If you’re a Santander customer you may have heard of its Boosts scheme. But is this cashback programme a waste of time or something that you can’t miss?
On November the 17th 2022, Santander retired its old Retailer Offers scheme in favour of something called Boosts. Now, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that these schemes will work in a very similar way, but actually Boosts isn’t quite so generous. Let’s find out why.
What is Santander Boosts?
Boosts is a cashback scheme offered by Santander that allows you to earn money back when you make a purchase at a certain retailer. It’s only open for Santander credit and debit card holders.
How does it work?
You’ll first need to create a Boosts account. It’s very quick to do and you’ll just need to provide your contact details and create a password.
Then, you’ll need to link your Santander debit or credit card. Santander will send a £0.00 transaction fee to your card which you will need to confirm on your banking app – just so they’re certain that you’re a Santander customer.
When your account is up and running, it’s a case of looking through the offers which are personalised for you. You’ll have a list of stores and the amount of cashback they offer. Usually, it will be in the region of 1 -10%.
When you find a store that you like, click on the link and shop as you usually do. Once the transaction is confirmed, your cashback will be paid straight back onto your debit or credit card.
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Why it’s not as good as Retailer Offers
The Retailers Offers scheme worked slightly differently. All you needed to do was find a store that you liked and opt-in. When you made a purchase, your cashback would automatically be made without you having to click on a link from Santander first.
The best thing about this was that the cashback from Santander could be combined with other cashback sites like TopCashback and Quidco. That means for some stores, you could get double the amount of cashback.
With Boosts, you just can’t do that.
So, it’s just another cashback site then?
Essentially, yes. Which is a shame as there are plenty already on the market.
But how does it compare? Here’s a list of rates that you’ll receive from 5 random stores at Santander, TopCashback and Quidco.
| Santander | TopCashback | Quidco | |
| Adidas | 5.1% | 9% | 4.5% |
| Lego | 2.55% | 7% | 4.5% |
| The Entertainer | 1.7% | 3% | 1.87% |
| eBay | 0.85% | 1% | 1% |
| Dorothy Perkins | 2.55% | 2% | 1.5% |
As you can see from the table above, in most cases, you’ll receive a better rate if you go through TopCashback. However, rates do vary and it’s worth checking out what’s on offer from all of the cashback sites.
Is Santander Boosts worth it?
The scrapping of Retailer Offers is a little disappointing and Santander customers are losing out because they can no longer get double cashback.
And I’m not sure how personalised most of these cashback offers are. Many of the stores in my account I had never used and some I had never even heard of.
But Boosts is still worth signing up for. Although TopCashback often beats it for rates, it’s not always the case. So it’s worth checking Santander and TopCashback before you make a purchase.
Or, take a look at some of the best cashback sites in the UK.
Richard
Monday 31st of July 2023
Boosts is really poor. There used to be some decent 20% offers on rewards (e.g Laithwaites), which was also much easier to use as you say.
Some of the Boost offers are just ludicrous - free delivery on orders of chocolate over £200, £0.85 off Waitrose shopping, £0.42 cash back on taste card. Even if you try to click through to take advantage of these derisory offers you either get an error message or the page hangs.
A complete waste of time
Margaret
Friday 30th of December 2022
I don’t like boosts, much preferred the retailer offers, which was way easier to manage. I have made several purchases online before realising that I could have used the boosts, however, by then it’s too late. The faff of having to login to use it at exactly the same time as you want to make a purchase is just stupid and frustrating. Don’t like it at all.
Lynn
Tuesday 12th of December 2023
@Margaret, totally agree, I don’t always want to shop online at that particular moment, and I often just shop without realising I could have gone through the boost programme. The old retailer offer was way better and automatically credited the account anytime you spend. I feel the Boosts programme is pretty useless, I don’t think I’ve gained once because the last time I tried it on Ocado my linked payment card was rejected 🤷🏼♀️
Martin Smith
Sunday 4th of December 2022
When Santander Bank have all my credit card info and I start to apply via my Santander online account why do they throw me out to another web service and ask me for all my credit card details AGAIN and want to process a test payment? Is this not operated by Santander? Surely from my Santander online account that I have securely logged into I should just be able to say OK, give me the less generous discounts you have decided to provide as part of YOUR banking service? Makes me re-evaluate my entire banking provider. After years of being a customer, not impressed!
Tim Baker
Tuesday 7th of February 2023
@Lesley, yep harvesting info they can flog on. System not as good now, some staffer got a bonus for all the money saving they have done for Santander I am sure.
Lesley
Thursday 15th of December 2022
@Martin Smith, I totally agree with your comments, I was nervous having to put my Santander details into another site, when already logged into the App, so didn’t continue. Not impressed and like you am considering changing banks.
Noreen
Tuesday 29th of November 2022
I preferred retailer offers .. boosts is actually an old idea which Santander are very late to the party and as you said other more lucrative cashback sites are giving more .. what a waste of time creating this second rate product to take over a really good retailer offer