Iceland is giving shoppers extra cash ahead of Christmas if they use their bonus card – but is it any good?
Loyalty card holders can earn a bonus worth up to £150 but they've only got two weeks to get it
ICELAND is giving away up to £150 for free to loyalty card holders - but is it worth the effort?
Customers who use Iceland's Bonus Card when they shop can now claim an extra £1 for every £10 they upload to the card, in addition to the £1 they currently earn for every £20 uploaded.
This means that even if you put just £10 on your card, you will be rewarded with a bonus £1 under the Extra Christmas Bonus Rewards scheme.
So if you upload £20 to your card you would earn an extra £3. This is because you will be rewarded with your standard £1 bonus, but also an extra £2 under the Christmas scheme - £1 for every tenner uploaded.
To get that you'd have to put £100 on your card. This means you'll get a £5 standard bonus plus the £10 extra.
The standard bonus cash will be added to your card within 48 hours of earning it and the Save for Christmas bonus will be added from November 2.
You can spend you bonus all year round, up until November 2, 2022.
The maximum amount you can have on your card at any one time is £1,000 including your bonuses.
Even though the scheme is aimed at helping spread the cost of Christmas, you'll only be able to take advantage of the festive money-back deal for two weeks between October 16 to October 29.
Unlike Tesco Clubcard or Sainsbury's Nectar card, Iceland's loyalty card works by the customer uploading cash on to it and using it to pay for their shopping.
Other loyalty cards tend to work by scanning it at the till to collect points.
Once you've collected a certain amount of points, customers are rewarded with tailored money-off vouchers to redeem on your next shop.
Usually, a loyalty card does not hold any cash on it and you can add points to your card even if you've forgotten to bring it with you.
With the Iceland card, you actually have to use it to pay for your shopping in order to get any benefit and you can only spend the money on the card in store.
So if you forget to bring your card with you then you could see yourself spending more than you'd bargained for.
Once you have put money onto the card, you can't withdraw it and it can only be spent in the Iceland.
Asda offer a similar scheme with their , where you can add small amounts by asking the cashier and saving up to £144 per card.
Asda pays a £1 bonus if you save between £49 and £96, a £3 bonus for between £97 to £143, and those with £144 get a £6 bonus.
Unlike the Iceland Bonus Card, you'll need to have saved the qualifying amount by 5pm Sunday November 12th to get a pay out by 8am Monday November 13.
also offers a bonus and is a digital stamps scheme, rather than a loyalty card scheme.
But you won't earn nearly as much as you could in the Iceland Christmas Bonus Reward Scheme, with the maximum reward being a £6 bonus for a saving of £194.
Even though these schemes let you save towards your Christmas food bill, they shouldn't be used instead of a bank savings account as your money does not have the same protection.
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According to , the safest way to take advantage of these schemes is to save for Christmas over the year in a bank and then withdraw the money when the bonus schemes are launched.
The Iceland loyalty card is also a good way of getting rid of your loose change as you can upload any amount of cash to it at the till.
If you haven't got one yet but you want to take advantage of the scheme, you can register yours during the two weeks the scheme is running and Iceland will extend the offer for when you get your card through the post.
Christmas might seem far away but some retailers are already getting into the festive spirit - only to be blasted by customers.
From a yule log in Tesco which is due to expire on November 2, to a Christmas aisle in Asda - these are some of their biggest gripes.
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