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‘Pret Perks’ launches today – how does it work?

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A couple of weeks ago we had the exclusive news about the launch of ‘Pret Perks’, the new Pret A Manger loyalty scheme.

The programme finally goes live today. However, it will be in beta for a few weeks and can only be accessed by people with a Pret coffee subscription and an iPhone.

You will earn one ‘star’ for every purchase and stars can be redeemed for ‘perks’. You will require 10 stars to receive a free product from a rotating list of rewards. You do not get your choice of any item in the store.

Once you have hit 10 ‘stars’, you will have 30 days to claim your free product. Your free gift will expire at this point.

You will NOT earn ‘stars’ when claiming a free coffee from your subscription unless something else is bought at the same time. All Pret coffee subscribers will receive a nominal one star per month as part of their subscription. You need to scan a QR card in the Pret app to receive your stars.

One attempt at gaming the system is already blocked in the rules. Any purchases made in quick succession will be amalgamated together, so you cannot buy a coffee and a sandwich in two transactions and earn two ‘stars’.

Full details should be on this web page from this morning.

Comments (398)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Flamingpenguin says:

    My IHG card is also being closed down – I was charged the annual fee in July and am about £1600 from the £10k spend needed to qualify for the next free night voucher. I paid the fee and used this card for spending in order to get the free night voucher.

    No explanation has been given for why my card is being shut down (I’ve only used it with Curve once and it was for genuine allowed spend) so I don’t believe this is fair. Have people who’s account anniversary was more than a month or so away had any success complaining to Creation and getting either a refund of the fee or a pro-rata value of the free night certificate? If the later what value is reasonable to use for the free nigth certificate?

    • Phil W says:

      People who have been charged the fee, following notification of the termination have received refunds. However, nobody who has received the termination notification has received a pro-rata refund, been issued with Free Night Vouchers or received a pro-rata value in lieu of the voucher. In addition, nobody is seeing any points transfer from Creation to IHG for the last month or so.

      Creation can cancel any card they wish, there is no real need for fairness in their decision. However, they do have to treat customers right if once they’ve made that decision.

      You may wish to consider raising a complaint with Creation and once they’ve failed to do anything with it after 8 weeks, escalate to FOS.

      • jj says:

        Not all people have received refunds – I haven’t for example. but your advice to lodge a formal complaint and, asuming that is not resolved, to refer the issue to FOS is sound.

  • Air Crash Investigator says:

    Just got an email from IHG. Long story short, two rewards stays are being cancelled and all 700k points removed due to obtaining points the ‘unorthodox’ way…

    Oh well…

    • Mikeact says:

      Tell us more….

    • DJ says:

      Perhaps you could expand on the “Unorthodox way”?

    • Char Char says:

      Er long story please otherwise sounds like a scaremongering message from Solihull

      • The Urbanite says:

        Sounds like it’s direct from IHG. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard of this happening, though interested to hear what they consider to be unorthodox.

      • Air Crash Investigator says:

        Sure, I woke up today with the intention of scaremongering Char Char.

        • Rachel Robinson says:

          Your post does have a clickbaity air about it. You knew fully well that posting it here without further details would result in questions and requests for detail yet despite having revisited the post to respond you haven’t provided any. You’re obviously not obliged to, but you can’t also claim that the response from others wasn’t foreseeable.

        • Char Char says:

          You did a good job then!

        • Lady London says:

          H***, it worked 🙂

          Good one.

          2 reports seen seem to imply if you dare make a complaint to IHG about a hotel, even a justified one, then if your account holds lots of points IHG may use the fact you”re complaining as an excuse to close your account and – more importantly – cancel your points.

          So far the minimum balance to risk this action by IHG, looks to be around 1.4 million points.

          For a minute there I thought it had gone down to 700,000, for someone to be targeted for this by IHG.

    • Anna says:

      But your account is staying open?

    • SteveJ says:

      ACI are you trolling us?

    • Colin MacKinnon says:

      Now IHG is going to standard pricing, was thinking of moving my stash to AA miles – this might just prompt me!

      • Anna says:

        I cashed in a few for a B & Q voucher, just to test if it worked! But transfers would leave an electronic trail and you don’t want them sharing any info with other schemes you belong to.

    • Air Crash Investigator says:

      Account was the first thing to go. You all pretty much know what happened. Money-go-round and round… I can’t go into detail cause they have thrown some legal things in there. Will update at some point.

    • BP says:

      Glad I’ve been spending my points almost as quickly as I could earn them! Still got 200,000 left so hopefully I keep those.

    • Chrism20 says:

      Thats a new tactic/approach from IHG when closing accounts then as their normal approach is simply to send an email saying you are shut and CS won’t engage with you at whilst they refer you to Mr Lawyer.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        That’s the legal stuff obviously

        • Chrism20 says:

          Seriously doubt it and strongly suspect it’s BS.

          IHG just shut the accounts and when queried you get a brick wall from CS and directed to Lawyer who is some mad time zone and nigh on impossible to contact.

          They don’t engage in why and other than direct you to Lawyer they certainly don’t throw some legal stuff in there as suggested.

          There’s enough threads and posts about IHG closing accounts on the internet over various sites and blogs and they never divulge why even when it gets to Lawyer if you can actually make contact.

          Very odd that they have changed tactic all of a sudden imo.

  • flyforfun says:

    https://www.paul-uk.com/loyaltyapp

    Download an app to your phone that you can link a credit or debit card to so you can pay and load points in 1 swipe.
    As well as collecting points for £ spent, there is an hot drinks card that gets stamped too. They often have 3x points weeks and bonus food offers.

  • Christina says:

    #Top50

  • @mkcol says:

    The Pret Perks works fine even if you don’t have an iThing.
    You download the new QR code & save to your Google Pay wallet & simply scan from there: if you’ve got the subscription you can still use that for your “free” drink & if you make other purchases at the same time that scan counts towards your Perks too.

  • Char Char says:

    Out of all this NSI saga it seems that NSI were not the ones that had the main concern and it was Mr X who based on everything seems like Creation.

  • Rachel Robinson says:

    Love that this has now turned into a Line of Duty style hunt for Mr X. Where are Steve Arnott and Ted Hastings when you need them?

    • Anna says:

      Mother of God!

      • Phil W says:

        I don’t think that does it justice Anna. I’m going full…

        Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey!

        • Anna says:

          Preposterous program, even though we binge-watched the full 7 series during lockdown 🤣

    • JDB says:

      There is more than one Mr X and in keeping with the the same theme, one is H.

      • Rachel Robinson says:

        Well I for one can’t wait for the TV dramatisation of this whole affair.

        • Rachel Robinson says:

          Who will play Rob? Who will take the part of Paul the Destroyer? Will JDB appear as him/herself?

      • Anna says:

        Seeing as you’re here, JDB, be a sweetie and tell us if we’ve inadvertently given permission for Creation and IHG to swap information about us!

        • JDB says:

          @Anna I can’t see it explicitly authorised, but implicitly and with all the references to the two parties, IHG branding etc. I would be fairly certain they can exchange information. Not ideal as IHG don’t need any reasons to close accounts, can’t really be challenged and no IHG account means no points/vouchers.

        • Anna says:

          Are you sure, BP, this has all got me wondering about the recent mysterious absence of Chris Heyes?! (Joke, obvs)

          • BP says:

            I’m guessing at the identity of Mr H but it would fit given this person’s role and surname.

            Chris Hayes was a real person. He shared many personal details which made it possible to identify him and his son.

        • Phil W says:

          Bu88er me!!! I used to work with Mr H about a decade ago. Decent guy. He’s a connection on LinkedIn… I might reach out and see what he knows.

        • BP says:

          Yep. And you can find out quite a lot from the aggregate information available on various sources.

        • David says:

          Really weird. Why are you posting this information? Last two addresses clearly residential and okay this is in the public domain but you don’t know this person has anything to do with any of this. Starting to feel very much like stalking.

        • JDB says:

          @BP incorrect as well as quite creepy to name someone like that without a shred of evidence.

          • Mikeact says:

            Maybe too late, but should not HfP delete this type of information, despite public domain ..

          • TGLoyalty says:

            Delete things you can find from companies house by search creation or from the FCA website?

            Unfortunately that’s the role of a director!

          • SteveJ says:

            I’ve cracked it.

            JDB
            = J deduct B
            = 10th letter (J) deduct 2nd letter (B)
            = 8th letter (H)
            = Mr H

            It was under our noses all along!
            (Of course I jest…)

          • TGLoyalty says:

            @JDB Mr Hunt himself?

        • Char Char says:

          Typical Solihull response

  • Anastasia Beaverhausen says:

    When Curve said “Carry just one card!” what they really meant was that all your real cards will get cancelled until a Curve card is all you have left.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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