How to save money at John Lewis

It’s one of our treasured high street retailers but is John Lewis value for money? 

With over 30 shops across the UK, John Lewis is a high street favourite for many with a reputation for quality, reliability, and excellent customer service. But just like its food shops, Waitrose, it is sometimes perceived as upmarket and pricey. So are there ways to save money at your favourite retailer?

Some articles on the site contain affiliate links, which provide a small commission to help fund our work. However, they won’t affect the price you pay or our editorial independence. Read more here.

Join MyJohn Lewis

The John Lewis loyalty scheme is known as My John Lewis and is free to join. John Lewis promote digital-only membership to decrease their environmental impact, so you won’t be sent a physical card. But you can still request one through your account. 

The online account and app are useful whether you shop in store or online, since all your receipts and guarantees can be found in your online account so there’s no need to hang on to those paper ones.

As part of the loyalty scheme, you’ll be rewarded with offers and discounts. You’ll find these in the rewards section online or on the app and many of the offers and discounts require you to copy and paste a code if shopping on John Lewis.com or to activate the voucher and show the cashier if shopping in-store. So don’t forget to check your rewards before shopping.

Though the offers are often personalised, some are for all or most customers, and we’ll share the really good ones in our John Lewis deals page.

Some of the vouchers to look out for include:

Money off coupons 

You’ll often find money off vouchers or discounts every month. Sometimes they’re linked to specific products or brands, but just last month I had a 5% off an entire shop – if you’re buying anything expensive this is a good discount to get.

Free coffee & cake

My favourite voucher has to be the free coffee and cake at their in-store cafes but sadly this doesn’t appear every month any more. However it can still pop up and there are even different versions of it including free cake and prosecco at Christmas, so keep an eye out.

Anniversary freebie

Most years you’ll get a £5 voucher to use, issued on the anniversary of joining the scheme.

Members’ week

A few times a year there are extra discounts and offers as part of “Members’ Week”. Most recently the promotion included codes for £10 off £120 and £20 off £200 spends across the store.

Price match

John Lewis has brought back its ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ price match policy, two years after it put it on pause.

Never Knowingly Undersold price matches 25 high street and online retailers, including AO.com; Amazon (on technology); Apple; Argos; Asos; Boots; Currys; Dunelm; Dreams; The Entertainer; Fenwick; Flannels; Furniture Village; Harrods; Harvey Nichols; Heal’s; House of Fraser; Lakeland; M&S; Mama’s and Papa’s; Next; Richer Sounds; Selfridges; Smyths Toys and Space NK.

Although they regularly check the prices of competitors with AI technology, if you do buy something from John Lewis and find the price is lower at any of the above retailers within seven days, or if the price has dropped at John Lewis itself, then they’ll refund you the difference.

To initiate a price promise refund, you have to fill in this online form. Terms and conditions will apply.

Purchase with longer guarantees as standard

A really good reason for shopping at John Lewis is the minimum 2 year guarantee included on all electricals and 5 years on TVs and it’s at no extra cost. Even better, there’s a three year guarantee included on all John Lewis brand electricals.

They also offer lengthy guarantees on furniture, outdoor furniture and even lifetime guarantees on their own-brand cookware range.

The long guarantees and good customer service sets them apart from other retailers and when it comes to an expensive purchase, such as a large electricals, then the guarantee could save you money in the long run should anything go wrong.

Get rewarded for recycling beauty containers

With Beautycycle, My John Lewis members can save £5 off a £50 spend on selected B Corp certified beauty brands. Simply take five empty beauty containers to the beauty counter and you’ll get the money off there and then.

Get vouchers for returning old clothes

With the John Lewis Fashioncycle scheme, take five or more pre-loved items of clothing to any John Lewis fashion or home counter and you’ll receive £5 off  your next fashion or homeware purchase over £20.

Check sales and offers

Just like most UK retailers, there always seems to be offers or sales available at John Lewis. When shopping online it’s easy to find out what’s on offer as there’s a tab to click, but in-store, it’s a little more difficult to spot.

At the time of writing, you can save up to £55 on Apple products, 25% off Crew clothing, 15% off Clinique or up to £300 cashback when you purchase a Samsung TV and that’s just a tiny example of what was on offer. Just make sure you compare prices at other retailers before buying, by using a price comparison site.

And don’t forget to use the price drop refund I mentioned earlier, if an item you buy is reduced in price within seven weeks of purchase.

Shop the Anyday range

John Lewis launched what essentially is its value range, Anyday, in 2021 and declared it “quality and style at everyday prices”. There are products across homeware, technology, clothing, baby care and furniture and the prices will surprise you. There’s glasses from £1.50 each or a double bed frame for £149. The clothes are fashionable and although not quite Primark prices, they are very reasonably priced and really good quality.

I love my Anyday hard case suitcases. The large is just £65 – about £100 cheaper than the popular brands I was looking to purchase.

Shop online through cashback sites

Cashback sites like Quidco and TopCashback offer money back when you shop online at John Lewis via them. At the time of writing, you could get up to 3% cashback via Quidco and up to 5% via TopCashback.

What’s even better, if you withdraw your cashback from Quidco as John Lewis e-vouchers, you’ll get 6% extra on top of your earned cashback. And at TopCashback it’s a 2% bonus.

We’ve written all about cashback sites and there’s even a link to get up to £20 when you sign up to Quidco or TopCashback.

Purchase discounted gift cards

Some cashback apps like JamDoughnut and HyperJar sell John Lewis gift cards. At the time of writing this you could get an extra 3.5% cashback at JamDoughnut and 4.5% at HyperJar. Here’s how discounted gift cards work. 

The only risk is if you return anything, the refund will be in gift vouchers, so only go down this route if you’re certain you’ll either keep your purchase or will spend again at John Lewis very soon.

Use a Partnership reward credit card

The Partnership credit card gives you points every time you spend. You’ll receive 4 points per £5 spent at John Lewis which is worth 1.25% – that’s pretty much unbeatable from reward cards. 

You’ll also receive that rate at Waitrose but be aware, you only get 1 point per £4 spent elsewhere (worth 0.25%), so you’re better off using a different reward card in those situations. You can find out about the best reward credit cards in our up to date summary.

For every 500 points you earn, you are rewarded with a £5 John Lewis voucher, with the vouchers being sent to you in the post in multiples of £5. They also don’t expire so don’t have to be spent within a certain time frame.

There are sometimes welcome offers for when you first sign up, and we’ll share these in our credit cards deals page when they happen.

Don’t forget to click & collect

Free delivery is available when purchasing from John Lewis online for orders over £50 but if you have a Waitrose nearby, you can click & collect for free on orders over £30.

The click & collect service is really efficient and most items can be collected the next day if you order before 6pm. Although this may not be a money saving hack, you are in theory saving money if you want this service, as you would have to pay a premium for next day delivery/collection with most other online retailers.

And don’t forget, you can also return items at Waitrose branches and it’s free to do so.