Saving Pennies: Beauty Loyalty Cards

It's my birthday tomorrow! So inevitably I am spending the day shopping and have finally booked myself in for my Mac 90 minute makeover which I got for Christmas. However, currently being broke means I'll have to be a little careful with how much I spend, which got me thinking if I had any points to use to soften the blow to my bank account slightly. So I thought I would talk you through the best in beauty loyalty cards so you can get the most from your money.

The first and in my eyes the best has to be the Boots Advantage Card. Each point is worth 1p and the card gives you 4 points for every £1 you spend, but there are often store-wide double or triple points events and if the card is registered online (something I highly recommend you do as you can order a new one if it gets lost or stolen and don't lose the points already on it) you will receive plenty of vouchers through the post for both earning more points of money saving on certain items. This can now be done on the Boots app for smartphones so you will never be without vouchers! The only slight issue with this card is you can only use points to pay if you have enough to cover the whole item, although personally I think this is lovely as you really feel as though you are getting a treat. 

The Space NK N.Duldge Card and the House of Fraser Recognition Reward Card (not just for beauty buys) are similar in concept. You earn 1 point for every £1 you spend and when you reach a certain number of points a £5 reward is credited onto your card to spend within 3 months. This Space NK card turns into a reward at 100 points, effectively meaning you save 5% on beauty spends. However the House of Fraser card turns into a reward at 500 points (and only at the beginning of the month), meaning you have to spend £500 to get £5 off. The latter sounds like a lot of money, but you can earn points on clothes, shoes and everything except gift cards so it adds up pretty quickly.

The Debenhams Beauty Club Reward Card is similar in premise to the above cards, but you earn 3 points per £1 spent and if at the beginning of the month you have 500 or more points on your card it is transferred into a £5 reward. However with this scheme you have 6 months to spend your reward before you lose it. This is definitely more customer friendly as there is no panic buying just because you have a reward, something which often ends in spending more than you would if you had no card at all. Being a Beauty Club member also means you get free delivery on anything you can earn points on from Debenhams.com which is an instant money saver.

Out of all of my beauty loyalty cards the Superdrug Beauty Card is probably my least used, although that is more to do with how little I shop at Superdrug rather than flaws in the scheme. You earn 1 point for every £1 you spend and 100 points equals £1 reward. Points keep accumulating every time you spend but you can only cash in rewards at 100 point intervals. For example, if you had 520 points on your card, you could only use 500 (or 400, or 300, etc) of them in one transaction, but unlike the Boots one you can add to it with cash (or however you choose to pay) if your transaction if over the amount of point you have.

Loyalty schemes are a wonderful idea as they definitely save money in the long run. With £56 on my Boots card and £10 on my Space NK N.Dulge card I can feel a birthday spend session coming!