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Points or miles expired? New loyalty app Swapi will reimburse you

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This article has been sponsored by Swapi

Swapi is a brand new free loyalty wallet app that helps you consolidate all your loyalty cards in one place.

It lets you link your loyalty cards from hundreds of UK-based retailers and earn points without carrying a wallet of plastic around with you.

You can also collect Swapi Points and redeem them for gift vouchers and exclusive discounts. To get you started, Swapi is giving an exclusive sign-up bonus to Head for Points readers who download the app.

As a special launch offer, Swapi will also compensate you for any loyalty points in any programme which you have lost to expiry during the last six months, giving you Swapi Points in return.

Swapi

Swapi has big plans for the next few months:

  • you will be able to redeem points from certain loyalty schemes directly in the Swapi app for exclusive Swapi-negotiated deals
  • you will, with selected loyalty schemes, be able to swap points between programmes

This is coming down the line. For now, Swapi has three benefits, one of which is unique:

  • you can add your favourite loyalty cards, both travel and retail, to the Swapi app. When you need to scan your card, such as your Nectar card in Sainsbury’s, you can pull up the barcode via the Swapi app. Over 100 loyalty accounts are supported.
  • you can earn earn ‘Swapi Points’, Swapi’s own currency, by shopping with over 300 retailers via the Swapi app. You can redeem these points in the app for a gift card or discount voucher or – coming soon – swap them into another loyalty currency.
  • Swapi will compensate you for loyalty points in any partner programme which have expired during the pandemic
Swapi

Introducing Swapi Points

As well as helping you manage your other loyalty cards, Swapi has its own rewards currency, Swapi Points. You can earn Swapi points by making purchases through the Swapi app, or by referring friends or family.

Swapi points can be redeemed for gift cards and discounts, with redemptions starting from 250 points. Here are some examples:

  • 1,500 Swapi Points gets you a £10 One4All gift card you can spend at 180 different brands
  • 750 Swapi Points gets you a £5 Argos gift card
  • 1,200 Swapi Points gets you £50 off Lastminute.com city breaks
  • 250 Swapi Points gets you 8% off your next hotel booking with Expedia
  • 500 Swapi Points gets you 65% off ‘New In’ items at I Saw It First
  • 250 Swapi Points gets you 20% off at Hawes & Curtis
  • 250 Swapi Points gets you £10 off any flower order from Moyses Stevens
  • 375 Swapi Points gets you 15% off at The Outnet for new customers

As you can see, Swapi doesn’t just let you redeem Swapi Points for gift vouchers. You can also redeem them for exclusive discounts at leading brands. This allows you to get substantial extra value from your Swapi Points.

Coming soon, you will also be able to use loyalty points from other programmes in the Swapi app for gift cards or discount vouchers.

Get 650 free Swapi Points just for registering

As a special offer for HfP readers, you will receive 650 Swapi Points when you register and use AB4L-3E1Y as your referral code.

This is a substantial increase on the usual bonus of 250 Swapi Points, and would allow you to immediately redeem for some of the discount vouchers available.

Additional free points are available for referring friends to Swapi.

Swapi

Swapi will compensate you for your expired points and miles!

As a launch offer, Swapi has a unique offer.

Swapi will compensate you for any expired points and miles you have lost during the past six months.

All you need to do to reclaim your expired points as Swapi Points is send a request via the app with a screenshot of your statement showing the points being expired. This must be dated within the previous six months and be from a loyalty scheme active in the UK.

Based on how many points you lost, and their value, you will offered Swapi Points as compensation. You can receive up to 10,000 Swapi Points every six months. These can be redeemed for retailer gift cards or discount vouchers.

This feature is likely to become more interesting as travel companies start expiring points again. Whilst most travel schemes have extended points expiry over the past 18 months, a lot of these protections are beginning to fall away.

This is especially true for brands like Accor, which have been extremely aggressive in expiring points throughout the pandemic. Swapi gives you the opportunity to reclaim some of the value you lost.

If Swapi sounds interesting, you can download it in your local App Store. It is free to register and once signed up you can have explore its features.

You can find out more about Swapi on their website here. Remember to use code AB4L-3E1Y as your referral code to get your 650 free Swapi Points.

Category

General

Comments (33)

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

  • LeeH says:
    17 Dec17 December 05:00

    Sounds interesting, but after three attempts to get a verification code by email, it’s still not arriving, so I’m giving up.

    • Jens says:
      17 Dec17 December 09:51

      Seems to be working fine now if you want to give it a go

      • LeeH says:
        17 Dec17 December 10:08

        Turns out 3 codes turned up 10 minutes later. I just needed to be more patient. But by the time I got them the app had signed me out, so I signed in again, expecting to need the codes, but it just let me in without need for verification.

        And my 650 points were there (thanks, HfP!).

        I always carry my Tesco and Nectar cards with me, but this will be particularly useful for the ones I use so infrequently I always forget to take them, like B&Q or Pets at Home.

  • John says:
    17 Dec17 December 05:17

    I have 1500 m&m which are expiring at the end of the year which I have no use for. Am I supposed to wait until they’ve expired before signing up

    • NigelthePensioner says:
      17 Dec17 December 05:47

      Dittto for 000’s of Golden Circle points!??

    • johnny5a says:
      17 Dec17 December 08:12

      Looks like it. I have similar expiring soon.

      • Rob says:
        17 Dec17 December 08:31

        You can sign up now, you can claim at any point for a rebate (whilst it is still being offered).

      • Manya says:
        17 Dec17 December 09:21

        I just noticed I have 1,500 GC points expiring at year end and 2,000 sitting in account overall.

        I hadn’t realised that the amount is pretty significant – 1,000 points is equal to 100 USD voucher that I can happily spend at Hu Tong next week.

        • E says:
          17 Dec17 December 11:20

          If that’s the London Hutong restaurant then you won’t be able to use GC points there. It’s only in the Shard and not part of the hotel.

          If it’s Hutong in the Ulaanbaatar Shangri La then I think it’ll be fine…

  • Secret Squirrel says:
    17 Dec17 December 08:18

    Shame no instore points

  • TeesTraveller says:
    17 Dec17 December 08:41

    How do these guys make their money?

  • Simon Thomas says:
    17 Dec17 December 09:18

    After 6 attempts to get a verification code I’m going to leave it till later. Or maybe forever. Not a very impressive first impression.

    • LeeH says:
      17 Dec17 December 10:11

      Mine took a little over 10 minutes to arrive and then they all arrived together (in spam). But try signing back in, anyway. You may find you don’t need the verification code, after all. I didn’t.

  • Richie says:
    17 Dec17 December 11:03

    Can I convert swapi points to avios?

    • Rob says:
      17 Dec17 December 12:03

      You can’t convert them into any other currency at the moment. This would be Phase 2. I doubt Avios would be included due to their other deals but I know some of the hotel chains are coming in.

  • Rob says:
    17 Dec17 December 11:54

    That’s possibly not the best example. The value kicks in on deals where Swapi can negotiate a genuinely exclusive offer. If they can’t churn out a continual stream of those then it will fail, I agree.

    There is a lot of interest in the industry in ‘closed group’ offers, however. For example, HSBC Jade is selling Sloane Street gift cards at 15% off, giving you discounts in all of the designer stores. You will NEVER see an offer like this made publicly available.

    • kitten says:
      17 Dec17 December 12:19

      Amex being the big one for that

    • dougzz99 says:
      17 Dec17 December 13:36

      I concede your vastly greater knowledge in this area, but I’m always a bit surprised at things like this. Do people with Jade kind of money in general really hunt down offers like this. I sort of feel if I was in a store dropping £10K upwards I’d just ask for a better price.

      • Rob says:
        17 Dec17 December 13:48

        You won’t get a better price.

        What you get is access. For example, the only people now allowed to buy Hermes Birkin handbags are people who are nominated by sales staff. You can’t just walk in and drop £5k-£20k on a Birkin. You need to spend a substantial sum in Hermes on other products, at which point the assistant who usually deals with you can nominate you. If you are offered the chance to buy a bag, you have no choice over colour or material and therefore no control over the price – you get whatever is allocated to that store next.

        The other way that top stores reward customers is events – trips to Milan to watch the fashion shows etc.

        It is a different world. There are people who take a break from spending all of August in Capri etc to fly back to London in the week that the Winter collections hit the boutiques in order to grab their preferred Winter coat, and then they fly back. It’s just what you do.

        • Lady London says:
          17 Dec17 December 17:37

          It varies by branch, Rob

        • dougzz99 says:
          17 Dec17 December 18:31

          It really is another world. Having the opportunity to drop £15K or whatever on a bag I have little say in is something I’ll manage without. Branding is an incredibly powerful thing in some circumstances.

        • The Savage Squirrel says:
          17 Dec17 December 19:15

          “There are people who take a break from spending all of August in Capri etc to fly back to London in the week that the Winter collections hit the boutiques in order to grab their preferred Winter coat, and then they fly back. It’s just what you do.”

          Wow; being mega-rich sounds like a crock of ordure if your life is so boring and empty that you need to schedule in something as dull as coat shopping just to fill the time. 😀 😀

  • Sam says:
    17 Dec17 December 12:20

    It does sound like the conversion function on points.com. But over the years many airlines and hotels have left. Only time will tell if this similar model will work.

    • Rob says:
      17 Dec17 December 12:25

      Agree. Programmes need a lot of persuasion to take part in a swap process. I have used the points.com swap process in the past though. The last time (which shows how long ago) was when I flew Virgin America and turned the miles into IHG Rewards Club points via points.com.

      What they also want to do, which is easier, is have programmmes offer deals via Swapi as an extension of their current offering so that, say, you could redeem 250 Accor points via Swapi for a £10 Moyses Stevens flower discount.

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