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Get cheap Avios via the Nectar ‘Great Fruit & Veg Challenge’

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Yes, we’re in those dead days of August when there isn’t much real news to write about and we find we have too much time on our hands.

Which is how I came to look at the Nectar ‘Great Fruit & Veg Challenge’ and managed to get myself some cheap Avios ….

Great Fruit and Vegetable Challenge

If you open the Nectar app, you’ll see details of the Sainsbury’s ‘Great Fruit & Veg Challenge’. Running to 17th September, it aims to encourage you to buy more fruit and vegetables.

The challenge works best for people who never buy fruit and vegetables in Sainsbury’s, because you should have very soft targets.

You may, like me, have had a quick look at the challenge and written it off as being too difficult. You may be wrong. It looks trickier than it is.

This is what Rhys and I both have:

  • buy 10 portions of fruit and vegetables and get 500 Nectar points
  • buy another 10 portions of fruit and vegetables and get 500 Nectar points
  • buy another 10 portions of fruit and vegetables and get 500 Nectar points

…. for a total of 1,500 Nectar points.

1,500 Nectar points is worth:

  • 938 Avios
  • £7.50 to spend in Sainsbury’s or with another Nectar partner
  • almost (if you get to 1,600 points) four free coffees in Caffe Nero, worth at least £13
Nectar Fruit Vegetable Challenge

The key point is the definition of ‘portion’

Where I went wrong, when I initially saw this offer, is that I assumed a ‘portion’ was a packet of fruit or vegetables.

It isn’t.

A ‘portion’ is 80g of fruit or vegetables, excluding potatoes. There are some other niche exclusions but the main one is potatoes.

This means that, if your target is 30 portions, you only need to buy 2.5kg of fruit and vegetables.

I popped into the Sainsbury’s Local near our office and they had 500g bags of carrots reduced to 49p from 60p, so I bought five. My wife will be pleased.

Carrots appear to be the best ‘price to weight’ product that isn’t excluded, although this may change depending on what is on offer.

For a total spend of £2.45, I triggered the full 1,500 Nectar points in one go. We also get carrot soup for a couple of days, I suspect. The Nectar IT is surprisingly good and you will have the bonus points in your account within a couple of minutes of leaving the store.

Regular shoppers at Sainsbury’s seem to be getting very high targets, eg 600 portions. However, if you rarely visit, or rarely buy fruit and vegetables when you do, you may well get the ’30 portions for 1,500 Nectar points’ offer that seems to be the baseline.

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Category

British Airways and Avios, Sainsbury's and Nectar

Comments (92)

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

  • Olivier says:
    14 Aug14 August 03:41

    My targets are 250 portions * 3 for a total of 1000 Nectar points..

  • AirMax says:
    14 Aug14 August 03:46

    No news apart from a massive wizzair free flights promotion and what that says about the state of the low cost flight market!

    • laughingplace says:
      14 Aug14 August 09:16

      indeed.. surprised this isn’t covered. Significantly bigger news story than anything covered on here recently imo

      • Rob says:
        14 Aug14 August 09:22

        Looks very poor on face of it. No seat selection. No baggage. Booking fees. Only book 3 days before departure. Key is NO clarify on when seats will be released – it’s not ‘if there is a seat you can book’.

        • Londonsteve says:
          14 Aug14 August 15:20

          Rob, my understanding is that if there’s a seat available to buy, it’s also available to book with the pass from 72 hours before departure. 599 Euros per annum (discounted to 499 during the launch period) + 10 Euros per sector is a very good deal for someone that a) needs to fly fairly often; b) Wizz flies the route they’re looking for, and; c) seats are available 90% of the time when the 72 hour booking window opens. We don’t know about the last one but I’d wager they are for 99% of their flights. I seldom see a flight marked as fully booked, even 24 hours before departure. Of course, if too many people buy the pass then many more flights might be departing with every seat taken, so there is an element of risk involved, but I doubt it’ll impact early adopters. It’s also worth mentioning that it’s not primarily being targeted at commuters that absolutely must fly a particular route at a particular time, it’s being pitched as a pass for people to use for spur of the moment long weekends away. Nothing to stop you trying to use it for commuting or for booking longer holidays in high season, assuming the availability is there of course. And for routes served by OW, one can always fall back on Avios for last minute bookings if no availability is showing 72 hours out with Wizz 🙂

          • Rhys says:
            14 Aug14 August 15:23

            I’ve written an article tomorrow. My view is that the deal is only good if you have a second home you frequently attend or commute to work during the week, both of which let you jettison taking a proper carry on or checked bag on your trip as you can keep clothes and essentials at both origin and destination.

            It’s not even of use to backpackers who can be spontaneous but are likely to be carrying substantially more than a ‘personal item’ but would be on the hook to pay for bags.

          • Rob says:
            14 Aug14 August 15:23

            The T&C do not specifically say ‘if a seat is available, it’s yours’.

            Some press reports have said there is a separate allocation for the pass. I don’t know where this came from – press release? The T&C are actually very unclear.

            Does this sound like ‘if there’s a seat, it’s yours’?:

            Wizz Air does not guarantee that You will be eligible to book flights via the Wizz All You Can Fly, because the provision of flight tickets depends on a number of internal and external factors. These factors include, but not limited to the
            a) number of total registered members of Wizz All You Can Fly,
            b) number of overall passengers with booking to the given flight, and the
            c) seat capacity of the given flight.

            Cynics would say that this is weird wording compared to saying ‘if there’s a seat, you can have it’.

          • Londonsteve says:
            14 Aug14 August 15:42

            I agree, the wording isn’t clear. I read multiple articles about it and the understanding I gleaned was that there wouldn’t be a separate allocation akin to Avios reward flights versus cash tickets. I wouldn’t be wholly surprised if the Wizz press release is deliberately nebulous about availability and in reality they’re just giving away seats they know will otherwise fly empty while holding back availability their algos know they’ll be able to sell for cash in the last 72 hours.

            The issue about having to pay for large hand luggage is more a comment on the high (and random) prices Wizz apportion to this than any fault of the pass product per se. It would be ok if you knew you could always take a large hand luggage with priority boarding for a flat £20, say, on routes under 3 hours, but that’s not how they price it. I used to commute between London and Budapest weekly so I only ever paid for a reserved seat, but back then the prices for extras were far more moderate.

    • Londonsteve says:
      14 Aug14 August 15:22

      AirMax, I agree that it shows a soft market, or just oversupply. Wizz haven’t covered themselves in glory recently, further weakening their sales prospects and thus, average seat prices.

  • Greenpen says:
    14 Aug14 August 04:05

    You will get a congratulations email soon telling you that you are a greater carrot eater than most of the population. True reward does not necessarily come from Avios!

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      14 Aug14 August 07:07

      lol yes the annual email saying your the #1 buyer of X sandwich at the most common store you use but you’re only the #3 caviar buyer!

  • Lumma says:
    14 Aug14 August 05:08

    Here’s where by lunchtime there’s 300 comments where everyone is just saying what their target is…

    I’m sure when they’ve done this in the past it’s not been based on weight but on what they say is a portion, so the bags of carrots wouldn’t be worth quite as much

  • Philondon says:
    14 Aug14 August 05:11

    My account has buy 30 portions for 500 Nectar points.

  • TimM says:
    14 Aug14 August 05:46

    10 portions for 500 Nectar points here too. My carrots were 69p per 1Kg bag under an ‘Aldi price match’ – 3 bags added to my regular wine order with £1 delivery.

    Carrot soup it is then.

  • Rich F says:
    14 Aug14 August 05:53

    200 portions for 500 Nectar points on my account!

    • Neil says:
      14 Aug14 August 06:16

      I have to buy 120 portions of fruit for 250 avios lol 🤣

    • CJD says:
      14 Aug14 August 09:02

      I’m the same – 3 lots of 200 portions to get 1,500 total Nectar.

      2 of those should be doable as we eat a lot of fruit and veg anyway, and we’re up to 150 portions, so the first tranche of 500 should probably be hit with this weekend’s shop.

  • Strawb says:
    14 Aug14 August 06:02

    Soup in summer? Not me. Here’s a few ideas for summer. Crudites platter. With other veggies you’ve bought for the challenge why not make a small (or large if you’ve friends you might be entertaining) and healthy platter? Crunchy carrots and a range of dips to suit your tastes. For dessert try making a homemade carrot cake if you fancy yourself trying to be Mary Berry in the kitchen. Alternatively just do what Nigella does best and put all those carrots in a blender for the ultimate healthy carrot smoothie…with lashings of ginger!

    • TimM says:
      14 Aug14 August 06:39

      Carrot gazpacho!
      https://soupaddict.com/carrot-gazpacho/

    • JDB says:
      14 Aug14 August 08:21

      @Strawb – plenty of delicious cold summer soups. We shall be having vichyssoise and probably beetroot soup in the coming days. Cold nettle soup is delicious but not quite the season currently. Cold cucumber soup or gazpacho/salmorejo etc. etc.

    • Andrew. says:
      14 Aug14 August 08:26

      Soup in Summer? Absolutely!

      It’s 11C, it’s heavy rain, and the big umbrella is out for back to school today.

      Meal choices have been ticked and it’s lentil soup as first course. Just the same as it is on every single school day throughout the year (I think it might even be a statutory requirement by the Scottish Government to serve lentil soup).

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