Points everywhere ... fabulous!! (Boots Advantage Card)

Member Name: opinions4u

Product:	Boots Advantage Card
Date:	24/01/03 (2337 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High points values, Additional promotions, Machines that give you more!

Disadvantages: Goods not always cheap

Boots Advantage Cards

I love my Boots Advantage Card. Offering a reward equivalent to 4% each and every time you use it in Boots, it is just about the biggest paying loyalty card on the high street. Spend a pound. Earn 4 points. Value 4p. As well as being accepted in high street Boots stores, you can also earn at wellbeing.com!

The way it works is simple. Buy your goods. Pay for them. Handover your Advantage Card and the points are added.

The way you cash in your points is also simple. Pick up the product you want to buy. Take it to the counter. The value of the product is deducted from your points total and away you go! Fabulous!!

Is it so straightforward? Well, yes. But there are one or two spanners in the works you should be aware of before you are too carried away!

First, while a 4% reward may sound rather sexy, Boots do not always charge the lowest prices for things. If you are talking off the shelf medicines, Tesco and Asda often undercut Boots substantially. Items like Johnsons Baby Wipes are £2.99 in Boots and £2.27 in Tesco. 12p worth of Advantage points is a small reward for spending 72p more than you have to.

Secondly, you cannot cash in your points on everything in store. Only items marked with a * on the price tag can be bought. While this is usually fine, I did struggle to find a suitable Christmas present that I could buy with the £30 of Advantage points I had, as the items I most wanted to purchase were not marked with the necessary *. That said I have often bought a sandwich with my Advantage points when I have run out of cash!

Thirdly, you have to have enough points to buy the full item. You cannot buy, for example, a £15 pack of nappies with a 10 pound note and 500 Advantage points. You must have 1500 points to do it.

The final drawback is that you do not earn points on any purchase you make with your points. After buying a £75 shaver with my Advantage
Card points last year, there was a sense of frustration that I would have earned 300 points (worth £3) if only I had used real money to buy!

That said, there are lovely little ways to enhance your points, which at times can easily overcome the price differentials and other quirks of the scheme already mentioned.

The best one of these is the little machines you will find dotted around most of the stores. Slide your Boots Advantage Card in to one of these, and it will tell you how many points you currently have saved and what special offers are available today. If you want to take advantage of the offer, you simply print off a voucher!

Typical examples of special offers are 75 additional points on a meal deal (a £2.60 lunch consisting of drink, crisps and sandwich). While not always available, if you always buy your lunch in Boots and the offer is available 3 months of the year, this will earn you £45 worth of points to help pay for Christmas! 175 points are often available if you spend £25 or more. 500 points if you spend £50 or more! A nice little way to spend as you save.

Boots will often run additional promotions as well, such as triple points weekends where you basically get 12 points for every full pound spent.

Can you earn points on special offers? You bet you can! Buy One Get One Free you still earn points based on the value of the transaction. The current promotion that offers a skin care voucher worth £5 when you spend £20 or more can also benefit. If you spend £25, you will get your £5 voucher, plus the normal 100 points, plus 175 points if you take the voucher from the little machine. Effectively a £7.75 incentive to spend £25 on stuff you probably needed anyway!

While there are items excluded from points, these are rare and include infant milk, postage stamps and prescription drugs. If you buy gift vouchers, you will not earn the points, but the person buying goods with the gift vouchers w
ill! The vast majority of purchases from Boots will earn points.

So, I have told you how to use the card. I have told you how much it can be worth to you. And I have told you to ALWAYS check those machines to get extra points too.

But, how do you get one? Simple. Go to Boots and fill in the form! It does take between 2 and 4 weeks for your card to arrive, but once in place, you should always use it when you shop in Boots. Those points really do add up. I got a £75 shaver for a card that costs nothing to have. Thinks about it!

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