BOOTS LOYALTY PROGRAM - ADVANTAGE CARD - IS IT WORTH?

Hello guys :)

I don't even know how to start this post as I am not good at writing long, informative type of essays or stories but you better grab a cup of tea or coffee before reading further :)

Probably, this post will be more relevant to you if you live in the UK and as you probably already know by now, I will be talking about drugstore called Boots.

A BIT OF MY HISTORY
Since I remember and since I started to earn my money and spend my money, I have always checked the loyalty programs available in stores and compare them to find out which one would be more beneficial - I didn't only look at the loyalty offer but also at the price of goods to make sure I don't over pay. Don't get me wrong, it is not like before I started to earn my own money I didn't care about saving on loyalty programs, it just wasn't up to me but up to my parents.

When I moved to the UK, in 2010, after I found my grocery loyalty program, I started to search for a place where I can 'get rewarded' for the money spent on beauty stuff. I didn't actually have to search a lot as Boots was the first drug store I went to and I was offered the card immediately. So now, it has been nearly 5 year as I've been collecting and spending my 'Boots points'.

MY OBJECTIVE
I wanted to write this post to encourage those who have access to Boots to buy there and collect the points and I am not sponsored by brand or encourage by them in any way to write it. The reason why I decided to write it is that there are two main, big and popular drugstores in the UK - both of them operate stores and offer online shopping, and after years of being with Boots and there was couple of months I was trying its competitor's loyalty program as well, I feel like it is important to highlight how beneficial Boots's offer is. I am, to be honest, actually surprised why its competitor does not respond to this and improve its offer but this is not a business post...

A BIT OF MATH
At Boots, we can get 4 points for £1 spent (sometimes we can 10 points for £1 spent). Its competitor offers 1 point for £1 spent.

Both companies allow us to change 100 points for £1 worth goods.

Above numbers mean that in order to get £10 worth goods we need to spend following:
Boots - we need to spend £250 (have 1000 points accumulated)
its competitor - we need to spend £1000 (accumulate 1000 points)

Can you see the difference?

OTHER OFFERS I HAVE RECEIVED FROM BOOTS
Since I joined Boots loyalty Program, I have been receiving many offers by post. That includes:
- get double points
- 500 free points when spending £xx on selected brands
- free samples
- £5 off, with no minimum spending amount, meaning I got some products for free
- getting free product from prestige brand when buying one product from the same brand

I just wanted to add a bit of an explanation to the offer related to getting, for example, 500 free points when spending £xx amount on selected brand. When receiving these vouchers, I have always had a big choice, at least 3 brand or combination of products and the brands included in the offer are always the popular ones, not something boring.

On the top of that, the company offers big discounts on eye tests and more points when shopping from categories such as baby or Boots branded goods. Awesome! Additionally, holders of Boots Advantage Card can grab Health & Beauty magazine for free, which features interesting and useful tips.

BOOTS WORLDWIDE
I actually thought that in the US and Canada, you can also enjoy shopping at Boots but then I did a small research as I wanted to find out if Advantage Card (loyalty Program) is popular abroad, but sadly, I found out that not only Boots but also its loyalty program are not that popular outside UK.

BOOTS BRANDED PRODUCTS
As I have already mentioned, we can get more points when buying Boots branded products, which are actually really great.They don't contain harsh ingredients but are enriched with organic, botanical and Fair Trade stuff or combination of all these. I have already tried some of these and you can read a small review here (click).

CONCLUSION
That would be it. As I said, I am not good at writing this type of long posts but I hope you found it, at least, a little bit interesting. If you have access to the stores offering loyalty programs, double check their offers. At first, it might seem that we need to spend A LOT of money to get something but time flies, trust me, and we don't even realize how much we spend and before we realize, we could already have £20 worth points or so! It is worth checking different options and compare them to make sure the brand offers us as much as they can afford not as little as you can get away with.

Readers, let me know where you are from and what loyalty programs you are signed up to! I would love to know what stores offer you!