Claim a bonus £1-25 of Nectar points this weekend

From Fri 26 Oct, Sainsbury’s will be running a promotion called 'Swipe & Win', which rewards you with bonus Nectar points after shopping in store or online. Anyone who spends £10 or more, and crucially, remembers to swipe a Nectar card, will be randomly allocated 200-5,000 free Nectar points (worth between £1-25) on top of whatever you'd normally get.

How to claim your points

It's quite simple really. If you spend £10 or more at Sainsbury’s – on virtually anything, except fuel, Tu clothing and the standard excluded items such as gift cards, lottery tickets and spirits/liqueurs - either online or in store and scan your Nectar card, you'll receive a coupon at the checkout. That coupon guarantees everyone who’s eligible for the promotion at least 200 Nectar points (which is the equivalent of £1), but if you're lucky you could win up to £25 worth.

So basically, if you go in store and spend £10, you're getting a guaranteed 10% back in the form of Nectar points. Of course, it’s only MoneySaving if you’re buying things you would’ve bought anyway – it isn’t worth spending £10 on stuff you don’t need just to enter this promotion, as the likelihood is you’ll get only a small bonus in return.

The promotion’s not running at the Sainsbury’s Central or Sainsbury’s Local stores, only at normal Sainsbury’s superstores (a few are excluded – see full T&Cs).

Important: The coupon with your free Nectar points can only be redeemed in store, and you need to have done this by 11.59pm on Sun 11 Nov. After that, the coupons will no longer be valid and your bonus Nectar points will be lost forever.

How the prizes break down

All entrants meeting the qualifying conditions will get a minimum of 200 Nectar points, but if you're lucky you could bag one the bigger prizes below:

- 5,000 Nectar points (worth £25) - 85,867 prizes available
- 2,000 Nectar points (worth £10) - 171,733 prizes available
- 1,000 Nectar points (worth £5) - 257,600 prizes available
- 500 Nectar points (worth £2.50) - 1,545,603 prizes available

How to max it

Just on its own, it’s a decent offer but as you've probably guessed, there are ways you can push it a bit further to max your gains.

Divvy up your basket

First off, Sainsbury’s says there's no limit on the number of entries per customer, so in theory, a larger spend could be split into multiple transactions to max your winnings and improve your odds of a top prize. If you're spending £100 on your weekly shop, you could technically divide it into 10 smaller shops of £10 each and get a prize for each one.

Nectar boost online

If you redeem points through the Nectar website, you can often get 2x or even 3x the value to spend on holidays, hotels and days out. By having those extra points in your account, you may be able to exchange them for a voucher. For more info, see our Nectar Boost guide.

I hope you swipe it lucky with this promotion. Let me know what you win in the comments below, on Twitter @MSE_Deals or on Facebook.