Boots advantage card points-have I been collecting them all wrong all these years?

[Allthingspretty]

Splurges on some clinique stuff and sactuary stuff in boots today. Both were on offer,clinique had the gwp offer on and the sactuary stuff was three for two.

They had an offer on the points machine that if you spent twenty pounds you would get an extra two hundred points. I printed out one voucher and handed it to the cashier who advised me that she would split the transaction in to two seperate transactions and i w if i got another voucher i would be able to claim an claim an extra two hundred points.

This has never happened to me before and i am realy greatful to the sa for pointing it out.

Have other people been savvy like this all the time and racked up the points?

There is a mini movement dedicated to this on the moneysaving expert website. I don't do it as much as I should but I always try and look at the machine to save and get more points. They had an offer on recently where you could save £2.50 on mascara. I bought one that was half price at £5 and then £2.50 was taken off with the voucher.

I have been fleeced for years! Thanks for pointing this out!

It was the sa who pointed it out. I didnt think it would work and be restricted!

Yes, I always split my purchases to get the most points, the sales assistants are very good at helping you do that.

Often Boots assistants will help you get the best deal. I've had them give me vouchers for £5 what I'm buying and max my points. I love them

I temped in Boots over Christmas once and our manager wouldn't let us tell people about things like this - admittedly at Christmas it sometimes meant people holding up a lengthy queue to go and get another voucher or whatever but even so.

I'll use this as an opportunity to point out that you don't need to try and fiddle the Christmas 3-for-2 offers, the system automatically groups things in price order and gives you every third one free, not just the cheapest items.

And you can't use points in part payment against an item. I used to speak myself hoarse repeating that one on a busy day!

The sa's at a mire local branch are not helpful at all. They will carry on conversations when they are meant to be serving you nevermind poimting out offers etc.

They had a points event on a few months ago. If you spent £50 in store you got 1200 points (£12 worth), the offer was also online but you had to spend £75 to qualify.

I wanted needed a new pushchair, and Boots were the cheapest for the one I wanted. It was £165, sold online only. So that meant I would qualify for £24 worth of points.

However I thought it might be worth trying my luck ordering it instore on the cashier's computer, because then I'd technically be buying instore and would get £36 pounds of points (with it being a 3x£50 purchase IYSWIM?)

Well not only did it happen the way I'd hoped, but the cashier told me that a loophole means my purchase was treated as an instore purchase and an online purchase. I didn't get the points deal on the 'online side' but I still gained an extra £15 worth of points

So my £165 pushchair got me £51 worth of Boots points!

Plus then the courier cocked up the delivery three days running and Boots sent me a gift card as a goodwill gesture! Never have I been so pleased that Hermes were crap!

So after that long winded post, if you want something reasonably pricey, look for the points event and go instore to order online

I've always found the sales assistants really good at working out the best way to use 3 for 2 etc and am always amazed when I get loads of stuff free or reduced

I find the assistants pretty helpful too, so long as you go in when it's quiet. They get as confused as the rest of us I think. I had a voucher for No 7 (not make-up) the other day and bought some face cream with it, a voucher for £5 off if you spent over £10 on No 7 make-up came out of the till (I was still at the No 7 counter). So I decided to buy the nail top and basecoats which are supposed to be good. The assistant said they were on 3 for 2 and waited for me to choose a colour polish as well. Then a £5 off vitamins voucher came out and she asked me if I wanted to use that one as well, but I needed to be somewhere else so had to decline. I think it's all a big game.

I have always done this. Boots is the most expensive place to get toiletries though (at least compared to Superdrug, supermarkets or pound shops) so I also check prices to make sure it's really worth doing!

SayMama that's amazing. If I end up getting big baby items from boots I'll wait till a points event!

I also temped in Boots over Xmas and made a point of drawing these things to customer's attention whenever I had the chance.

A particular bugbear of mine was a voucher that appeared a couple of weeks before Xmas where you were getting 20% off if you spent £20 or more. From memory I don't think the voucher could be used when store wide points event were on. This meant that all the Advantage card holders were obliged to take the extra points instead of getting money off which I thought was a bit shite - you should at least have the choice. A manager pulled me up for pointing this out to customers, so I just made a point of telling them this before they put their Ad card into the machine.

Boots sell large kitchen appliances too, good prices and you can get whopping amounts of points!

We bought our fridge from Boots Online (how random is that?) and netted a shedload of points.

Me too, Cointreau, I bought a cooker and hood a few years back. Good value too!

Can I just say I love Boots points. They add up quickly and I always use them to get something nice.

Cointreau, we bought our fridge, freezer, dishwasher and washing machine from Boots electrical. Delivery was a nightmare, as was their customer service but I was very pleased with the £50 plus points I got!!

Yes, there was a points event on before DS was born and also they seemed to send you loads of points vouchers if you were pregnant. I bought his moses basket and a few other bits and pieces - I ended up getting £20 worth of points from spending £80