M&S will pay you £15 to start your Christmas shopping early

Marks & Spencer is trying to get Christmas shoppers through its doors early, and it’s offering £15 to do it.

Members of its Sparks loyalty scheme can earn three £5 credits before 1 January. For existing members, the three offers are: spend £25 on Delacourt Champagne, buy flowers online, and spend £20 in an M&S Café. New members get a slightly different set, with soft drinks and mixers in place of the champagne and flowers bought in store rather than online. In Scotland, licensing rules mean the champagne offer is replaced by the mixers one. Members have to activate the offers in the M&S app and scan their card at the till.

The maths is reasonable. The cheapest way to collect the full £15 is a bottle of champagne, a £25 letterbox bouquet and lunch for two. That’s about £70 of spending for £15 back, a return of roughly 20 per cent. Most loyalty schemes give a fraction of that. The catch, as usual, is that the money can only be spent at M&S. It can’t be exchanged for cash or gift cards. The retailer gets you back in the shop, which is the whole point.

M&S’s own research, released with the offer, suggests the timing is right. It found that 44 per cent of shoppers have already made their first Christmas purchase and that 47 per cent are looking for discounts or loyalty rewards to stretch their budgets. The average expected spend on presents is £377.90. More than a quarter save their rewards for the Christmas food shop, and one in seven admit to buying something for themselves while they’re at it.

Sparks was relaunched earlier this year and posts new offers in the app every Tuesday. “Getting your Christmas shopping done early deserves a little reward,” said Sharry Cramond, the company’s marketing and loyalty director.

A little reward is accurate. It’s not a fortune, but for anyone already planning to buy the fizz and flowers at M&S, it’s £15 they would otherwise not get.