The post Birthday Freebies 2021 – 10+ Free Treats To Claim appeared first on Jordon Cox.
]]>Your birthday is a great time of year with presents and cake galore. But did you know you could actually get £50 worth of UK Birthday Freebies in 2021 without spending a penny?
When most people think of birthday freebies – you think of the ‘deals’ like ‘get a free main meal… when you buy another”.
But did you know, you can actually sign up to a bunch of different loyalty programs and schemes in which you’ll be sent freebies with no spend required.
It’s not all just food too – you can claim vouchers with no minimum spend in stores including Body Shop, Paperchase and more – meaning you can buy yourself your own presents and not spend a penny.
How To Get Birthday Freebies 2021
It’s worth mentioning, that if you sign up to a lot of these, you may get a bit more spam than usual. But there’s a way to combat this…
You can start up a separate email account just for your birthday freebies (that way they don’t get lost too).
If you’d like to listen to each birthday freebie, you can listen to the podcast episode I did on the subject! You can find it here:
You can find all of the freebies and links below.
During the pandemic, birthday freebies in 2021 are a bit more lenient – allowing you more time to use each one.
I’ve written in the standard date of usage for each offer though – just in case things get back to normal.
Without further ado – here are some UK birthday freebies in 2021 for you to claim:
Birthday Freebies in 2021 – High Street Shops
Paperchase £5 Off
- £5 off with no minimum spend
- Valid for 14 days after date of issue
Paperchase is a high street cards and craft shop, mostly found in shopping centres and in London.
To get the birthday freebie, you’ll need to pick up a ‘treat me’ card – which you can get online or in store.
Once you’ve registered it online, you will receive £5 worth of credit on the card on your birthday.
You’ll receive an email notifying you that you have a birthday freebie, and it’ll be added to your card.
It’s valid for 14 days, so you don’t have to use it straight away – and there may be extensions too while shops are shut.
The Body Shop £5 Off
- £5 off with no minimum spend
- Valid for 1 month after date of issue
The Body Shop is a skincare brand available both online and found on many UK high streets and shopping centres.
To get £5 to spend in store for free with no minimum spend – you’ll need to sign up to the Love My Body Club.
On your birthday, you’ll be sent the £5 free voucher to your email inbox – so you’ll need to look out for it.
It lasts for 1 months after your birthday, and most offers are extended if your birthday falls during lockdown.
Hobbycraft £5 Off
- £5 off with no minimum spend
- Valid for 14 days after date of issue
Hobbycraft can be found in a lot of shopping centres and complexes around the UK. You can buy all manner of craft equipment here as well as cards.
To get yourself this birthday freebie, you need to sign up for a Hobbycraft account. It’s free to sign up to with a few details including name and email address.
When your birthday comes around, you’ll get a free £5 emailed to you – so look out for it in your inbox.
There’s no minimum spend and you have 14 days to use it – though during the shutdown this will be extended.
Ikea £5 Off
- £5 off with no minimum spend
- Valid for 7 days after date of issue
There are 22 Ikea stores around the UK, which you’ll likely get lost in after a few minutes of browsing.
To get the £5 birthday freebie, you’ll need to sign up to the Ikea Family Club.
There is a caveat with this birthday freebie. It doesn’t go out to everyone. I’m not sure of the algorithm that decides who to send it to – but it’s worth trying for it.
If you do receive an email getting your £5 free, then you have 7 days to use it, and it’ll be assigned to your card.
Signing up for the card also gets you perks such as free tea/coffee each visit to the store, £1.50 full english breakfasts and more.
Birthday Freebies in 2021 – Food & Drink
When you think of birthday freebies, you immediately think of the free sweet treats you can get.
There are plenty of goodies that you can claim on your birthday, from free doughnuts to milkshakes.
If you head round to all of these freebies, you might be able to stuff yourself for free – which is a great way to spend your birthday in my opinion!
Here are the best freebies you can claim to nibble on:
Greggs Free Sweet Treat
- Worth £1ish with no minimum spend
- Valid on your birthday only
Greggs bakeries can be found on most high streets and some in drive-thru. The highest concentration of stores are in the north, but there are plenty in the rest of the country.
To get a birthday freebie from Greggs, you’ll need to sign up to Greggs Rewards, which you can do for free.
On your actual birthdate, you’ll get a freebie under the ‘rewards’ tab on the app. Usually you can only claim it on that one day, but this may be extended while in lockdown.
You can choose between a doughnut, creamcake or cupcake – all which are worth around £1 ish.
Hotel Chocolat Free Chocolate
- Worth £2ish with no minimum spend
- Valid for the whole month
Hotel Chocolat is one of the best chocolatiers on the high street – and can be found throughout the country.
To get your birthday chocolate, you’ll need to sign up the the Hotel Chocolat rewards scheme called VIPME.
Once signed up, you’ll get a free box of chocolate to claim in store the whole month of your birthday – so plenty of time to get it.
This box of chocolate is worth around £2 – with a few different flavours and fillings to taste.
Shopmium Free Ferrero Rocher
- Worth £5ish with no minimum spend
- Valid 5 days after your birthday
Shopmium, the supermarket cashback app offered me a free 200g pack of Ferrero Rocher when it was my birthday this year.
This is worth up to £5, and you’ll need to buy it in any supermarket, and take a picture to of the receipt to get your cashback.
As long as it costs up to £5, you’ll get 100% of your money back paid into a PayPal account.
For full information about Shopmium and how to get a free tube of Pringles for new subscribers, see my blog here.
Krispy Kreme Free Doughnut
- Worth around £2 with no minimum spend
- Valid on your birthday only
Krispy Kreme is one of the king of doughnuts (@ me if you disagree). Stores can be found throughout the country.
To get a birthday freebie from them, you’ll need to sign up to Krispy Kreme Rewards – and you get a free doughnut for signing up too.
On your birthday, you’ll be sent an email giving you your free doughnut – which must be claimed on the day. During lockdown however, this should be extended.
While you can find Krispy Kreme stands in Tesco stores, you can only claim it directly in Krispy Kreme stores.
Ed’s Easy Diner Free Milkshake
- Worth £4ish with no minimum spend
- Valid on your Birthday only
Ed’s Easy Diner is an American food restaurant, found in shopping centres and restaurant complexes.
Their milkshakes are to die for… and you can get a free milkshake worth £4.25 on your birthday.
To get it, sign up to Ed’s Club and you’ll receive an email on your birthday with a voucher to claim it.
You don’t have to buy a meal with it, can simply get the freebie and leave (in a takeaway cup if you want to).
It’s valid on normal shakes only (not deluxe) and must be claimed on your actual birthday. There will be leeway while we’re locked down though.
Brewhouse and Kitchen Free Pint
- Worth £3ish with no minimum spend
- Valid for a week after your birthday
Brewhouse & Kitchen is a pub chain found in select locations around the country.
If you do happen to live near one, you can sign up to their newsletter and you’ll receive a free pint of beer voucher on your birthday.
You’ll be sent the freebie via email and you’ll have up to a week to claim it, but probably longer if they are shut right now.
You can sign up to their newsletter at the bottom of their website.
Boost Juice Free Smoothie/Juice
- Worth £5ish with no minimum spend
- Valid on your birthday only
Boost Juice shops can be found in shopping centres and around London. Healthy and fruity drinks are their specialty.
If you have a Boost nearby, you can pick up a ‘Vibe Card’ in store or sign up online.
Once signed up, you’ll receive an email getting you a free juice of your choice on your birthday.
This is usually valid on your birthdate only – but is extended while shops are shut.
Barburrito Free Burrito
- Worth £6ish with no minimum spend
- Valid on your birthday only
Barburrito is a mexican burrito restaurant mostly found in London with a few other restaurants around the country.
On your birthday, you can get birthday freebie of a free burrito of your choice – worth £6.25.
To get it, you’ll need to sign up to a loyalty card in store and register it online.
Usually you’re only able to claim it on your birthdate, but while restaurants are closed, it should be extended.
Conclusion
That’s all birthday freebies that I could find (and have signed up to myself). Hopefully this gives you a little something extra to look forward to when you turn another year older.
It’s worth signing up to them well in advance, as you might not get some if you sign up just before.
It may not be your birthday, but everyone can get some free food through signing up to apps.
Do you know of any birthday freebies in 2021 in the UK I’ve missed? I’d love to know in the comments below, on Twitter @Jordon_Cox or on Facebook.
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]]>The post Nectar Spin To Win – Where Are My Points? appeared first on Jordon Cox.
]]>Important Update: 25th Feb 2021
Hi there! If you’ve landed on this page – you’re probably either wondering ‘where are my Nectar points’ from the Spin To Win promotion back in December OR are trying to find out how to get free points with the Juicy Boost promotion.
Whichever it is – I have all the information you need here as to how to get your free points. We’ll start off with talking about the free points that you can get right now!
How To Get Free Nectar Points
If you have a Nectar card, make sure you download or check your app. Until Tuesday 9 March, you can get some totally free points by clicking on the ‘juicy boost’ banner when you open the app.
You’re given a random amount of free points up to around 2,000. I got 500 points for free which is worth £2.50, and it’s money for nothing.
Once you do have the app installed, you can also get bonus points from your Sainsbury’s shopping. By adding the Nectar offers in the app to your card, if you buy one of the offers, it’ll increase your Nectar balance and earn you some more cash.
Hopefully that helps you get some free points! If you won some points on the Spin To Win giveaway back in December, here’s all the information you need to know:
Where Are My Spin To Win Nectar Points?
Around the time the Nectar Spin To Win promotion was launched in December, money savers were very exited to see it – and the promotion was spread far across the internet.
There was a bit of confusion at the time as to whether everyone would get their free points, as they said to a user on Twitter:
“Only people sent promotional mail of spin to win, will be able to get their points added to their account”.
Luckily, it seems they have changed their tune – as people who entered without receiving the promotional mail are getting their points come through.
As per the T&Cs of the competition, you should receive your points 28 days after the close of the competition. That puts the date that points come in around the first week of February.
So I recommend you keep checking back to your Nectar account to see if they arrive.
I received mine on Wednesday 3rd February (and I clicked a link on social media).
Fingers crossed you get them soon! If you haven’t got it yet, to cheer you up – here are a few freebies to claim instead:
Free Lotteries – 10 Sites To Win £100s
I’ve left the blog below how it was originally written back in December:
I write this blog with much excitement in my fingers – because Nectar are giving away free points to all customers, and the minimum anyone can get is £5 with Nectar Spin to Win.
There’s nothing better than free money, especially when you don’t have to do much to get your hands on it.
This new Nectar promotion is just that. By having a spin on its ‘Spin To Win’ game, you can win between 1,000 to 1,000,000 Nectar points added to your account.
The lowest you can win (1,000 points), is worth £5 – so if you’re a Nectar card holder, it could be the easiest £5 you’ve ever earned (and you may win more).
Here’s how it works:
Nectar Spin To Win
This is basically a little promotion from Sainsbury’s and Nectar, where each person with a Nectar card gets one spin (and one spin only) to get some free points.
As part of the promotion, you can win either:
- 1,000 Nectar Points (£5)
- 2,000 Nectar Points (£10)
- 5,000 Nectar Points (£25)
- 10,000 Nectar Points (£50)
- 1,000,000 Nectar Points (£5,000) – but only 3 people win this
I completed the promotion on my Nectar account and my mothers. I picked up a £10 prize, but my mum was lucky enough to pick up £25 worth of Nectar Points. Here’s what the Nectar Spin To Win wheel looks like:
How To Enter
To have a spin of the wheel to see if you win £5 or £5,000, head on to the Nectar promotional page.
You’ll need to sign in to your online account before spinning, so you may have to click on the link twice – as it’s hard to find once you’ve signed in.
Once you’ve had a spin and landed on your prize, you’ll have a screen similar to the one above. If you don’t win on the first spin, you should be able to spin again – but most people win first try.
Nothing else will happen after the ‘congratulations’ message, so you’re free to close the page. You won’t receive any emails or anything confirming – but don’t worry, it’ll be tracked.
You will receive the amount of Nectar points won in spin to win 28 days after the close of the competition.
The end date is January 4th, so you’re likely to have the points credited on February 1st 2021.
Although you have to wait a little bit to get them, it’s a total freebie, and a good way to start your 2021.
Related: Another competition! TopCashBack Xmas Treats 2020 – Clues & Answers
Trading Up Nectar Points
Earning these Nectar points for free is great. You can use them in store when doing your shopping to get money off food – but this only gets you a value of 0.5p per point.
Unlike the Tesco Clubcard, there aren’t as many uses for trading up your Sainsbury’s Nectar points, but there are a few.
Check out the list of retailers you can spend your Nectar points with on its website.
Other Ways To Earn Nectar Points
If you fancy running up your Nectar balance, you don’t have to just shop in Sainsbury’s. There are plenty of ways to collect them.
First off, if you read the Daily Mail, you can collect points with each newspaper you buy.
Also, make sure that you’ve connected your eBay account and your Nectar card, as when buying through eBay you can collect points.
Whenever you’re buying a holiday through Expedia, if you put in your Nectar card number before you buy, you can earn 200 points for a hotel, or 2,000 points for a holiday package. This is worth £1 and £10 respectively.
Also, have a look at the weekly Sainsbury’s Nectar in store rewards, which will earn you extra points for buying certain items.
Conclusion
I hope this blog has got you a nice freebie which will give you. a nice treat in the new year.
If you do spin to win – let me know your prize (and what you’re going to spend it on).
What did you win? Let me know in the comment below, on Twitter @Jordon_Cox or on Facebook.
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]]>The post Refer A Friend Schemes – Make £100s From Your Friends & Family appeared first on Jordon Cox.
]]>Refer a friend schemes… You’ve probably seen them and overlooked it to not harass your friends – but it could actually be your ticket to a lot of free cash.
“Tell your friends and get £5 free“
“Refer a friend for a free gift“
“Spread the word for £2 credit“
You see things like this all over the web now. All it takes is a quick message to a pal with a link, and you could be making money, but it’s very easy to ignore.
It’s easy to glance over these refer a friend schemes thinking your friends wouldn’t be interested, but it could actually be a money pit for both you and your friend.
Here’s how and some refer a friend schemes that you can profit from:
How To Earn With Refer A Friend Schemes
I don’t have many friends to refer things on to (sob sob) – but if you’re like me, that shouldn’t stop you from earning from them.
If there’s a refer a friend scheme of something I’d genuinely recommend, I send it to my partner and parents. Just for that, it usually gets me three times whatever the bonus is.
If that bonus was £5 for each referral, then thats an easy £15 you’ve made in a short period of time.
Now granted, with a lot of referral schemes, the person being referred has to complete some sort of task to unlock your reward.
This can be either spending a certain amount or just as simple as registering for an account. But either way, it’s not unachievable.
Refer A Friend Schemes To Make You £100s
I know you’re probably itching to start making some money and freebies, so I’ve rounded up a list of different refer a friend schemes that could make you some money.
I’ve rounded up a list of great ones below, where referring one friend to each, will net you £100+
With each, I’ll tell you a little bit about what the app or website does (if you don’t already know), what the requirements are and how much you earn.
I’ll also add in my link/code in case you’ve never signed up before and wanted to get the ball rolling (so thanks for clicking!).
There are three categories – Travel, Food and Drink & Shopping, but we’ll start with my top pick (which also doesn’t really fall into a category).
FreeTrade – Free Share up to £200 each
FreeTrade is a stocks and shares app that you can invest as little as £1 into the biggest companies in the world such as Tesla, Facebook, Google and more.
It’s fee free and you can buy less than one share (e.g 0.1 shares in Tesla) if you don’t want to buy a whole one.
How much can you earn?
You can refer as many friends as you want for a FreeTrade account, and for each one that joins, you both get a free share in a random company, up to the value of £200.
When doing this, I got a free share worth £12, but a friend of mine got a share in AstraZeneca – which was worth £80!
Here’s the sweet bit… you can either keep the share, sell the share for what it’s worth and re-invest it… or pocket the money.
If you get a free share, you are able to withdraw the money from it after 30 days of having the account – so you could just sell the share as soon as you get it (so the value doesn’t go up or down), and withdraw the cash after a month.
This could mean (if you have a few friends to sign up), with a bit of luck, you could be withdrawing £100s.
What are the requirements?
Your friend needs to sign up through your link for a FreeTrade account, and deposited £1.
Make sure they click through the link and do it straight away for it to be tracked.
They can either invest this £1, or just have it sitting in their account. After 7 working days, you both get a free share each up to the value of £200.
P.S: You’ll need your National Insurance number to hand to open your account.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you’re new to FreeTrade and want a free share, you can sign up here, or if you’re already a member find the refer a friend page here.
Travel
Secret Escapes Refer A Friend – Up to £26 for you, £15 for friends
Secret Escapes is a discount website for luxury travel, where you can find deals on hotels and holidays around the world – which is usually cheaper than booking through regular sites.
It could also be the ticket to even cheaper deals using the refer a friend scheme.
How much can you earn?
There are two different parts to this. You can earn money for each sign up you get through your link.
For your first 5 sign ups, you get £5 credit, if you sign up 25 friends you get £25 credit, and getting 50 sign ups will net you £50 credit.
When your friends do, they get £15 off their first booking over £100. It’s very easy for friends to sign up too – it’s just putting in an email or connecting a Facebook account.
On top of this, if a friend actually books a hotel, you receive an extra £25 credit. This could mean you’ll be rolling in credit after a while.
What are the requirements?
Friends must sign up through your refer a friend link, and to get credit, you must reach either 5, 25 or 50 sign ups to get £5, £25 or £50 respectively.
You’ll get £25 credit if a referred friend books and completes a stay.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you’ve never signed up for secret escapes, you can sign up here and get £15 off. If you are a member, you can refer friends here.
Airbnb Refer A Friend – £23 for you, up to £50 for them
Airbnb could be perfect for a staycation getaway. It’s a website that lets you rent out peoples houses, second homes or lodge houses, and it can work out cheaper than a hotel.
How much can you earn?
You can refer friends which gives them a voucher code for their first stay. Once they’ve completed it, you earn £23 into your Airbnb balance to use on future stays.
When you refer, your friend gets between £10-40 off their first stay (which is determined by spend), and also a £10 off £40 spend on experiences.
What are the requirements?
Your friend must sign up through your link, and complete their first stay in order to get you the bonus.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you’re a new Airbnb user, you can sign up here (and you’ll get the discount codes). If you’re already a member, find the refer a friend page here.
Food & Drink
UberEats Refer A Friend – £10 off food each
Uber Eats is the ride sharing app’s answer to Deliveroo. You can order food from a variety of local restaurants, which is delivered to your door.
How much can you earn?
For each friend you refer who enters your Uber Eats referral code, they get £10 off their first order of £15 or more.
You’ll receive a discount of £10 off your next order when your friend completes their first order. So between you, you’ll get £20 off.
What are the requirements?
Your friend must enter the referral code upon signing up, and spend £15 or more on their first order.
You can choose any restaurant and can order at any time.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you want £10 off your first order, you can use the code EATS-THF05 when downloading the app. If you have the app already, find it under the refer a friend tab.
Caffé Nero – 2 free drinks for you 1 for a friend
The popular coffee shop chain has an app that can be very profitable (in terms of caffeine).
It allows you to order coffee through it’s click & collect feature – and you can refer friends to do the same. See the full blog here.
How much can you earn?
For every friend you refer, you get two free drinks of your choice, and they get one.
This could add up to between £4-7 in value, if you went for the higher priced drinks such as the smoothies or hot chocolate.
What are the requirements?
Your friend must download the app through your link, and purchase one drink through the click & collect feature. This then unlocks one free drink for them, and two for you.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you’re new to the Caffé Nero app, you can sign up here, or check on the app for the refer a friend scheme if you’re signed up.
Shopmium Referral Code – £3 for you, Free Pringles for your friend
Shopmium is a cashback app which gets you money off or even freebies in the supermarket for taking pictures of your receipt. See the full blog post here.
It’s a good way to save money with the deals, and a great way to make money from the refer a friend scheme.
How much can you earn?
Each friend that you refer through your code, you get £3 worth of credit in the app, which can be used as additional cashback on offers through the app.
Your referred friend gets an offer for a free tube of Pringles, which they can get at most supermarkets. All they’d need to do is buy it, and take a picture of the receipt, and they’ll get 100% of what they spent back.
What are the restrictions?
For each referral, your friend gets the free Pringles, but you won’t get the free £3 until a cashback claim has been out in and accepted by your friend.
You can only refer up to 100 people, so the maximum you can earn is £300 credit.
Where is the link to sign up?
When signing up for an account, enter the code s3i37r to get some Pringles for free. Or find the refer a friend scheme in the app.
Shopping
Groupon Refer A Friend – Get £6 Free
The deal website Groupon has 10,000s of offers, usually for local businesses that can offer cheaper prices for more people buying.
There are also offers for products posted to you, and travel deals both in the UK and abroad.
How much can you earn?
For each friend that you refer, you get £6 worth of credit when they buy their first Groupon deal. Unfortunately, your friend doesn’t receive anything.
What are the requirements?
They must click through your link to sign up for an account, and spend £6 or more on a deal within 3 days of signing up.
There are plenty of deals for £6 exactly, so if you’re signing up a partner, you can technically get something for free.
You’ll receive your £6 credit into your account within 7-10 days of the deal closing.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you’re a new Groupon member, you can sign up here. You can refer your friends from this page.
TopCashback – £5 to £25 per friend
TopCashback is a cashback website, where you can earn money for your normal spending.
By clicking through TopCashback before you buy anything online, you earn a percentage of the money you spend back. See the full TopCashback guide.
How much can you earn?
On a normal day, regular members of TopCashback earn £5 for every friend, while plus members earn £7.50.
However, there are often bonuses that pop up every now and then that give you bonus cashback – up to £25 per friend.
What are the requirements?
Each friend must earn £10 in payable cashback before they get the bonus. They have to sign up through your link too in order for it to track.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you’re new to TopCashback, sign up here, or if you have an account, find the refer a friend scheme here.
Airtime Rewards – £1.50 each per friend
Airtime Rewards is a cashback app that earns you passive cashback for having it installed and your debit and credit cards linked.
Once you’ve earned enough money, you can withdraw the money to pay off your phone bill. See the full blog here.
How much can you earn?
For each friend that signs up to the app and enters your referral code, you both get 50p bonus.
If they then spend money at an Airtime Rewards retailer within 5 days, you both receive and extra £1 bonus.
What are the requirements?
Your friend must enter your personal referral code while signing up when prompted (which you can find in the app).
To get the extra £1, they can spend at any retailer that gives cashback with a linked card. There’s no minimum spend, so they could buy a 50p chocolate bar in Boots, and make a profit from the bonus.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you’re new, you can use my code TEMMNEV4 when you download the app. Or search for your code if downloaded.
Cox & Cox Refer A Friend – £20 Off £25 Spend
Cox and Cox is an upmarket homeware products website, where you can buy things from furniture, to lighting and mirrors.
It’s refer a friend scheme is quite generous. Here’s how it works:
How much can you earn?
For each friend that you refer, who clicks through your link and signs up with an email address, they get a £20 off voucher – and so do you.
You have to spend over £25 to use your voucher, but it’ll mean you can get some items almost for just £5 (as they cost £25 normally).
The more people you refer, the more credit you can earn too. And the £20 you earn, can combine the more you refer. So you could be getting £100s to spend on the website by sharing your Cox and Cox referral link.
Where is the link to sign up?
If you’re a new customer to Cox and Cox, use my referral link to get £20 off, or you can sign up to refer friends here.
Conclusion
Hopefully those referral schemes have given you an idea, or even a plan to get things cheaper between you and your other half/parents.
If you have enough friends, and start a referring streak, there is really no limit to how much you could start earning.
Just referring one friend to each of the above schemes, will net you around £100… and if you gain credit for things you’d normally buy – it’s a home run.
Let me know of any other referral schemes that are worth knowing about too in the comments below, on Twitter @Jordon_Cox or on Facebook.
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]]>The post 1p hot drink every day – trick to get a basically free coffee or tea appeared first on Jordon Cox.
]]>Nothing beats starting your morning with a nice brew – but buying it from Starbucks or Costa will set you back a good few quid. Luckily, I have a trick that’ll get you a basically free coffee or tea – you only pay a penny.
Loyalty schemes are one of my favourite ways to save money. You sign up once and reap the benefits through in store offers and money off through the post.
If you’re not signed up to the many loyalty schemes on the high street, you could be missing out on some great freebies like this one.
Shopping in Waitrose for your groceries might be on the pricier side… but its loyalty card is in fact your source for a 1p coffee or tea every single day. A few stores are excluded – but it works in most places (see below for exclusions).
How to get a ‘free’ coffee or tea
The MyWaitrose card is free to sign up to, and once you do, it unlocks benefits such as member pricing in store, and also a free coffee or tea when you make a purchase in Waitrose.
If you sign up for one, you’ll need to wait for your card to be delivered to start getting the deal.
To get the free coffee or tea, you’ll need to make a purchase and scan your MyWaitrose card at checkout.
There should be an automatic coffee machine near the customer services desk, in which you can grab an americano, cappuccino, latte or tea.
Yes… you have to make a purchase in store, but the trick here is… there is no minimum spend. So you can buy the cheapest thing you can find, checkout and grab a drink.
What is the cheapest thing you can buy?
There are a few cheap items to buy in Waitrose (would you believe it). If you wanted a banana for your lunch, that’ll cost about 12p – which is still a good deal if you get a free coffee or tea with it too.
You can go cheaper though, pick up a single carrot and you’ll only pay 6p (and get something for dinner), but you can go cheaper still…
As per the title, you can spend just 1p, and that’s by buying a singular brussels sprout. Yep, that’s right, find the smallest sprout you can, and they’ll weigh in between 1-3p per sprout.
Put it on the scales, and grab a price sticker, and skip on over to the till. Love them or hate them, this is your ticket to a free brew.
If you do this every day, you should have a full portion of sprouts for a Sunday roast after a week or two – so they shouldn’t go to waste.
You must bring a reusable cup
There is one caveat to all of this. Waitrose has stopped its use of plastic and cardboard cups when getting your coffee or tea, and therefore they ask you to bring along your own cup to get your drink.
If you don’t have a reusable cup, you can purchase them cheaply – including one in Starbucks for £1. Even if you bought this and then popped to Waitrose, £1.01 is still cheaper than getting one from Starbucks!
Which stores are excluded?
If your local Waitrose is in Hazelmere, Battersea, Bagshot Road, Roehampton, Burgh Heath, Burnt Common, Petts Wood, Sceptre, Ealing, Horley, Ken Gardens, Broxbourne, Tubs Hill, Headington or Guildford, you’ll need to spend £30+ on fuel to get your free coffee or tea.
There are a few exclusions in terms of what you can buy to get the freebie too, including infant formula milk, lottery tickets and tobacco. For the full list, see the terms and conditions.
I hope this keeps your caffeine cravings at bay a penny at a time. It’s a cool little hack, that could become a morning routine if you have one on your commuting route.
There are plenty of tricks like this coming up too! In the mean time, check out my Airtime Rewards, Shopmium and Jobspotter articles for different phone apps to save you money.
Will you be picking up a 1p coffee or tea? I’d love to know in the comments below, on Twitter @Jordon_Cox or on Facebook.
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]]>The post Get Amazon Prime for free (or split the bill) with Amazon Household appeared first on Jordon Cox.
]]>Do you want all the benefits of Amazon Prime but don’t want to pay (or want to split the bill with someone?) You can do just that with this little known trick.
Did you know that you’re able to share Amazon prime with another person? I didn’t until just a few days ago, so decided to show you how too.
This trick not only gets you access to one day shipping benefits of Prime, it also gets you access to Prime Video, Lightning deals, Prime Reading and Prime Wardrobe, and you don’t have to pay for any of it. Here’s how to do it:
Find someone you live with who has Prime
First off, you need to find a housemate/family member who has a subscription to Amazon Prime. If you are the one with Prime, you can find someone else to split the bill with you. (You can sign up to a free trial if you haven’t used it before too).
You may need to do a little schmoozing, as you’ll need the account holder to create a ‘Household’. Amazon household lets you share all the perks with one other adult (who was a separate Amazon account) and up to four children.
Now, the terms around who you can join up with are a little loose. Amazon just says ‘you need someone with Prime in your household’. I asked Amazon personally whether you need to live with them full time, and they couldn’t answer my question. Seemingly it should work with anyone, but it’s probably best suits for close family/roommates.
Amazon Household
Once you’re on the Amazon Household page, it’s easy to set up. Just get them to send you an email to join their household.
Now this trick requires a little bit of trust from the person that you’re sharing an account with, as once you’ve accepted the request, in order to access the benefits, both account holders need to authorise each other to use all payment cards associated with their Amazon account.
You won’t have to spend any money (and it won’t change your primary payment method), but in order to link, you need to have each other’s payment details on your accounts.
Once you’ve pinky swore that you won’t use their card, you’re good to go! You’ll both have access to Prime benefits for the price of one. Even if you order things to different addresses, it should work, as you’ll get the Prime shipping benefits as you normally would.
A word of warning
If you have an Amazon echo each linked to your Amazon Household account, you are both able to see each and every thing you both ask Alexa to do… so no talking dirty or bad mouthing each other to your Echo. Or perhaps a bit of fun spying on what they search!
Hopefully this is useful to someone. I’ve signed up to it with my partner who I live with on the weekends. It’s great not having to pay for delivery and getting things the next day!
If you want more tricks to save money on Amazon, see all the free trials you can claim.
Will you be finding a mate to get access to Prime with? Or will you be lending your Prime to someone else? Let me know in the comments below, on Twitter @Jordon_Cox or on Facebook.
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]]>The post Breakfast Buffets galore – Where’s best for a cheap all you can eat brekkie? appeared first on Jordon Cox.
]]>There’s nothing better after waking up in the morning than stuffing your face with as much food as you can – and that’s why all you can eat breakfast buffets are a personal favourite of mine.
Some of them can be very good value for the amount of food you’re getting too. If I’m at home, I either have a bowl of cereal or slice of toast. At all you can eat breakfast buffets however – I have cereal and toast as my starter… followed by as many bacon and hash browns I can fit on my tiny plate!
This love of breakfasts inspired me to round up all of the cheap breakfast buffets you can find at restaurants around the country – and there are some great options here. Be warned… this may make your tummy rumble:
Toby Carvery all you can eat breakfast
Adults: £4.29 – £4.49
Kids: £2.79 – £2.99
Unlimited tea/coffee: £2.29
Served from: Mon-Sat: 8am-11am, Sun: 8am-10.30am
Contains all your breakfast favourites and you can fill your plate as high as you want. Toby Carvery restaurants are everywhere, meaning an easy place to get to. An added bonus too – you can have one of their signature Yorkshire Puddings and Toby’s breakfast gravy.
Crown Carvery unlimited cooked breakfast
Adults: £4.29
Kids: £3.29
Unlimited tea/coffee: £1.69
Served from: 8am-11.30am
There are 41 Crown Carvery restaurants around the country dishing up the staples including fried bread, back bacon and British pork sausages.
Harvester unlimited breakfast
Adults: £4.99
Kids: £3.29
Unlimited tea/coffee: £1.69
Served from: 9am-11.30am
There are 220 Harvester restaurants around the country dishing up the staples including fried bread, back bacon and British pork sausages.
Frankie & Benny’s unlimited refills (Fri-Sun)
Adults: £3.99 to £11.29
Kids: £3.99
Unlimited tea/americano: £2.49
Served from: 9am-12pm
There are over 250 Frankie & Benny’s restaurants nationwide and do suprisingly good breakfast. A voucher valid every week on it’s ‘offers’ section of the site will get you a free plate refill on any breakfast item. The plate must be clean or close to it, in order to get a second however.
If you want a midweek breakfast, using Meerkat Meals Sunday to Thursday will get you 2for1 on breakfast so you can cut your costs that way.
Ikea £1.50 breakfast
Adults: £1.50 (for six item breakfast)
Kids: £1.15 (for three item breakfast)
Tea/filtered coffee: Free
Served from 9.30am-11am
If you are signed up to Ikea Family Club, you can grab a six item breakfast for £1.50 and a free filter coffee every weekday before 11am. Although it isn’t unlimited, you could go up and get another plate for £1.50 if you were that hungry. You can only claim a free tea/coffee once a day however, so will have to pay 40p for another if you were extra thirsty. So although this isn’t unlimited, you can eat plenty of food for a very cheap price.
There are plenty of other places to pick up a buffet breakfast, such as hotels and hotel bars, however the ones featured above offer the best price and have the most locations around the country.
So what do you think of my list? Where is your favourite place to have a cheap buffet breakfast? Let me know in the comments below, on Twitter @Jordon_Cox or on Facebook.
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]]>The post I earned a ‘free’ first class flight from one holiday booking appeared first on Jordon Cox.
]]>My next flight will be in style, because in one holiday that I took with my mum last October, I earned a combined total of 97,000 frequent flyer miles… despite only making a journey of a few thousand. The total value of these? If used to get money off flights, probably around £900+… or if used to purchase a first class ticket (and avoid the £1,000s airlines normally charge), it’s probably around £2,000 in upgrades!
The way I did it was pretty simple. I didn’t take advantage of any special offers either, just knew the right places to book through and what credit card to spend on to max it… so you can do the same too with some forward planning!
Now before we go any further, this isn’t going to be a sure-fire way to get rich quick and jet off around the world in first class. The method I used required a lot of spending, and the reward flights that I’ve earned will require taxes to be paid on them. So bare that in mind.
So here’s how I did it:
My mother and I were booking a mega trip abroad to both the USA and Canada for two weeks. This would require two different hotels, three flights and a lot of spending. By booking in the right places and using the right reward card, we managed to rack up 95,000 miles.
American Express Rewards Gold Card
Just before we made any purchases or booked anything, I applied for an AMEX preferred rewards gold card (see MSE’s eligibility checker to see if you’ll be accepted). When signing up to the card, you can claim 20,000 bonus reward points when you spend £2,000 in the first three months of membership. There is usually a £140 annual fee but it is waved for the first year (and you can cancel after that).
We knew we were going to spend that much between the two of us for the whole trip, so put every penny of spending on that card… and obviously paid it off IN FULL. Just by putting our spending on that card, we got 1 point for every pound spent, and got the 20,000 point bonus, meaning 22,000 AMEX membership reward points. This can be transferred to a number of different frequent flyer programs, including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
The card has a few nice perks too, including membership to the Lounge Club, which gets you free airport lounge access the first time you use it, and a reduced rate for every other visit – which was handy on our travels!
Disclaimer: Please be careful when using credit cards not to overspend or get into debt. If you know that your spending may increase, then it may be worth thinking twice before applying.
How to earn bonus points
If you’re referred by a friend who is a cardholder when applying for the card, you can get a 2,000 point bonus (claiming 22,000 AMEX points when you reach the £2,000 spend). If you’d like a referral to claim the bonus, email me and i’ll send you a referral link!
You can also apply for the card through TopCashback, who offer you £10 Cashback after being accepted for the card. The cool thing is, you can convert this Cashback from TopCashback for frequent flyer miles too (either British Airways Avios or Virgin Frequent Flyer miles) with a 5% bonus. So you can either pocket £10 cash or collect 1,050 points.
When I signed up for the card, I was referred by a friend, which got me 24,000 points after completing the £2,000 spend.
Total so far: 24,000 points
Rocketmiles hotel bookings
We were visiting both Vancouver, British Columbia (see my city review) and Dallas, Texas for a week each, so needed two hotel bookings for the trip. We could’ve booked through Hotels.com or a similar website and earned a free nights reward, but instead we used a website called Rocketmiles, and because of which, earned 53,000 frequent flyer miles.
Rocketmiles is owned by hotel website Priceline and offers you anywhere from 500-10,000 airline miles per night on over 40 airlines by booking hotel rooms. You can credit miles to schemes including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, or you can select other rewards such as Amazon Gift Card or Uber credit.
After a quick search and choosing the best deal, our hotel in Vancouver cost us £800 for a week’s stay, and as a result we got 37,000 miles from the booking. Similarly in Dallas, our hotel cost us £800 for the week and we claimed a bonus 16,000 miles for that one. So just from booking two hotel rooms, we amassed an extra 53,000 miles, which you can assign to any frequent flyer program! That amount of miles, is enough to claim first class flights one way on a number of airlines (including Emirates First Class Suites) in itself!
It’s a great option for those looking to boost the points balance of their frequent flyer schemes. If you wanted to give RocketMiles a go, you can use my referral link to get a bonus 1,000 miles on your first booking.
When booking through Rocketmiles, it’s worth checking that the prices are competitive with other hotel websites, as sometimes the prices are inflated. You can use a hotel comparison website such as Trivago to check whether it is the best value. When we looked however, the prices of the hotel we were looking at matched other sites.
Total so far: 77,000 miles
Claiming miles on flight bookings
We needed to book three flights from London to Vancouver, Vancouver to Dallas, then Dallas to London. For the two flights in and out of London, we booked with the cheapest airline that we could get tickets for, which was British Airways. By signing up to the British Airways frequent flyer scheme beforehand, that gave us instant miles for flying with them.
Then on the flight from Vancouver to Dallas, we booked with what’s known as a ‘One World Alliance partner’. Basically, British Airways and a lots of other airlines are partnered, meaning you can earn and redeem miles with the airlines they are partnered with. One of them is American Airlines, which we booked with for the internal flight.
In total, when the trip was over, we earned 10,000 miles EACH for flying with BA and its partner scheme (as you can input a frequent flyer number for each passenger). With the BA mileage scheme, you can transfer miles between accounts too, which meant we got 20,000 miles total all in one frequent flyer account.
Total miles earned across the trip: 97,000
So after the whole trip, the total miles that we earned from spending on the right card and taking advantage of bonus point offers, was 97,000 miles. While you can choose which frequent flyer program you assign these miles to, we decided to go for Virgin Atlantic for the main 77,000 miles and the 20,000 extra British Airways Avios points from flying with them that trip.
What does 97,000 miles get you?
The 77,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles that we accrued is enough for return Economy flights for both me and my mum anywhere in the world (all we’d pay is the taxes). We could also get return premium economy flights for both of us for just the tax to certain destinations… or the big one… a ‘free’ first class flight to and from either India or the UAE, for just the tax.
Upon review, if I wanted to book a return first class flight to Dubai, it’d set me back £2,600+. But by accruing these miles on this one trip, the flight would only cost the tax, which is £514 (around the cost of a normal economy flight).
Let’s not forget, I also have 20,000 British Airways miles to use too, which is enough for a return flight to most of mainland Europe, with just tax to pay. I’m not saving any money, as I would never dream of paying for first class flights normally, but the value of the miles means I’m getting over £2,000 in upgrades – and the chance to get waited on hand and foot, and even sleep on an airplane, which is something in my eyes, money can’t buy.
I thought it was a free first class flight?
You certainly can find free first class flights with that amount of points – with different frequent flyer schemes. Since redeeming the miles to my Virgin Atlantic account, I realise that those 97,000 miles could hold a potential to unlock a lot more value if I credited them to a different airline. Unfortunately if flying out of London, you pay an awful lot of tax in Air Passenger Duty, but there are ways to get your free first class flight (or pay less in taxes).
In one of my next blogs, i’ll tell you all of the ways to max these miles by crediting them to different milage schemes. Some of the rewards can include:
- Flying 18+ hours of business class on Japan Airlines for 25,000 miles and £20 in fees
- Return First Class suites on Emirates for just 90,000 miles and £200
- A multi business Class American adventure traveling to 3 different US cities for just 115,000 plus £50 in fees.
Just goes to show the power of miles if you use them and rack them up when you are spending high and staying at different hotels.
If I do decide on a trip across to Dubai in first class, the process will be repeated, getting miles for the hotel booking on Rocketmiles and spending all costs on the AMEX card to convert into miles. Just a quick check tells me, I’ll earn around 25,000 miles on Rocketmiles for a cheap 4* hotel for a week’s stay. That itself is enough miles for yet another reward flight… so you can see how this can keep rolling if you are an avid traveller!
I can’t wait for my ‘free’ first class flight! Will you be trying this out? I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments below, on Twitter @Jordon_Cox or on Facebook.
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