Hello everyone! The Waitrose supermarket recently made some update to their loyalty programme MyWaitrose. As such we thought now would be the time to do review the new service and identify if we think MyWaitrose is worth it!
(Please note: Loyalty schemes change all the time so whilst everything is correct at time of writing, there is always potential for slight changes!)
What is MyWaitrose?
MyWaitrose is the loyalty scheme for the Waitrose Supermarket, and has been around for a while.
Initially the MyWaitrose benefits provided were very general – free coffee in store, offers on newspapers etc. Whilst the coffee offer has recently made a return (which we’re pleased about) – MyWaitrose more generally has evolved…
Specifically, MyWaitrose has turned into an approach based on personalised offers, rather than having general benefits.
What are the benefits of MyWaitrose?
Personalised MyWaitrose Vouchers targeted to you
Each week, MyWaitrose will send you personalised vouchers which are based on your shopping history.
This is the biggest aspect of the new MyWaitrose and probably offers the largest benefit to most people, however it’s a bit fiddly in general.
One of the key differences is that now you’re reliant on having Waitrose’s mobile phone app to get the most out of the programme – but it can be worth it.
On a weekly basis (they update on a Wednesday) you’ll need to select these within the MyWaitrose app. The offers I’ve seen have been pretty beneficial – I’m regularly getting £1/£2 off products which I would be buying anyhow, and I often make use of the vouchers because they’re so relevant to my shopping.
Discounted offers on Product Ranges
Like many Supermarket loyalty schemes, MyWaitrose will apply occasional discounts to ranges of products, such as purchases from the fish counter or items from the Waitrose No.1 range. These change multiple times but can be beneficial – keep an eye out for them in store as they tend to be quite heavily advertised.
Free MyWaitrose Cafe Nero Coffee with every shop
Every time you shop at Waitrose you can now get a free coffee as part of your benefits. To take advantage, you’ll need to bring a reusable cup (no paper cups are provided in store anymore) and fill up at the coffee machine.
If you register your coffee at the till and scan your MyWaitrose card, your coffee will automatically be deducted from your final amount.
There is no minimum purchase required to get the free coffee – so a banana or cookie will cut it!
Since Waitrose re-introduced the coffee scheme, they’ve moved to using Cafe Nero beans as a crossover promotional initiative.
(Note: Some Waitrose stores now have a requirement to scan your MyWaitrose card at the coffee machine to claim your free coffee – we’ve written a guide to getting your coffee below).
Free Waitrose Magazines
Waitrose have in-house magazines targeting food, drink and health and they’re usually pretty high quality – picking up these in store is free with a MyWaitrose card.
Discounts on the Waitrose Cookery School/Dry Cleaning
A long tenured benefit of MyWaitrose is discounts on classes at the Waitrose Cookery School and Johnson’s dry cleaning.
Discounts and free coffee via using your MyWaitrose card at Cafe Nero
More of a Cafe Nero benefit that a Waitrose one, but you can now link your MyWaitrose card to the Cafe Nero loyalty app.
The most immediate benefit of this is that you’ll get a free coffee at Cafe Nero via their loyalty app when linking. However you’ll also receive a further 25% any of the special seasonal menu and drink items at Cafe Nero as well, claimed automatically when you scan your Cafe Nero loyalty card.
You can find the option to link your MyWaitrose card in the “settings” menu within the Cafe Nero App.
How do I use the MyWaitrose Vouchers?
This is where the MyWaitrose approach becomes far more fiddly that it needs to be. In rival loyalty schemes like the Co-Op’s (which works on a similar “choose vouchers” basis) as soon as you’ve selected the vouchers, the benefit automatically applies as soon as you scan your loyalty card at the till.
MyWaitrose doesn’t do this – instead you’ll need to specifically remember you have a voucher for the product and have this scanned as well:
If paying at the till
Mention to the checkout person that you have a voucher, and then you’ll need to pull up the specific voucher on your phone and ask them to scan it.
If paying at a self-service checkout
If paying at self-service, scan your shopping first and then select finish and pay and scan your MyWaitrose card.
You’ll then need to select “Voucher” as an option when it comes to the payment choices, then select to use in store on your MyWaitrose phone app and scan the barcode it gives you.
How do I get the MyWaitrose Free Coffee?
In my store at least, Waitrose have now introduced a check that you’ve made a purchase before you can get your free coffee.
To get the free coffee, either:
- Ask at the till for your coffee or choice to be added then scan your MyWaitrose card.
- On a self service till, select item then drinks and your drink of choice. It’ll come up as a chargeable item, but then deduct it at the point you scan your MyWaitrose card.
Once done, head to the coffee machine and place your cup under it. You need to scan your MyWaitrose card first on the little scanner next to the machine, then select the drink you would like on the coffee machine itself.
It sounds a bit fiddly, but it’s quite intuitive once you’ve done it a few times!
Overall Review of MyWaitrose
The new MyWaitrose is slightly frustrating. On one hand the discounts themselves are very good, and have often been on essential items that I buy on a regular basis, meaning I’m actually making some good savings, particularly on premium goods.
We’re also really happy to see the recent reintroduction of the free coffee benefit as this was popular with users.
However it’s really difficult to look past the amount of hoops MyWaitrose requires you to jump through to actually use your vouchers by requiring you to scan them again, and it’s difficult to overlook this when rival schemes don’t.
You walk away feeling a little bit like MyWaitrose is designed to advertise the benefit of the vouchers, but hope you don’t actually use them as they’re likely to get forgotten – not really what a loyalty scheme is about.
As such, there’s things to like about MyWaitrose but with a few ease of use tweaks it would be significantly better.
Issues with scanning a MyWaitrose card or vouchers
When it launched, MyWaitrose had a few problems with people finding difficulties in scanning their MyWaitrose card/vouchers at the tills – even staff were struggling!
It’s much better now in general, but I’ll just pass on one tip – under the credit card machine there’s an additional scanner which tends to pick up a scan from a phone much better than the till point one.
How does MyWaitrose compare to other Supermarket loyalty?
And if you’d like to read about other supermarket loyalty schemes, we’ve got a review of Lidl Plus here, a review of Tesco Clubcard here, a review of Asda Rewards here, a review of Morrisons More here and a guide to earning more Nectar points here.
And do check out our guide to the best loyalty cards and apps in the UK!
Any questions?
Do you have any questions about the MyWaitrose loyalty scheme? We’d also love to hear your thoughts on your experiences using MyWaitrose and any big savings or issues – just leave a note in the comments below!
And that’s it!
Thank you for reading! You can sign up below to get our new articles delivered to you on a range of financial topics, or remember you can follow our Facebook and Twitter pages.
A number of additional comments:
1. The voucher bar codes (and probably the online MyWaitrose membership bar code) will not work if your phone screen is in dark mode, as it seems the bar codes become white on black, so you have to put the phone back to normal mode (which throws me back one screen on Samsung’s Android, so I have to call up my vouchers again). In contrast, Marks & Spencer Sparks barcode screen in the Sparks app works in either mode. .
2. The scheme is a little naff in that if you select a voucher and the product it was for is out of stock, you cannot cancel and select another voucher. For example I was being offered a high value voucher almost every week against guinea fowl – a product I did manage to get once at the start of this offering but then never managed to get again. After many weeks of this I was eventually told by a staff member that this item had ceased being stocked a matter of months before, but also that it does not matter anyway because all the vouchers work whatever you actually buy!
3. I seem to have been scuppered by all my vouchers now being mere 50p ones, whereas I have had some worth up to £3.50 in the past.
4. I get a free newspaper voucher for every day of the week, which is good value, but it used to be hard at the start (at least on the browser-based MyWaitrose hub) to navigate to the newspaper vouchers.
5.The MyWaitrose APP has a lot of bad press, but I have not had the problems people report there, as I use the hub via the browser.
6. In the branch I use most (Edgware Road, London), the main scanner on the till will not read the voucher barcodes from the phone, and I have to use the one beneath the credit/debit card machine, as you mention, whereas in the Bayswater store, the main scanners on the self-checkouts read them just fine, presumably because of the more modern machines there. [In contrast, the Edgware Road branch has hand-held Quick-Check scanners to scan your items, while the more modern Bayswater branch has never had them (and there is no choice but to use the QuickCheck app on the phone to scan your purchases if you want to self-scan – but that is irrelevant to this thread).]
I keep being informed that I’ll have to use my Waitrose card more often in order to earn vouchers. There’s a monthly regular debit going out to my mobile phone contract, and I’ve been using the card every week for, at least, the last month. Is there a minimum spend limit?
Hi Jeanett, thanks for reading and for reaching out.
My apologies if I’m being silly and misunderstanding you – from your reference to having a direct debit for a mobile phone contract I’m assuming you may have a Waitrose/John Lewis Partnership spending card? If that’s the case, it’s treated differently from the MyWaitrose Loyalty Card/app and using the spending card alone doesn’t get recognised by the MyWaitrose scheme even when spending on that – you’d also need to scan you MyWaitrose card at the till to qualify to start receiving vouchers.
If it is the credit/debit card – I’m afraid I’m not familiar enough with it to give any practical advice but I hope you get some vouchers one way or another soon! Sorry I can’t be more help.
I have just returned from waitrose after using my relatively new card. It was so difficult to scan the vouchers unlike the sparks card. Plus the sighing and eye rolling from the checkout operator was unacceptable. I know I’m order than her but really??
So much for ‘choosing’ from a selection of money off vouchers under the myWaitrose so-called Loyalty scheme! Having used this for a number of months and been able to choose 2 vouchers from a selection each week, I now find that Waitrose has decided to choose for me! There are only 2 pre-determined vouchers available to me this week. What’s more, one of them is for a product I bought last week and which is low turnover in my household so I really don’t want or need to buy it again this week. Why is Waitrose so bad at these things? Their algorithm is wrong!
Hi Elizabeth, thanks for reading and sorry to hear this. It does sound rather like an algorithm error as I’m not aware of any planned changes to the scheme, and I’ve just double checked mine and still have seven to pick from. We’d greatly appreciate hearing if this persists or if others have the same.