A customer loyalty card without points
From personalised vouchers to free hot drinks, we’ll take you through all the benefits of joining MyWaitrose
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What is MyWaitrose?
The loyalty scheme has gone through a few iterations over the years. The key difference from other schemes is that rather than earn points, you get discounts and vouchers to spend in-store and online.
When you sign up you can request a plastic card, or just use a digital card on your phone. To take advantage of the offers you need to scan your MyWaitrose card at the till. If you’re shopping online the card will automatically be applied – as long as you’re signed into your account.
How MyWaitrose works
There are a few parts to MyWaitrose, mainly free hot drinks, weekly money off coupons and in-store discounts.
Waitrose free hot drink
A free hot drink is available with any purchase, but you must bring your own cup. Ideally you’ll get this when you’re doing your normal shopping, but if you’re passing by and just fancy a drink, picking up something like a banana would a cheap and non-wasteful way to trigger the offer.
We’ve written in more detail how the Waitrose free hot drinks offer works.
Personalised vouchers
Most weeks you’ll receive a new selection of discount vouchers. I’m usually shown a choice of six, though you could see more or less. I say ‘most’, since you may not receive personalised vouchers every week.
You get to choose two of these every Wednesday and there’s a week to use them.
Additional coupons
As well as the personalised vouchers, you should see a couple of money off coupons on the app, usually to encourage you to try a new product. These tend to last a full month, and cover a broader range of products, for example flavoured olive oil, rather than a single and specific item.
Up to 20% off meat, fish and dry cleaning
you’ll also get access to additional discounts. For example, you can get 20% off the fish counter on Fridays and 20% off the meat counter on Saturdays And there’s 5% off dry cleaning at selected stores.
Discounts on certain products
From time to time you might catch a MyWaitrose label on the shelves offering an extra discount on products if you scan your card. I don’t see these very often, but they’re worth looking out for.
Free Waitrose magazine
The Waitrose Food magazine and Drinks magazine are also free with your MyWaitrose card.
25% off at Caffe Nero
You can also save at Nero shops if you link your MyWaitrose card to the Caffe Nero app. The 25% off is on selected food and drink, so check your Nero app to see what’s available.
In addition you’ll get a free Nero barista coffee when you make your first purchase at Nero after connecting your accounts.
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How much can I save via MyWaitrose?
The personalised vouchers aren’t as lucrative as they used to be. The majority of vouchers tend to offer 50p to £2 off products you usually buy so you can make a saving nearly every week without going out of your way to buy anything different from your usual purchases. Assuming it’s at least £1 saved most weeks, it’ll hopefully be close to or over £50 over a year.
Getting a free drink could save you £2.50 (if not more) against other coffee shop chains, so doing this once a week would add up to £130.
The other core savings obviously depend on how often you’d buy at the counters or get dry cleaning done. But they’re worth thinking about if you are a Waitrose customer anyway.
How to choose your Waitrose vouchers
You’ll get a new selection most Wednesday’s, though new users might have to wait a few weeks before this happens.
To see your selection, you’ll need to log into your MyWaitrose account either online or via the app. On the app you’ll find a “View vouchers” button near the top of the screen. Hit that and you’ll see the options available.
You can browse through the available vouchers and click “choose this voucher” to activate it.
You can choose two vouchers every week. The new selection will appear on a Wednesday.
If you change your mind, or get to the store and find the item is out of stock you can deselect a voucher and choose an alternative.
If you know your phone has dodgy signal when you get to Waitrose then see if there’s a wifi network you can join (there should be in most stores). Failing that you’ll just have to select your voucher before going in.
How to use your MyWaitrose vouchers
In-store
You no longer need to scan each voucher barcode, whether in the app or printed. They are now taken off automatically when you scan your My Waitrose card, making it quicker and easier.
You cannot get physical copies of the weekly vouchers sent to you in the post, however, you may still receive other Waitrose coupons or vouchers in the post.
Via online shopping
You still need to say you want to use the voucher for an online order. When you get to the checkout stage, the vouchers you’ve chosen will appear in a “voucher wallet”. As long as the item is in the basket you can select to apply the coupon to your order. Remember there’s a £40 minimum order for online shopping.
MyWaitrose voucher hacks
To scan or not to scan?
The personalised vouchers will be based on your shopping history, so you’ll need to make sure you scan your card for any to appear. So the more you scan the card, the greater the variety of offers you’ll see.
Of course, if you’re buying things which you wouldn’t normally get, and you’re not getting any extra discounts for scanning your card, you could choose not to!
Shop on Wednesdays
Wednesdays are a good time to shop if you’re not a weekly Waitrose shopper, since you can often use the last week’s vouchers as well as select two new vouchers from the current week and in essence use four vouchers for money off your shop.
I’m not sure at what time on a Wednesday, the previous week’s vouchers disappear from your MyWaitrose card, but I’ve shopped past midday and both sets of vouchers are there.
To be safe you can pick some on Tuesday night if you’ve not been able to use them in the previous seven days,
Double your discounts
If you live with others then they can each have their own MyWaitrose account. This means even if you tend to do all the shopping, you could get them to print out their vouchers or send you screengrabs.
You’ll probably need to also scan their MyWaitrose card rather than yours, but you can add that to your phone using apps like Stocard.
Link your Vitality account
If you have any Vitality insurance then 25% cashback is paid to you each month when you buy healthier food at Waitrose – look for the Good Health logo on packaging. You just need to link your accounts and remember to scan your card.
What about the free newspapers with MyWaitrose?
Sadly the free newspaper when you spent £10 ended in February 2022 and isn’t likely to come back.
Find our picks of the best offers in our dedicated deals library
20th November and vouchers stopped 4 weeks ago. nothing since. Without them for regular items, Sainsburys round the corner is cheaper. the bad news for Waitrose is once you start popping into Sainsburys you start to notice other items there and what were once Waitrose items now become Sainsburys items.
Exactly my experience Anthony! I’m spending much less at Waitrose now.
I emailed them and got a series of nonsensical replies, so badly written that I thought it might be a scam. Eventually, I received an ‘explanation’ that matches the one in this article, i.e. no explanation. Annoyingly, they say their changes make it typical of other reward schemes, which is clearly not true.
I know the value of vouchers has reduced but now I am not getting any vouchers other than for the papers, which I cannot use as my delivery is too early. Why please?
From updated every Wednesday to not receiving any. Is this a new iteration of the scheme?
Am not getting vouchers at all now.
Neither myself or husband have received vouchers this week (except free newspaper for me). Staff in store just say they’ve received them and cannot give me an answer.
No new vouchers this Wednesday other than daily newspaper voucher. Is there a problem issuing them today?
Anyone can share the updated rules for the vouchers after 18 Oct? I can still use the coupon to buy substitute item sometimes. But a few times, it beeps and required the staff to fix it. Very annoying
Shame that you can no longer use the vouchers on any product, but I was surprised that the ‘error’ lasted for so long (I do recall that they stopped this loophole a little while ago and then it returned!) Andy mentions getting accounts for other members of your household – I do this and it does make the scheme much more worthwhile. Take screenshots of the other vouchers and you can use them for your shop. You don’t need to scan their card and there is no limit to the number of vouchers you can use on a single shop. Still get the daily newspaper free.
Can I use two jackson bread coupon which is 50 p off to buy single bag of Jackson bread? Any limit on the number of coupon against each item?
I have not tried this, but I don’t think you can use two vouchers for one product.
I shop at Waitrose three or four times a week as the store is five minutes away from my home. I appreciate the free coffee if using my Waitrose card. However, I am unable to use the my Waitrose discount ap offers as I do not have a mobile phone. I have been told you issued discount vouchers by post. Has this been discontinued? In the difficult current financial climate I look for’yellow sticker ‘ items if offered but these can be predominantly vegetarian or salads and not something I enjoy! Is there an option for a printed newspaper voucher ?
I have tried to find the promotional code online to little sucess. I caused chaos at Fenwick check-out whilst the cashier attempted to key in the number and we abandoned the attempt. Hope you can help. Sue.
Tesco’s Way of redeeming vouchers is so much more simple and effective, whether that be using the paper coupons or the Clubcard. I am a very happy customer and wish Waitrose would take the same approach as they do!
We have been wondering what’s been happening and today at last found out that, not having a smartphone, we are unable to get any benefits whatsoever from having a myWaitrose card! This is unbelievable from a company that otherwise gets their marketing right. I’m not sure that what they’re doing is even legal, and it’s certainly a PR blunder of a high order, and must be losing them footfall! Their loss is all gain for their competitors! Have Waitrose been made aware of the comments people have been making, and if so have they responded?
MyWaitrose personalised vouchers have gone absolutely haywire this week!
In previous weeks the proposed offers invariably listed products I have been buying more or less regularly. I am generally satisfied with the discounts, and this has increased my loyalty.
However this week’s vouchers bear no relation to me – they are all products I have never bought, (and nor would ever buy), like chewing gum, Fabric dyeing products, Massaman paste (?) – mostly small discounts…..is this a widespread mix-up, or only me! I assume the preferences are based on transactions where my MyWaitrose card shown – looks like someone else’s card has been used – or is it perhaps a scam or hack, as my regular vouchers are worth much more??
Yes, really random. I’ve approached their press office for more information
I have complained and in response was told that
‘As this was part of a trial and a vast amount of our customers have encountered the same change/issue’
And :
On a positive note, we have just been informed that as of tomorrow, the normal programme will resume, meaning all vouchers will return to being personalised as normal.
Extraordinary that with all our data and their ‘insight’ into our spending habits that this should happen.
Same here.
I thought it maybe something to do with me having a combined Waitrose John Lewis card, which is the one I normally use and of course has a different number from the MyWaitrose card. Maybe they are ditching that?
Horrendous. Why would I choose Waitrose over any other much cheaper supermarket? Ludicrous! Totally agree with the above. Why would I give you my data when you give me nothing in return? Forget it.
i agree with many of these comments – do not want to use my mobile when I shop to get offers so disadvantaged – you will have noticed that i am shopping less at Waitrose, easier at Tesco and Sainsbury
Got this very wrong Waitrose not thought about your older customers. Tried to use the offers the lady on the till couldn’t help as she too didn’t understand the system and the queue behind me was growing so told her to forget it. Going to have to think reluctantly about changing stores as think it is a very complicated unfair system.
I get voucher offers then told I don’t use my card enough. What is going on waitrose
I’ve just lodged a complaint with them. I did an online shop and deducted two personalised vouchers and a newspaper voucher – a total of £6.70 so well worth doing. Except that when I get the bill they’ve only deducted £2.20 (for the newspaper), and ignored £4.50 worth of personalised vouchers. Maddening!
I agree with other commentators. I chose two items before going into the store but didn’t manage to scan the vouchers at the till (not helped by the fact that my local Waitrose has no 4G signal) so paid for two products I wouldn’t have bought today at full price. Net result is feeling irritated on principle with Waitrose which is (I assume) not the intention on their part.
***New Hack*** For the past 2 weeks, 1 or both of my voucher items have been out of stock. I was thinking about complaining to customer services, but though I would try scanning the vouchers anyway. And guess what, they went through and the money was taken off even though I hadn’t bought the item. So it seems their systems are not set up to actually check you have bought the item, so its best to save the 2 highest value vouchers and scan them, even if you don’t buy the item. I have also noticed you can now save your vouchers using the App, since it was updated this week. It would still be a lot better if they worked like Sainsburys, Tesco and others in that the discounts could be loaded to your card and deducted off your bill automatically. But I think making customers jump through hoops means most of their ‘rich’ customers won’t bother.
When this happened to me, I bought something similar and self scanned. When the beeper went off, I explained my dilemma to the assistant, who just put the amount through a coupon problem, saying she was applying common sense. Too true!
I don’t have a smart phone and it’s far to complicated.Tesco makes it so much easier
By making it difficult to access our vouchers in this way is actually very good for Waitrose , it will save them a lot of money because many shoppers will not be bothered to claim the vouchers in this way because it is a lot of hassle .
Please think of an easier way to give us vouchers without the bother of scanning & using our mobile phones .
My mobile phone often runs out of battery by the time I get to Waitrose.
Far too complicated and im fed with going online…i didnt realise the free newspaper has now gone…saturday /sundays was reason why i went in to shop..i havent been in for 2 weeks now as been lured away by Lidl very local 5mins down the road and sainsburys for my larger weekly shop
The new system is useless for me as I do not have mobile phone. Tesco lets you use your card for discounts why cant Waitrose. Needs a rethink.
This sounds far too complicated. Once you have activated your offers it should be possible to use them by just scanning your mywaitrose card (physical or electronic) rather than having to scan individual offers separately. This scheme is also far less attractive than their previous one especially if you do not shop every week.
Why on earth did Waitrose change their offers? It was simple and easy to use by everyone who wanted it. There’s an Aldi opening soon nearby. Waitrose have pushed me away!
The whole scheme is ridiculous, too complicated, and I don’t have a smart phone, great loyalty from Waitrose, I spend over £100 per week, and have done for 30; years, we have a new Lidl in our town, I shall change my shopping habits and use Lidl.
I completely agree. Complicated, not generous, and so much time and effort spent to selling it to local customers. This loyal customer is extremely disappointed and surprised at how badly Waitrose has got this wrong.
The system is useless. Unlike the Lidl card you have to activate each voucher in the store otherwise discount not applied. Even the supervisor said the system sucks. Another case of a misfiring initiative.
Yep, totally agree it could have been automatic
Absolute rubbish. Too complicated and I can’t be bothered. And what about my friend who regularly spends £100 a week in Waitrose but has no mobile phone of any sort, let alone a smartphone. Tesco, here I come. Your response would be appreciated.
Yes, the requirement for a phone is ridiculous. I hope it’ll change once customers start using it
A huge own goal by Waitrose. No advance warning, so I spent weeks waiting for the old discount before I asked staff why I wasn’t getting it. They were bewildered by the changes and incapable of explaining them to each other, let alone me. If you do grasp the change, an App is ridiculously time consuming. I’m sending my card back and cancelling my membership.
What happens to my waitrose card if I dont have a smartphone?
Sadly you won’t be able to claim the discounts.
“loyalty scheme” Lol. Is this instead of the monthly money off vouchers they used to send too. I stopped shopping with them when they scrapped the decent pick your own scheme insulting their customers by saying it was too complicated for their customers to understand. All that faff to save 50p, seriously? Everyone knows how much more Waitrose are than just about anyone else, so who do they think they will fool into degrading themselves to use this long-winded weekly farce? I see their owners John Lewis are ending the Never Knowingly Beaten scheme too as they can no longer compete. Oh well, I’ve been boycotting them for many years now too.
I prefer the quarterly vouchers too. I think they’ll have to rethink the scheme for those without a phone
Re Waitrose individualised vouchers. In my first week I got a voucher for Persil liquid 56 washes, presumably because that was what I bought the week previous. Now what is the likelihood I would want to buy that product in 2 consecutive weeks? There were other similar vouchers for in frequently bought items. They need to modify their algorithm for identifying suitable products.
Yeah, I’m waiting to see what I get in my second week and how different it is to week one.
There’s no way of editing a comment? I wanted too change ‘too’ to ‘to’ but am unable to do this. Why?
Have done it for you!
I was told by a Waitrose employee that your don’t need to buy the item to use the coupon… and they were right!
I pop in once a week for a few reduced items and a few things I can only buy there… (their Essentials toilet rolls are the softest I’ve tried!)… and always use my chosen vouchers which are always the ones with the highest value. (This week they’re all only 50p which is a bit rubbish, but better than nothing.)
It’s a little bit of a faff to set up but once it’s done it only takes a few seconds to use the vouchers at the till, so definitely worth it.
sadly they’ve just changed this now so have to buy the actual item!
Really? We are giving away our valuable data and are required to jump through hoops by looking on and selecting offers. On your bike, Waitrose. It’s about time companies properly compensated customers for sharing their data.