Nectar Connect is closing – an easy source of Avios goes away

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• strickers says:

  8 Aug8 August 05:56

  Just to highlight as mentioned by someone yesterday, you can still find Nectar Connect by searching through the website or app. Whether new offers continue to be loaded until the closure date remains to be seen.

• Phil Foxtrot says:

  8 Aug8 August 06:03

  That is a real shame. I got a lot of nectar points using it.

  However the main problem I experienced, was that with the exception of LNER which always worked brilliantly, none of the other offers seemed to actually work. Nectar always insisted I wait a month, then I had to go into Twitter to complain and then two weeks after that the points were credited. The offers that didn’t work for me were:
  – Laithwaites
  – GoPro
  -Viking
  – Intercontinental Hotels
  – Pets at Home
  These generally had big bonuses 20-50x points.

  I suspect I wasn’t the only one having these issues, so may poor functionality is to blame.

  • JD says:

    8 Aug8 August 13:49

    Laithwaites worked for me. As did Averys. Never had any luck with IHG. Looks like the general consensus on here is it was hit or miss

• Jonathon says:

  8 Aug8 August 06:06

  That’s a shame it’s closing as I got some great points back over the time it’s been up and running.

• BJ says:

  8 Aug8 August 06:30

  This year to date there has been a somewhat stealthy slow-burn devaluation of Nectar. Within this context they might simply have decided that the ongoing data mined by Connect wasn’t going to be that much more valuable than the snapshot already obtained so they simply pulled the plug.

  • dougzz99 says:

    8 Aug8 August 13:35

    Yep. My weekly offers are yielding a lot less bonus points. I always save them all and then shop as I normally would to avoid being influenced by the offers. But the bonus points have dried to a trickle.

  • Lady London says:

    8 Aug8 August 22:43

    Yes. kinda like a one-night stand.

• Andrew says:

  8 Aug8 August 06:40

  It is also a bit rubbish. Several times it didn’t work. Sometimes support would credit points, sometimes they didn’t. I gave up

• Ian says:

  8 Aug8 August 06:43

  “American Express aside – the offers you are shown are very random”

  I currently have around 20 Amex offers that are completely random and bear no relation whatsoever to my spending history on the card.

  • Andrew says:

    8 Aug8 August 10:22

    This ^^

    The 2 or 3 decent offers are hidden amongst 10s of offers for hideously expensive boutique retailers most of which I’ve never heard of and none of which I’m ever likely to spend money in.

    • PeteM says:

      8 Aug8 August 10:33

      It’s interesting, because the offers I get on my US AmEx cards are generally much more relevant and usable than the UK ones. Although the UK travel ones tend to be a lot better, conversely…

• Terence Bartlett says:

  8 Aug8 August 07:23

  Rob, I agree with most of the points you make in your article with one exception. That is that MBNA once one of the worst cards for customer service has vastly improved and I would put them near the top of the credit card league. Whereas Virgin Money plc, I would put at the bottom for customer service just telephone them with a query and that should speak volumes… I use the MBNA Horizon credit card particularly when paying in US dollars. No currency surcharge of 2.75% or reward points instead they offer half a percent discount on all travel expenditure on foreign transactions

  • Rob says:

    8 Aug8 August 08:39

    I will need to call VM as a £2.5k VS booking has not tracked as double points ……

    • RussellH says:

      8 Aug8 August 09:36

      TBH, I have not found Virgin Credit Card CS unsatisfactory. Since they closed their website some years ago I have had to phone them several times for the most simple tasks.
      The real problem with the card is that you end up with a few hundred Virgin points and nothing to spend them on.

      • Andrew W says:

        8 Aug8 August 09:50

        When using the sign up bonuses or some switch bonuses of ISAs, it can snowball fairly quickly. We are saving them up now for the next time Virgin Voyages runs a promotion or will use VM to book AirFrance Tickets to North Brazil. We predominately collect Avios points, but also worth having a stach of VM.

• Andrew. says:

  8 Aug8 August 07:31

  Disappointing.

  LNER online tracked with 100% accuracy every time.

  IHG on the other hand never tracked for me and was always a kerfuffle. Sometimes they’d accept the query on webchat, sometimes you’d have to phone, then you’d have to call a different number. Then it would be delete the cards, re-add to “trigger” wait another 30 days and phone back when it doesn’t work and forward scans of the invoice from check-out.

  I suspect the 90 day renewal process caused a considerable attrition of users.

  • PhilF says:

    8 Aug8 August 08:11

    Agree. LNER, which you could use to buy rail tickets anywhere in the UK always credited with no fuss. Yo! Sushi as well was good.
    IHG, Laithwaites, Viking, Pets at Home, Go Pro all failed.

    Then it was wait 30 days. Re-register, re-register, wait 10 days, contact again. Send Copies of everything (I got used to screenshotting everything), credit in 2 weeks if lucky.

    • JD says:

      8 Aug8 August 13:48

      Agree 100% LNER was always accurate. As was Just Eat. IHG, Leon and Harvey Nicks never tracked which meant a huge amount pain trying to explain to the (utterly useless) Nectar helpdesk what was happening.

      Agree it was an easy way to earn Nectar points though so I have mixed feelings seeing it go

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