What is the best way to spend your Nectar points? Is Avios the sensible option?

What is the best way to spend Nectar points?

It is now three years since Avios and Nectar unveiled their partnership. The lustre has faded somewhat since then due to two sharp devaluations, neither of which members were pro-actively told about in advance.

However, what is true is that Avios is still the most valuable Nectar redemption for most HfP readers, assuming you value an Avios at around 1p.

400 Nectar points gets you 250 Avios, which implies a value per Nectar point of 0.625p if you value an Avios at 1p.

There is no longer any value in moving Avios to Nectar, since the value of 1 Avios has been cut from 0.8p of Nectar points to 0.5p over the last three years. The number of ways of spending Nectar points has also been cut, with eBay the biggest departure. Brakes, Marks & Spencer and Viking are amongst other losses although Viking remains an ‘earn’ partner.

What is a Nectar point worth?

Let’s start with valuation, because you need to know this to put the later sections in context.

A Nectar point is worth 0.5p, in virtually all cases. Avios is one exception, getting you 0.625p if you believe that 1 Avios = 1p.

What the fixed 0.5p rate means is that – apart from Avios and two other niche exceptions – no Nectar redemption is ‘better’ than any other. Whilst it is true that you can turn 1,000 Nectar points into a £5 Eurostar voucher, there is no particular benefit to doing that if you could get an identical £5 discount in Sainsbury’s simply by scanning your card at the till.

Where can I spend Nectar points?

There is a dedicated page for each of these offers at nectar.com where you can find out more. Use the search box on the home page.

How to spend Nectar points at Sainsbury’s / Habitat / Tu

Sainsbury’s, if you are not aware, now owns the Nectar scheme. It took full control six years ago as we covered here. This made sense as Sainsbury’s (which also owns Argos, Habitat and Tu) had become by far the biggest partner.

The spend rate in Sainsbury’s is £2.50 per 500 Nectar points.

Points can be spent online or in-store.

How to spend Nectar points at Argos

The spend rate in Argos is £2.50 per 500 Nectar points.

There is a limit of 100,000 Nectar points (£500) per transaction.

Feedback from readers is that if articles are refunded, you receive the full refund in cash.

You can learn more on the Argos website.

How to spend Nectar points at Vue Cinemas

Redemptions at Vue are currently suspended but the Nectar website implies that this is not a permanent move. I suggest that this is untrue, as the message has been there for around three years.

How to spend Nectar points at eBay

You can turn your Nectar points into eBay vouchers at the rate of £2.50 per 500 Nectar points.

However, eBay is leaving Nectar on 31st August. It will not be possible to earn or spend Nectar points via eBay from 1st September 2024 although any eBay vouchers redeemed before then will remain valid.

You can find out more in this HfP article.

How to spend Nectar points at Caffe Nero

Caffe Nero is a Nectar redemption partner which is NOT an earn partner.

It is also the best value redemption partner, even better than redeeming for Avios, in many cases.

400 Nectar points will get you a voucher (in the form of a QR code, saved in the Nectar app, to be scanned in-store) for ANY hot or iced drink, of any size.

If you look at the price list on this website, you will see that it virtually impossible to pay less than £3.60 for a drink, and qualifying drinks can cost over £5.

This means that you are certain to get more than 0.5p per Nectar point and that any drink costing more than (400 points x 0.625p) £2.50 is better value than redeeming for Avios, if you value an Avios at 1p.

Caffe Nero is currently the best way of maximising the value of your Nectar points.

How to spend Nectar points at Eurostar

Eurostar is another ‘redeem only’ partner.

The spend rate at Eurostar is £2.50 per 500 Nectar points.

There is a 2,000 point minimum, with vouchers only available for £10, £25, £50 and £100.

Multiple vouchers can be used in one transaction if booking a train-only ticket on the Eurostar website, but only one voucher per transaction can be used if booking a ‘train and hotel’ package.

How to spend Nectar points at Esso

Esso is a slightly confusing one. At participating Esso garages (ie ones without a Tesco Express shop) you can redeem 300 Nectar points for a discount of 5p per litre on your purchase.

As 300 points is usually worth £1.50, the breakeven point is 30 litres. Fill up by more than that and you are getting more than 0.5p per point.

You are capped at 60 litres per transaction for a maximum saving of £3.

That said …. if your tank can take 60 litres at once, you will get 1p per Nectar point by redeeming 300 points for a 5p/litre discount.

How to spend Nectar points at Nectar Hotels

You can redeem Nectar points via the Nectar Hotels room booking service.

The rate is what you would expect – 0.5p per Nectar point. However, you need to remember that Nectar Hotels bookings are ‘third party’ and so won’t earn any hotel loyalty points. You will also not receive any status benefits you may be due.

Another catch is that, if you’d paid cash at Nectar hotels, you would have earned a lot of Nectar points back. It is best to redeem Nectar points at a partner which doesn’t earn Nectar points, because you are not losing out on the ‘earn’ element.

We reviewed Nectar Hotels in detail here.

How to spend Nectar points on movie rentals via Sky Store

Film rentals via Sky Store are still listed on the Nectar ‘spend partners’ page, but all information has been removed from the dedicated Sky partner page.

I suspect that this has now been removed as a ‘spend’ option. You can continue to earn Nectar points with selected ‘new customer’ Sky offers.

How to spend Nectar points at Dulux Decorator Centre

You can redeem points for Dulux Decorator Centre vouchers at the rate of 4,000 Nectar points for a £20 voucher.

Vouchers must be ordered by telephone from Nectar and will be posted to you, for use in-store. They are not valid online.

Conclusion

It isn’t tricky to get your head around the options for spending Nectar points.

Everything gets you 0.5p per Nectar point with the exception of:

• Avios, where you get 0.625p per Nectar point if you believe that an Avios is worth 1p

• Caffe Nero drink vouchers, which can be worth over 1p per Nectar point if you buy the priciest drinks – and will definitely beat 0.5p per point because there are no drinks so cheap that your voucher would get you so little

• Esso fuel discounts, but only if you are doing a big fill, preferably to the maximum 60 litres allowed for the discount