I’m a fairly infrequent shopper at Sainsbury’s, to be honest – unfortunately, they’re just too damn expensive for me (I’m a bit of a tightwad…). But, I’m always looking for ways to save money at the supermarket so always use my Nectar Card to get extra points when I do shop or fill up with petrol there.
In fact, after checking today I’ve amassed over 4000 Nectar Points, which gives me nearly £21 worth of spend. Not bad considering I don’t shop at Sainsbury’s much, or even notice I’m collecting them.
But what are my Nectar Points worth? To make things easier I’ve created a handy little Nectar Points Calculator for this post.
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Table of Contents
- What are Nectar Points Worth?
- Nectar Points Calculator
- What is the Nectar Card Scheme?
- How to Register for the Nectar Scheme
- How Many Nectar Points Do You Get and Where to Collect Them
- Credit Cards
- Browser Extension / Nectar Toolbar
- How to Boost Nectar Points
- Where to Spend Nectar Points
- Other Nectar Card Perks
- New Nectar Scheme
- Signing Off
- Frequently asked Questions
What are Nectar Points Worth?
Basically, 1 Nectar point is worth 0.5p, so to save up a £1 worth of Nectar points you’ll need 200 of them. A few more Nectar points values are below.
- 100 Nectar points are worth 50p
- 500 Nectar points are worth £2.50
- 1000 Nectar points are worth £5
- 5000 Nectar points are worth £25
- 10000 Nectar points are worth £50
But, to make it easier if your maths is a little rusty, I’ve built the handy Nectar points calculator below. Let’s face it, who has nice round numbers of loyalty points?? So, you can work out what your Nectar points are worth in good old English pounds and pence.
Simply enter the number of points you have, and the calculator will convert your Nectar points value into pounds. I’ll then take a look at how to get the most value out of your points…
Nectar Points Calculator
What is the Nectar Card Scheme?
Nectar is a loyalty card scheme that allows you to collect points at various partner retailers such as Sainsbury’s, eBay and Debenhams. Now if you’re like me you’ve probably already got a Nectar card, especially if you shop at Sainsbury’s.
Sainsbury’s has historically partnered with Nectar rather than having their own loyalty scheme, like Tesco Clubcard or Morrisons More. However, in early 2018 after 15 years of collaboration, Sainsbury’s bought the Nectar scheme.
How to Register for the Nectar Scheme
If you haven’t already got a Nectar card the quickest way to start collecting points is to register online via the Nectar website. You can then use your card number for your next online shop. Or you can pick up in-store at Sainsbury’s.
You can also join by downloading the New Nectar App on Google Play or iTunes.
How Many Nectar Points Do You Get and Where to Collect Them
I mainly collect Nectar Points with Sainsbury’s shopping and this is the store they’re most associated with. The standard rate you get when shopping there is 1 Nectar point for every £1 you spend. This means, in reality, you’re getting 0.5p back for every £1 you spend in-store.
But you can collect Nectar points at loads of other places – 392 brands in fact. And some of them, offer more points per pound.
You do have to be a bit careful though, as to get points at a lot of the partners you need to click through from the Nectar website. This means you might be better off going through a cashback site. Find out more in my guide to Collecting Nectar Points.
But let’s take a look at a few examples.
Sainsbury’s
Collect 1 point per £1 spend in Sainsbury’s. They do sometimes run offers though where you can collect more. For example, in the summer they ran a promotion where you can collect 5 X Nectar Points on fresh meat, fish, fruit and veg.
Esso Petrol Stations
You can earn Nectar points at Esso fuel stations. Previously, Nectar partnered with BP but from 1st June 2019 Esso became the fuel partner for the Nectar Scheme.
You can get 1 point per litre of fuel and 2p for every £1 spent in-store or when you get your car washed.
There are also periodic bonus offers like the one below for 250 points when you fill-up.
eBay
Earn 1 point per £1 spent by linking your eBay account with your Nectar account*. This is one of the easiest ways to collect them if you shop on eBay. You literally have to do nothing once you’ve linked your account. No pesky card swiping!
Expedia
Collect up to 2 Nectar Points per £1 spend. You only get the headline rate of 2 points per £1 on package, hotel, car or activity bookings. If you’re just booking flights through Expedia, you’ll only get 1 Nectar Point for every pound.
But to earn them at you have to access the Expedia site by first going through the Nectar website, as you would with traditional cashback sites such as Quidco* and TopCashback*.
This means that you need to check if you’ll get a better deal via one of the cashback sites, so it’s always best to check first.
ASOS
If you a fashion fanatic, then you’ll be pleased to know you can earn triple points when you shop at asos.com and get 6 points for every £1 you spend.
This works out at 3% in Nectar Points, which sounds good. But, you need to access through the Nectar site again so make sure you compare it with the offers on the main cashback sites to check for the best deal.
For example, with TopCashback*, if you’re a new customer you can get a whopping 10%. Existing customers get 3% which is the same as the Nectar deal.
So, make sure you always check to see if you can get a deal on the cashback sites before opting to collect Nectar Points.
Credit Cards
You can earn more points with a couple of different credit cards.
Firstly you’ve got the Sainsbury’s Bank Dual Offer Credit Card (we have this one).
This card lets you collect up to 7,500 bonus Nectar points in your first two months. You can earn 750 bonus points every time you spend £35 or more in Sainsbury’s with your card. You can do this up to a maximum of 10 times in your first 2 months.
So, that would be 7,500 points back for a £350 spend over two months.
You’ll also get bonus Nectar Points on all your other shopping.
- 2 Nectar Points for every £1 spent at Sainsbury’s (shopping or fuel)and
- 1 point for every £5 spent anywhere else.
This is a bit measly though! So if you’ve got another cashback credit card, you’re probably better off using this everywhere else.
The card does come with the added bonus of 0% interest on purchases or balance transfers for the first 27 months though.
You’ll have a 3% fee or balance transfers though so keep this in mind. And remember to make sure you pay off the balance or switch at the end of the interest-free term. Or you’ll get stung with an interest rate of 20.9% APR….
If you’re looking for a bigger Nectar Points boost, the American Express® Nectar Credit Card could be worth a look.
If you spend £2,000 in the first 3 months you get a bonus of 20,000 Nectar Points (£100 value).
Plus, you get 2 points per £1 spent on your card on top of your usual points.
The card usually has a £25 a year annual fee, but this is waived for the first year. So, make sure you cancel after the first year as the points you’ll get probably don’t justify the fee.
Browser Extension / Nectar Toolbar
The Nectar Toolbar is worth installing as you get 100 Nectar Points (50p) just for adding it to your browser. Then if you use it as your search engine you can collect up to 200 points a month just for using it as your search engine.
You get 1 point for every 2 searches you make. It’s powered by Yahoo though, so you’ll have to weigh up the results are as good as you usually get if you use Google.
The toolbar also lets you know when you’re on a website where you can collect points. The toolbar works with either Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.
Get the Nectar Notifier here.
Daily Mail MyMail Rewards
If you’re a Daily Mail reader, then you can collect points by signing up with the MyMail Rewards scheme. Basically, every day a 12 digit unique number is printed on the back of the Daily Mail.
To collect your points all you need to do link your Nectar card to your MyMail account. Then enter this on the myMail website to collect Nectar points.
On Mondays to Fridays, you collect 5 Nectar points each day
Saturdays you get 10 Nectar points,
And Sundays you get 15 Nectar points.
You also get 30 bonus points for collecting all codes for a week.
This means you can collect a maximum of 80 Points a week. Roughly 40p worth of Nectar points
How to Boost Nectar Points
So can you boost your points like you can with the Tesco Clubcard scheme?
Not really (unfortunately). You get the occasional offer but their few and far between. For example, one of the only decent offers used to be a £12 pizza at Pizza Hut for £5 worth of points.
Unfortunately, this isn’t available anymore either though…
The best way to boost them is to wait for the Sainsbury’s Double Up promotion which usually runs twice a year. The last one was in November last year with an event this year yet to be announced.
Where to Spend Nectar Points
So, as there’s not really any deals to boost your Nectar points, where should you spend them? The places you can spend Nectar points is pretty limited, to be honest.
Argos, eBay and Sainsbury’s tend to be my go-to places to redeem them, although you don’t tend to get a great deal. You can just swap for the value of the points rather than boosting as you can with Tesco Clubcard points.
- Spend at Sainsbury’s to get money off your weekly shop. 500 points are worth £2.50 unless they’re running a Double Up event which usually happens twice a year.
- Redeem Points on eBay– again 500 points are worth £2.50. If you’ve already linked your accounts to collect Nectar points on eBay*, you can get a voucher online by redeeming in multiples of 500 points.
- Spend Nectar points at Argos. You can spend them online or in-store by swiping your Nectar card at the till and choosing how many points you want to use.
- Doing a spot of Decorating? You can redeem at Dulux Decorator Centres. Although this one of the more frustrating deals. You’ll have to redeem a minimum of 4,000 Nectar points to get a credit voucher!
- Use to buy Train Tickets. Swap your Nectar points for either a £2.50, £5, £10, £20 or £50 voucher with LINR (London North Eastern Railway)to use on Advance purchase Train Tickets or use your points to pay in full or part payment on Eurostar Escape Train Tickets – 500 Points are worth £2.50
- Redeem Nectar Points on Cinema Tickets at Vue Cinemas, but as with most of the deals 500 points only equals £2.50 off.
For more ideas, check out my full guide to spending your Nectar points.
Other Nectar Card Perks
You can get a couple of other perks such as:
- 20% of Sainsbury’s Bank Travel Insurance when you quote a valid Nectar Card Number. You’ll need to weigh this up against better quotes and Cashback availability though.
- Better Exchange rates on Foreign Currency are available for Nectar Card Holders with Sainsbury’s Bank. Plus, you can collect Nectar Points at the same time – 10 Nectar Points for each £100 you exchange.
New Nectar Scheme
Sainsbury’s has recently launched the “New Nectar” scheme. Essentially, it’s a switch to a digital app-based system. Shoppers will still be able to collect their usual 1 Nectar point be £1 spent in-store.
But, the new scheme is meant to reward shoppers with Nectar points for choosing weekly offers similar to Cashback Apps such as Shopmium. Offers are based on stuff they normally buy in Sainsbury’s so it should benefit cardholders.
Nectar Cardholders will be able to tell Sainsbury’s which offers they do and don’t like. Plus, they’ll be able to select five permanent offers to get points on continuously.
You can read more about the New Nectar scheme here.
Signing Off
So, there you have it, how much your Nectar points are worth and how to make the most of them.
How many Nectar Points have you collected and how do you like to spend them? Have you tried the New Nectar scheme? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. As always thanks for reading!
Frequently asked Questions
How Much is 1000 Nectar Points Worth?
1000 Nectar points are worth £5
How Many Nectar Points Do you Get per Pound?
Usually you get 1 Nectar point per £1 you spend as the standard rate. A lot of the partners on the Nectar website offer enhanced rates though where you can get even more.
