To think accumulating Nectar points is bloody hard?

[Wishuponaleprechaun]

I fill up £100 a week in fuel at Sainsbury’s, plus do my weekly shop there and spend on average £70 a week.

So that’s £170 a week on average I’m spending at Sainsbury’s each week. I use my nectar card for both.

Every year when it’s getting towards Christmas I eagerly look at my Nectar app to see how many points I’ve accumulated over the year...just looked ....£18. Is that it?!

Every year I can’t seem to accumulate more than £20 quid or so, yet I only shop in Boots probably once a month, spending about £30-40 and by the year end I have enough to buy myself a bottle of Chanel perfume (which is always my Christmas present to myself each year )

AIBU to think Nectar points are stingy?

I e for a Sainsbury's credit card - so get me at points on every purchase. Bloody brilliant using the points at Christmas

I'm the same as you OP - weekly shop there about the same as you and I've got just over 20 quid - DH was just saying how few points we are accruing now. I even rang them about it and was assured that all of our points were going on like I believe those lying barstweards after the dog's insurance carry on but never mind .

How do you sign up for surveys cluecu? I've never heard of them.

I have £108 on my rewards points.
Make sure you use the vouchers given with your till receipts.
Makes a massive difference.

My card got cloned, £80 on it. I did get it back on a new card plus £10 for the trouble. Log in to

www.nectar.com/start/existing-nectar-check

Check your points statement and see if any points have been spent that you don't recognise. If anything there, contact them and they should cancel your card, issue a new one with any missing points.

DisdruntledGuineaPig
It’s 1 point for a litre of fuel NOT a point for every pound spent on fuel.
Where I live Sainsburys fuel is £1.26 per litre. £100 on fuel is 79 points.

Not as bad as Sparks points which you get naff all for as far as I can tell
I seem to get a lot more in Tesco points even though we don’t shop there but we have our phones through them and fill up at their petrol station

It's seems so much like hard work to make it worth it compared with my Morrison's and boots cards and as it's my secondary supermarket it's just not worth the effort for me

Just a thought as well, I've recently taken out some Sainsbury's insurance and was advised several times that nectar points are added to the balance on the 10th of the month. I wonder if that's a new thing as I've not heard it before.

Be mindful, when collecting nectar points at the pump, it's not points per pound spent, it's points PER LITRE, so don't round up the pounds but round up the litres that you buy.

It looks like its worth looking in your online account, or probably in the app for extra points offers - why they can't apply these automatically, I don't know, but in mine, I have offers for over 300 extra points for things I'd buy anyway like any pasta, any tuna, any tinned tomatoes, any milk, any onions and any jam/honey/other similar stuff in jars that you'd put on toast.

If you are a regular Sainsbury's shopper and get into the habit of looking at your weekly offers before each shop, you'd probably significantly boost your total that way.

It's also worth seeing if you can do the double up event each November. I don't have any points this year, but last year I won something like 2000 extra points in some offer and then I doubled them up and got 3 nice bottles of fizz for free, just in time for Christmas, so better value than just using the points on normal groceries as long as you need something in one of the categories, but it includes wine, toys and other things that I can't remember.

thanks for bringing this up - just logged into the app to check mine - last week I had about £2.50 worth, having redeemed £22.50 earlier in the year. Having used the new nectar was up to £7 ish - husband must have been using ebay and triggered some bonuses as now have £20, hopefully they will do a double up again. I think the trick with nectar is to use bonus coupons - but only if it is stuff you would normally buy! Otherwise it isnt worth it.

Currently in my purse I have physical vouchers for 340 points total on stuff I normally buy, and around the same on the app - I will go this week and just buy those items - I dont normally shop in sainsburys other than offers.

One sainsburys tip for infrequent shoppers is to buy a small item eg a bottle of cola through the self checkout before you shop and scan your nectar card - often prints me out a money off voucher eg £5 when you spend £30 and a few nectar vouchers, which I then use to do my shop.

Nectar is hard work now. It used to be much better. I'm hoping the app will help us tot up more. I haven't managed to break my Sainsbury's habit despite this getting on my nerves.

I am baffled.
OP spends £170/wk, so £8840/yr. And only gets back £18 (0.2%?)

We spend about £100/wk & I end up taking £5 off my total at checkout about once a month, or ~ 1.1% back. Even though I have mostly given up using the coupons coz I never meet their exact rules.

In 2 years I have accumulated £270 worth of points. I didn't cash what I had last year and have kept them for this Christmas. I shop there weekly and with the new nectar app have managed to get more points plus I have their credit card.

Download the app. You earn loads more points that way. I save my nectar points all year and use them towards my xmas shop. So, at 10 months in to the year I had £33 points. Since downloading the app a few weeks ago, I'm up to £39. You get a lot of bonuses every time you shop.

TinkysWinky

You don’t need to buy anything at self scan to get vouchers, just scan your card.

You just need to be smarter when it comes to bonus points offers. Do you take point in the yearly Swipe and Win for example? If you'd divided your shopping and fuel into £10 blocks you could quite easily have won £100+ in Nectar points over a couple of days.

Do you have the Nectar app? It gives you lots of bonus points offers for Sainsbury's and other retailers like eBay and Argos. Just make sure you activate the offers before using them.

The base points given by Nectar might be stingy, but their bonus points and promotional offers are very generous in my opinion. There's other ways to earn points too, like Nectar Canvass surveys and the Nectar toolbar. I've earned £700-ish over the last few years and I perhaps spend £25 a week on average at Sainsbury's.

So get the Nectar app on your phone and check several times a week for offers. And as others have said I would also look at your points statement and check there are no unauthorised withdrawals. Unless you've literally earned no bonus points all year (or spent some of your points) then £18 on the amount you're spending does sound very low.

Your missing out! I get £200 plus each year!

I got the Sainsburys credit card a couple of months ago and that whacked on another £80 worth of points!

You really have to play them at their own game with the vouchers. I do visit a lot though and take many items of clothing back!!

I tend to spend £100 a week on weekly shop plus a couple more v small top ups shops.

Download the new app it builds up a lot quicker. I'm guessing you must be buying things that are exemp from points regularly not to build up. Having said that 170 gets you about 85p in points without bonus vouchers. I dread to think what damage your doing with £400 in fuel a month to the environment.

This makes me feel better as I keep forgetting to register a card!

Agree with lots of others you need to take advantage of the vouchers you get at the till and on your app/in the post.

I always do the yearly win points event, splitting my shopping into £10 spends, go at a quiet time in the week and the till people dont mind.

And the double up or triple on fuel are also useful

Also around the end of October or beginning of November they do a double up scheme. So you can switch your points for double the amount in vouchers to spend in certain departments (not food) so I try and buy clothes for Christmas presents.

Currently got £70ish and I dont go to sainsburys every week. That should be about £140 to spend on Christmas presents. Wondering if I get lots of vouchers at the till because I dont go every week so they try to entice me back in

Often I will do two shops. Buy the bits I get bonus points on in sainsburys then go somewhere else like morrisons for the rest.

The app has changed recently as well so it has bonus points on items as well as the till spewing out loads.

I find it hard to accumulate nectar points. I only redeem them every other year when we have Christmas at home. Two years ago I had £70+ worth. Two years later I have £83 . I have phoned and spoken to customer services..
They have no answer.
I’m also getting frustrated at having to wait for ( yesterday) seven(!!!) coupons to be printed off at the till. None of which I’ll use and have a short dateline. Don’t get me started on their new app. It will not recognise either my husband’s or my nectar card or our email addresses! Grrr...

I've just downloaded the app and so can see my weekly offers - hoping this bumps up my points a bit!

But how does it work? Do I buy these things and then scan the bar code on my app at the end? What do you do if using the self scan tills as I've already swiped my card at the beginning before starting my shop?

thanks @goingtotown, good to know!

you just 'save offer' and scan your nectar as usual -the points get added shortly after in the app

Thanks! Balance has gone up already - I might have £100 (doubled up) for Xmas 🍾 at this rate!