MyWaitrose members can once again claim a free coffee without buying anything, but they can no longer get a free newspaper, after Waitrose rolled out new changes to its loyalty scheme.
The latest update – which applies from 27 January – comes as Waitrose gears up for a major relaunch of the John Lewis Partnership’s loyalty proposition.
Among the six new changes, Waitrose has also rebranded the scheme, to My Waitrose, is ramping up the promotional offers available to shoppers at its counters, and is “streamlining” the process to redeem vouchers at checkout.
The reintroduction of the full coffee benefit however is likely to be the most popular among members, who will now be able to claim their free drink without needing to buy any items – a benefit they enjoyed before the scheme was controversially scrapped during the Covid pandemic.
When Waitrose brought the perk back in a 2022 partnership with Caffè Nero, members were only able to claim their drink after they’d scanned their shopping. They still have to bring a disposable cup, however.
Likely to be less popular however is the full wind-down of its free newspaper offer for the most loyal shoppers. The supermarket stopped offering free newspapers for the majority of members at the same time it scrapped free coffee. At the time it claimed the benefit was only used by 5% of shoppers.
However, up until October 2024, those who most regularly bought a newspaper could still claim discount vouchers, and a free paper after 3pm.
“We’ve removed any reference to daily newspaper vouchers, because this offer has now been withdrawn,” customers were told, in the update email this week.
Under the other changes announced, My Waitrose members will now receive 20% discount at its cheese counters on Thursdays, adding to the 20% off meat and fish counters they already recieve on Fridays.
It has also “streamlined” the way vouchers are used in the app. Previously shoppers would need to physically scan the app each time they wanted to use a preselected voucher. Now selected vouchers will be automatically applied when they scan their My Waitrose card or app.
Finally, hinting that Waitrose could be planning to open stores in Northern Ireland for the first time, as part of its latest store expansion plan, shoppers in Northern Ireland will now also be able to access the scheme.
A Waitrose spokesman said: “Some of our members like to have their free coffee before or during their shop rather than afterwards, so we are just offering a bit of flexibility in response to customer feedback. In practice lots of customers do this already, so this is just a formality as part of update T&Cs.”
The changes are the latest to Waitrose’s loyalty offer, as part of its strategy to build back market share lost to both ends of the market following back-to-back years of losses for the John Lewis Partnership. The partnership returned to profit in 2024, and has set out on a rejigged turnaround plan focused “unashamedly” on the retail basics.
Reviving its loyalty offer, which has been beset by complaints following the relaunch of myWaitrose and myJohn Lewis in 2022, has been a key strand of that. The Grocer understands the partnership is in the final stages of work to replace the two schemes with a consolidated pan-partnership model.
It’s understood that Waitrose intends for the free coffee perk to remain a central part of the offer. In August, The Grocer exclusively revealed that Waitrose had reintroduced disposable paper cups to a small number of stores in order to test the proposition.
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