M&S relaunches Sparks loyalty: how does it work?

Everything you need to know about the Marks and Spencer loyalty scheme

Marks & Spencer has relaunched its Sparks loyalty scheme, now letting you earn rewards with personalised offers. These use AI and data to match you, your preferences and how you typically spend at M&S. Some features of the old scheme are here to stay, though.

Here’s how the Sparks app has changed and what benefits it can get you.

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What is the Marks and Spencer Sparks card?

Sparks is the M&S loyalty scheme — it’s quite different to Clubcard and Nectar, as you don’t earn points — instead, you complete personalised tasks to earn money in your Sparks Wallet, which you can then spend at M&S, similar to Asda Rewards.

How to get an M&S Sparks Card

You can join up on the M&S app or its website. There’s a digital card in the app, which you can add to your Apple or Google Wallet.

What offers does the Sparks card give?

The Sparks relaunch has completely changed the benefits you get when you scan your card at checkout.

Personalised offers

You now have a selection of personalised offers, which are AI-driven and determined by how you shop. These offers pay you in pounds when you spend set amounts on certain products.

For example, in my app right now, I have a reward of £1 when I spend £6 on bakery items; £1 when I spend £6 on jams, nut butters and spreads; £2 when I buy a roasting joint; and £10 when I spend £30 on fashion, home and beauty.

You have to activate offers before you shop in the app. This is a slightly frustrating extra step which prevents you from earning unknowingly, but there’s nothing stopping you from activating all the offers in the app, whether you plan to use them or not.

With some tasks, you can complete the spend target over several shops, while others will need to be completed in a single transaction — this is explained in the offer details when you activate the offer.

The offers currently showing in my app expire within the next 10 days (3 days for the £10 reward). Presumably, at this point, more offers will take their place so you can carry on earning.

Free coffee

The coffee stamps are here to stay. As before, you will get a free hot drink once you have collected six stamps. You’ll receive one stamp for every hot drink purchased when you scan your Sparks card in M&S cafes and vending machines.

The stamps are automatically applied to your Sparks card, so you don’t have to remember to scan or collect anything else.

A donation to charity every time you shop

Marks and Spencer will donate money to your chosen charity every time you shop and scan your Sparks card.

Birthday treat

As before, you’ll get a birthday treat added to your account on your birthday. You need to make sure you’ve entered your birthday into the personal details section of the app.

Other Sparks benefits

Access your digital receipts

You’ll be able to find all of your digital receipts in the Sparks app, and you can opt out of receiving paper ones. This is very handy if you want to return something, as those paper receipts tend to go walkabouts all too often. 

Use your phone to Scan & Shop

This really is a time saver, as there’s no queuing up at the tills waiting to pay. You can use the Marks and Spencer app to scan your shopping and bag it up as you go. Then, you can pay from the app using a credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay.

There is a maximum limit of £45, but if you go over this, you can scan a code on the self-checkout tills to transfer your shopping over, so there’s no need to scan everything again.

How to access M&S Sparks offers

You can view all your current offers in your account (either online or on the app). You need to click “Activate” to activate an offer, or you can click on the offer to get more information on it. Each offer has a progress bar to show how much more you need to spend on a certain type of product to get the reward, or, if it needs to be completed in one shop, it says “shop to earn” instead.

Where to use M&S Sparks

Your Sparks card can be used in M&S shops, cafes and online. It cannot be used in BP Connect shops, at Ocado or in M&S outlets. Also, it won’t work at any M&S shops outside of the UK and Ireland.

How to use your rewards

There’s now a “Digital Wallet” that holds all of the rewards that you’ve earned. You can spend your rewards after 14 days — until then, the cash is marked as “pending”, similar to cashback apps. When you want to spend your rewards, hit “spend” in the app, and you’ll get a voucher to use.

Is a Marks and Spencer Sparks card worth it?

The Sparks app relaunch has excited quite a few M&S customers already, and it’s good to have personalised offers. I tend to shop a lot in the Food Hall, so my offers are mostly for food items; while a friend of mine mostly shops there for clothes, and her offers are for specific clothing items.

It’ll be interesting to see how the AI personalisation will evolve over time, as M&S has said that it’ll improve as people use it. The birthday treat is a nice touch, and everyone loves a freebie. And it was a good choice to keep the coffee stamps.

And lastly, it’s free to join, so why wouldn’t you? I mean, who can say no to a free bag of Percy Pigs?