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Per the title of this article, I’m flagging a deal to avoid, which I accept is on the face of it a little odd. Bear with me.

If you go into the “Partner Offers” section of your Nectar account, you will see that they are offering new sign ups to Experian’s free credit report service 100 Nectar points, which can convert to 62 Avios.

A fairly modest points haul of course, but one worth taking advantage of if you need to use the (free) Experian credit score service. Except it isn’t.

Ok, get to the point

The key issue here is, as we have warned before, that you need to shop around. In itself, a free service plus 100 free points is of course a good offer. However, it’s a relatively bad offer.

If you sign up to the same free Experian credit score service via TopCashback, you’ll get £4 cashback.

By anyone’s maths (including my notoriously bad ones), £4 is worth more than 100 Nectar points or 62 Avios. However, £4 cashback with TopCashback demonstrably is, as you can literally convert that cashback to way more than 100 Nectar points or 62 Avios.

Cashback held in your TopCashback account can be converted to Avios with a 5% bonus, so that £4 cashback will get you 420 Avios. That’s a lot more than 62. In addition, Avios can of course now be converted to Nectar points at a rate of 1.6 Nectar points per Avios. As a result, those 420 Avios will get you 672 Nectar points. Again, a substantial improvement on the 100 points offered directly via Nectar.

The lesson to be learned

Ultimately, it’s a great habit to be shopping online via a points or cashback portal. However, the lesson here is to shop around. There are a range of options for online rebates and the value you will get from them varies substantially. Just because you might “need” or “be actively collecting” Nectar points (we all are now) doesn’t mean you should be duped into just making purchases via your Nectar account. There may be far better offers out there on the same purchase.

The fact that in this case you can literally convert that alternative into Nectar points for a far greater total, makes this a good indicative example.