What will your points get you? (Nectar Card)

Member Name: wendz86

Product:	Nectar Card
Date:	14/07/09 (291 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of retailers with one card

Disadvantages: Need a lot of points to get a decent reward

I have a couple of reward cards and the Nectar Card being one. I originally got the Nectar Card a few years ago as I often shopped in Sainsburys and thought it would be nice to get some reward for my shopping.

When I got the Nectar card I saw it as a Sainsburys reward card to begin as this was the only store I originally used it in. It is actually a card for a number of places including BP, Homebase, Brewers Fayre and Beefeeter. There are also a number of online sites where you can also collect points including Amazon, Argos, Burtons and loads more.

The card is easy to sign up for. When I got it, which was a few years ago now, I just picked up a card in a Sainsburys store, which I just had to fill out a form to register the card. Nectar now has it's own website where you can sign up and they will then send you your card. When I signed up I got a joint account with my sister which I believe they still do. This means that all your points get added up together in one account.

As well as getting a card you can also get a key tag, which just sits on your keyring. This is useful if you have left your card somewhere. The card itself is purple so easilly recognisable in your purse or wallet. It has the Nectar symbol on it. They also have a barcode as cashiers often scan them rather than swiping them now. On my card there is also space to sign your signature although I have never had to use this.

The Nectar Card as with most reward cards is a card on which you can collect points to then claim rewards with. I mentioned earlier some of the places that you can collect points from. With most of these when you are paying you just hand the cashier your nectar card and they will either scan it or swipe it and then the points will be added to your account immediately. The amount of points you get depends on where you are shopping. If you are shopping in Sainsbury's you will get 2 points per pound that you have spent. You also get this in Homebase now. In BP and also when buying petrol from Sainsburys you get 1 point per pound spent. The petrol used to be 2 points, which was good as it was obviously letting you get rewards from something you would have to buy anyway. It is a shame this went down to 1 point a pound.

I personally mainly get points from shopping in Sainbury's, although I don't do this too often now I don't live near one. I also use it when buying petrol in my local BP petrol station. I am also a member of a survey site that gives me nectar points in return for filling out surveys. I don't do this often but it does help add up the points.

I do find that it takes me quite a while to build up points. I have managed to build up 3000 this year though mainly from buying petrol. I would say that if you shop in Sainsburys regularly then you are more likely to build your points up quicker. I used to get vouchers sent to me where if you spent a certain amount you got extra points. I am not sure if they do these now as I think my nectar card may be linked to a different address to the one I live in now.

One definite downfall of this card compared to other reward cards is the actual rewards you get. With Tesco for example your points are often worth a lot more in rewards than they would be in money off your shopping. Nectar doesn't seem to have quite as good deals. They do the usual of you being able to just take the vouchers straight off your shopping. Each 500 points is worth £2.50 in money off. They also give you a number of other options including cinema tickets, film rentals, days out, toys and electrical products. I have had a look around on the website and as far as I can see none of these seem to provide much more value for money than taking the points straight off your shopping so I tend to stick to this.

The Nectar website is quite good and gives you a lot of information about where you can get points and how you can spend them. You can look up how many points you have and see what you can afford in terms of rewards. It is an easy to use website and would help any Nectar Card holder.

Overall I think the Nectar Card is a reasonable reward card. It has a lot of retailers where you can collect points so there is the opportunity to build these up. Unfortunately you need a lot of points to make up a decent reward. It is a worthwhile card to have if you use Sainsburys a lot and/or buy petrol from Sainsbury's or BP.

Summary: An average reward card