognise my card number and on various occasions it wouldn't even work, so they had to write down the number and do it all manually, and I still to this day haven?t received those missing points!
I thought that it was a problem with my card, possibly that the tape on the back wasn't being recognised, so, I called up for another replacement card and guess what? It's vanished off the site of the Earth, because it's been 3 months and I haven't see or heard anything from them!
Another thing is that you don't get any points for buying items like perfume, prescriptions and baby products.


*~*A Suggestion...*~*

It is good if you start spending in about mid January and then saving your points all the way up until Christmas, rather than going all the way through the year just buying small items.


*~*Overall...*~*

Not a bad card to have...if you regularly shop in Boots then it could come in handy, but if you
are an infrequent shopper, then it will take you ages to earn a lot of points and therefore you will not be able to redeem your points against products until you make enough.

Summary: