Heathrow Rewards (was called World Points up until a few years ago) is a scheme whereby you can collect points on purchases made at most Heathrow Airport outlets. This extends to shops, bars, restaurants, cafés, Heathrow
Parking and Heathrow Express.

The retailer swipes your Heathrow Rewards card and you typically earn 1 point for every £1 spent.

The points you collect don’t have a massive value – 500 points = £5 – so it’s like getting a 1% discount on everything you buy. And you can only spend that money at Heathrow Airport.

I find the best use of points is to convert them into airline miles. This is especially useful if you have points with an airline that are going to expire – adding just 500 will push the expiry date forward as if you flew with the airline. Or, you might be missing just a few points to redeem a free flight. Until December 31st 2015, points converted to Avios, Emirates or Virgin Atlantic are doubled.

I’ve been collecting these points regularly over the last several years and have been able to see my transactions appear on the Heathrow Rewards website.

Recently I noticed that my transactions made in Boots LHR T3 weren’t showing up – I was missing about eight since June 2015. I checked the website and it appears that you need to send a copy of the receipt to reclaim points. Of course I didn’t keep any receipts, although my credit card did show the transactions.

I visited Boots twice last month, both times I reminded them to swipe my card and both times I kept the receipt. Points still didn’t appear on my account. So I wrote to Heathrow Rewards:

I regularly make purchases from Boots LHR T3. I always provide my Heathrow Rewards card.

I realised a few weeks ago that Boots have failed to add points since June this year. Of course I don’t have the receipts, only the credit card statements – I’ve taken screenshots of all of these below.

Having noticed, I kept the last two receipts (attached) and I even reminded the store assistant to ensure my card was scanned as my points weren’t appearing. Those points have not appeared on my account – so something is definitely wrong with the way Boots record transactions.

I have a feeling that you won’t be interested in crediting my account for my credit card transactions – but you can at least see the extent of Boots failure to credit my account.

I’ll be visiting Boots T3 this Friday evening and will, as always, present my Heathrow Rewards card. I will also retain the receipt. Hopefully you will have had a chance to ask them about their system before then.

and this was their reply:

Thank you for contacting Heathrow Rewards.

We were terribly sorry to learn about the issue with Boots. We will promptly report it and have it fixed as soon as possible. We will get back to you as soon as we receive feedback.

We have added points both for your receipts and credit card statements to your account. In order to compensate you for the hassle we have added extra 100 promotional points to your balance. Please accept our apologies for this problem.

Do not hesitate to contact us again if you require any further assistance.

So well done Heathrow Rewards – let’s see how Boots does this week. If you use this scheme, especially for a high value purchase – keep your receipt!