Grab discounts and freebies from Three’s new reward scheme.
Two years after Three’s previous rewards app Wuntu closed down, the mobile network has launched Three+ for its customers. Here’s everything you need to know about it, and how to get it even if you’re on a different network.
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What is Three+?
Three+ will offer freebies, discounts and ticket presales to customers. Early offers include cheap cinema tickets and takeaway discounts.
Who can get Three+?
All pay monthly customers can access the rewards while “active” Pay-as-you-go users will also be able to use it. “Active” is classed as an account that has been topped up by £10 in the last 90 days.
You’ll obviously need a phone, and it’ll work on newer iOS and Android devices. A desktop version is in the works.
You need to download the Three+ app and register with your Three account details.
It’s not currently available for home broadband, mobile broadband or business customers, but that should change.
How good are the Three+ offers?
There are only a handful of discounts on launch. Here’s how the break down:
Cinema offers
- £3 Cineworld ticket once a week for a 2D screening between Friday and Sunday. 75p online booking fee. Ends 7 November 2023.
- £3 Picturehouse ticket once a week for a 2D screening between Friday and Sunday. Excludes Picturehouse Central and Picturehouse Fulham Road. 70p online booking fee. Ends 7 November 2023.
These are both pretty good savings, especially at the weekend. Since it’s every week this could add up to a fair amount – though obviously, it depends on how much your cinema charges for tickets.
It’s a shame the Picturehouse Central is excluded as this is a great cinema (and very expensive).
You will have to pay a fee of around 70p to book online, though you can avoid this by booking at the box office. You can also pay an upgrade fee at both cinemas to see 3D films or get posher seats.
More ways to save at the cinema
You might be able to get a cheaper ticket – check out my latest list of the hottest cinema deals
Food offers
- 20% off Uber Eats once a week, mininum spend of £15 before fees and a maximum saving of £10 each time. Ends 7 March 2022
- Two mains for £10 at Frankie & Benny’s each week, ends 7 May 2022
- £12 tortilla and drink at Chiquito each week for up to six people, ends 7 May 2022
- £3 Simply Cook pack
The Uber offer could be decent if you are getting a takeaway anyway – I don’t think the saving is enough to justify getting an unplanned meal!
The others are much of muchness. There are often other deals for Frankie & Benny’s, while the Chiquito offer is effectively just a free soft drink.
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Ticket offers
- Presale for festivals, including Reading and Leeds
- 10% off West End tickets via Love Theatre. Ends 7 November 2022
It’s good to have a way to get presale festival tickets, though at the moment the range looks to be nowhere near the gigs on O2 Priority. I’ve had a quick Google for other festivals partnered with Three and it could mean we see offers for Lattitude, Wireless, Parklife, Isle of Wight, TRNSMT, Vital and Glasgow Summer Sessions.
The West End tickets are only going to be worth saving 10% on if you can’t get offers elsewhere. So definitely shop around!
Other offers
- 15% off Bloom & Wild flowers, can be used five times before 31 December 2021
- A year of The Athletic for £12. New users only. Ends 22 January 2022
- Days Out+ membership for £9.99. Ends 7 February 2022
- 15% off Readly
- 2-4-1 tours of Chelsea FC
These deals are all relatively generic and I’ve seen the same or better elsewhere. Still if you can’t get other discounts elsewhere they might be worth using.
Is Three+ a reason to move to Three?
Andy’s Analysis
Only a handful of these early discounts are potentially going to be useful – and only if you have a Cineworld/Picturehouse near you or if you use Uber Eats. The rest are pretty blah.
They certainly aren’t strong enough to justify moving to Three. But the same can be said for O2 Priority and Vodafone’s VeryMe.
Really you should be looking for the SIM deal that gives you the data, minutes and texts you need (and not more) for the lowest price. You might also want to weigh up the costs to use the phone overseas. Any freebies and discounts on top only come into play when prices are similar between SIMS.
Of course, Three can actually be a very cheap option – especially if you go via Quidco or TopCashback, so this could give the network the edge over competitors.
How to get Three+ if you’re not on Three
If you’re with a different network there is a way to access the app – but it will cost you. It involved buying a PAYG SIM, activating it on your phone and topping it up by £10 every 90 days.
Though I’m on Three I was able to test if the app still works with a different network’s SIM in the phone – and it did! So this should mean you won’t have to keep putting the PAYG Three SIM into your handset everything you want to claim an offer. However, you’ll need to keep hold of it for when you want to top up by another £10.
Is it worth paying £10 a quarter?
Of course, paying £10 every three months, or £40 a year, might not be worth it when you take into account the available offers. Here are a couple of examples to give you an idea of how it could work out.
Let’s say you go to the cinema every month, that effectively means you’re paying £6.33 a ticket rather than £3. If that’s still significantly cheaper than offers run by Cineworld or Picturehouse, you’re quids in. But there are a lot of cheaper ticket deals right now.
Or if you’re more likely to use the Uber Eats discount. Well say you spend £30 before fees once a month. That’s a saving of £18 over the quarter, but that reduces to £8 saved after the £10 top-up.
Adding Three+ to your phone
- Order a SIM from Three or a cashback site
- Make sure your phone is unlocked (here’s a phone-by-phone guide)
- Insert the SIM into your phone
- Register an account with Three and activate the SIM
- Top up your SIM with a £10 Discover Data Pack
- Download the Three app (use Wifi if you don’t want to use credit)
- Sign in to the Three+ app
- Take the SIM out and put your normal one back in
Three+ vs O2 Priority vs Vodafone VeryMe
When you compare Three+ to the other network loyalty apps, it currently sits in third place. Of course it’s early days so that could change.
However there are regular freebies with both of the other schemes, from hot drinks to Odeon tickets to pasties. Really though it’s down to what you’re actually going to use. I’ve got a local Odeon, but not a Cineworld or Vue, so O2 is better for me in that instance.
It’s possible to get both O2 Priority and VeryMe without being on those networks, so they might be better ones to try before giving Three+ a go.