Loyalty cards and points: what are they really worth?

Turning any scheme into a percentage

Loyalty schemes advertise points, stars and fivers, which makes them hard to compare. The calculator above does the conversion; the sum behind it is short. Multiply the points you earn per £1 by what one point is worth in pence, and you have your return in pence per pound, which is the same number as a percentage. One point per £1 at 1p a point is 1%. One point per £1 at 0.5p is 0.5%. Three points per £1 at 1p is 3%.

Then add the second half of the benefit: member prices. Enter what the scheme saves you each month on those reduced-price items, and the calculator shows the combined effect. As an example, spending £400 a month at 1% returns £4 a month, or £48 a year, before any member-price savings.

The main UK schemes

Sources. The Tesco, Nectar, Lidl and Morrisons rows come from those companies' own pages. Boots, Superdrug, Asda, Waitrose and Iceland pages blocked automated access, so those rows rest on Which?'s scheme comparison (23 September 2026), Marketing Week (Boots's May 2026 change: members lost 10% off own brand, prices were lowered for everyone, and over-60s keep eight points per £1 on own brand) and press reports. Asda's Cashpot is reported to expire if not turned into vouchers within six months. Co-op ended its 2% own-brand reward in January 2024, according to Decision Marketing. For Morrisons the table gives only what its own page says: points are earned per product, not per pound, so the percentage return depends on each item's price; the 0.1p a point follows from 5,000 points making a £5 Fiver.

Is Clubcard Plus worth it?

Tesco's Clubcard Plus costs £7.99 a month after a one-month free trial, which is £95.88 a year. It gives 10% off two in-store grocery shops of your choice each month, plus 10% off F&F clothing and some Tesco brands in store. Exclusions apply, and you only get the discounts by scanning the app in store. Ignoring the exclusions, the grocery discount alone covers the fee once those two shops add up to £79.90 a month. Tesco says you can save up to £40 a month. If you rarely spend that much in a Tesco store, the subscription costs more than it returns, and you can cancel at any time. The ordinary Clubcard points are earned either way.

Are the discounts real? The CMA's finding

The Competition and Markets Authority reviewed loyalty pricing in groceries and published its findings on 27 November 2024. It looked at about 50,000 dual-priced products.

• 92% had a non-member promotional price the same as or cheaper than the price charged to all shoppers in the 28 days before the promotion.
• Only 0.6% showed a pattern where the non-member price was higher both before and after the promotion.
• Members saved an average of 17% to 25% on loyalty-priced products at Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Co-op and Morrisons.
• Of 429 branded products compared across shops, 61 (14%) were cheaper elsewhere, 154 had the cheapest loyalty price and 214 an equal-cheapest price.

The CMA found "very limited evidence" that supermarkets inflated usual prices to make loyalty prices look good, and it still advises shoppers to compare. Public opinion is less trusting: 40% of those surveyed did not trust loyalty prices to be a genuine saving, and 43% thought it unfair that members pay less. The CMA also wrote to supermarkets asking them to review their practices, and suggested offline sign-up and a lower minimum age.

What Which? found in 2023

Which? published its investigation on 15 September 2023. It tracked 141 member-only prices at Tesco and Sainsbury's from 20 December 2022 to June 2023. About 29% sat at their "regular" price for less than half that time: 24% of Tesco's 70 products and 34% of Sainsbury's 71. In one example, a Nectar price of £6 was shown as a £2.10 saving against an £8.10 regular price that had been £6 until two days before the offer began. The average member-only saving was 21%, but on a typical basket of everyday groceries the saving was 6.4% at Tesco and 2% at Sainsbury's. Both retailers disputed the findings; Tesco said its promotions follow rules endorsed by its Trading Standards Primary Authority, and Sainsbury's attributed higher regular prices to inflation. Which? asked the CMA to look into it, and the review above followed.

What you give in return

You trade data. A scheme sees what you buy and when, and uses it to personalise offers. Which?'s 2023 survey found 69% would exchange data for discounts and 26% were uncomfortable with how much supermarkets collect. The CMA said it had not seen evidence of consumer law concerns in how supermarkets collect and use personal data, though they do not always name every third party they share it with. Read the privacy settings in the app, and do not change where you shop just to chase points.

Scheme terms checked on 29 October 2026.