I tested high street coffee discounts and subscriptions – don’t overlook the two places you can get a £2 caffeine hit

IF you love your takeaway coffee, but don’t love how much it costs you, a subscription could be the solution.

Cafés like Leon and Pret A Manger offer monthly plans, while others give you a free drink after you’ve enjoyed a certain number of coffees or teas.

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Some coffee shops give you a free coffee if you’re a loyal customer[/caption]

But are these loyalty programmes worth the money? MEL HUNTER signed up and sank a lot of lattes to find the best value brew.

LEON

With Leon’s Roast Rewards subscription, you pay £25 a month, and for that you can get up to five drinks per day, of any size.

It includes teas, coffees and iced drinks but not smoothies or sodas, costing between £2.80 for a tea and £4.10 for an Iced Matcha Latte.

The subscription also gives you 20% off food.

But you can’t get a round in for the office, or even treat a friend to a cuppa, as you have to leave an hour between ordering individual drinks.

You could potentially buy a whopping 150 drinks over a 30-day month, for £25– but realistically no one can – or should – drink that much.

You also order via the app rather than speak to a person, which for me made getting my drink a bit of a soulless experience.

The offer on food is good. Leon’s menu is more interesting than most takeaway stops. 

You could save up to £2.80 with the Roast Rewards reduction if you opted for the most expensive item on the menu – ten Hot Honey GFC Chicken Nuggets, full price £13.98.

It was breakfast time when I visited my nearest branch in Kingston upon Thames, so I just opted for a latte for £3.60 and a croissant, which was £1.60 instead of the usual £2 with my 20% off.

Is it worth it? 

Let’s assume you have one coffee a day from Leon, five days a week, so 20 drinks altogether over a month

Without Roast Rewards, you’d pay £3.60 for a regular cup, adding up to £72 in total.

So, you’d save £47 by using the £25 subscription and your 20 cups would work out at around £1.25 each. 

And that’s without the savings you could also make on food.

But it’s still quite a coffee commitment to one chain. 

You’d have to buy at least six Leon brews a month to start saving.

It’s a good deal if you live or work near a Leon and will use it regularly. But, although Leon has around 150 branches, those at most London train stations, airports and motorway services are excluded from Roast Rewards.

Pret a Manger

With a Club Pret subscription you can currently get five drinks a day, as well as 20% off food for £30.

But that’s changing – and many customers aren’t happy about it.

Pret has just announced that from September 3 the subscription will cost less – down to £10 (and it will be £5 for the first six months) – but you’ll only save 50% on coffee, tea, coolers and iced drinks.

And there’ll no longer be any discount on food.

You’ll be able to get up to five drinks a day but only one at a time and leaving 30 minutes between each order.

Is it worth it?

Prices at different cafés vary, but at the one I visited a latte, flat white or mocha costs £3.80 and iced drinks are around £4. The cooler lemonades were £4.20.

Let’s again assume you buy one coffee a day five days a week, under this new deal that will cost you around £1.90 for a frothy coffee, adding up to £38 for 20 drinks.

Then you’d pay your £10 subscription on top.

It works out nearly £50 a month – double what you’d be paying if you signed up to Leon’s Roast Rewards.

Without the Pret subscription, though, those same 20 coffees would cost you around £76, so you’d still make a saving if you’re a dedicated regular at the chain.

It has nearly 500 branches around the UK and only those at service stations are excluded from the deal.

On balance, the Leon subscription seems better value.

But that’s only if you live or work close to a branch and commit to buying at least seven coffees a month there.

If you prefer drinks like lemonades or other coolers, you’d be better off going to Pret where they are included.

What’s on offer at other chains?

The other big coffee names including Starbucks, Caffé Nero and Costa offer their own rewards schemes, where you earn stars, stamps or points every time you buy a coffee.

So how does this compare to Leon and Pret?

Caffe Nero

At Caffé Nero you get a stamp for each coffee, tea or iced drink and when you’ve collected nine, you get a drink free.

A regular latte is £3.70 so you’d end up paying £33.30 for ten drinks.

You can cut your costs by bringing your own cup. That way you’ll get two stamps for every drink, so you only need to buy four-and-a-half to get your freebie – that works out just under £17, or £1.70 a coffee.

Costa

At Costa, you join the Costa Club to earn Beans for any size barista made drink (hot or cold). When you’ve got ten beans you get a free drink.

You’ll pay £3.90 for a medium latte or cappuccino, so you’ll pay £39 to get a freebie.

Like Nero, you can get there in half the time and for half the price with a reusable cup each time.

There’s no limit on how many drinks you buy at one time and you’ll get a stamp or bean for each.
The plus side with Costa is the huge number of places you can get your drink- Costa has around 2,500 stores in the UK, plus around13,000 vending machines, where you can use the rewards app.

Starbucks

Sign up to Starbucks Rewards to collect three stars for every £1 spent. 

In my local brand, a medium latte or cappuccino was £3.25.

When you’ve collected 150 stars you get a free drink.

This means you need to spend £50 to get a complimentary coffee or tea.

Once you reach 450 stars, you get some extra freebies.

M&S

A regular latte or cappuccino costs £3.30 and Sparks members can claim a seventh coffee free after buying six drinks from an M&S Café. 

McDonald’s

One of the cheapest places for coffee – £1.99 for a latte, cappuccino or Flat White– you can join MyMcDonald’s Rewards to get a point for every penny you spend and can redeem your first reward at 1500 points (when you’ve spent £15).

Waitrose

Get a free coffee if you’re a myWaitrose member who makes a purchase in store and brings your own cup.

Greggs

Get good value coffee – around £2 a cup – and use the Gregg’s app every time you buy something and you’ll get your tenth item free.

Coffee club app

With this app, you pay £2.99 a month and get 25% off ‘standard sized barista made drinks’ at cafés such as Caffè Nero, Black Sheep Coffee and lots of independents. 

For drinks with a full price of £3.60, you’d save 90p each time, so would save money after fewer than four drinks a month.

The verdict:

If you buy a coffee every day from Leon using your £25 a month subscription, each cuppa will work out around £1.25.

You also get the extra benefit of money off food.

But you have to live or work near a Leon and visit it very regularly to reap the full benefits.

Pret’s coffee deal is being watered down from September, but it’s still cheaper than paying full price, and there’s loads of branches. Plus, it includes coolers which Leon’s deal doesn’t.

If you don’t have one favourite coffee chain, you might be better off just downloading the apps for the different brands and eventually claiming a free drink

Caffe Nero’s is the most generous of these schemes, with Costa, which boasts the most branches, not far behind. And both will reward you much sooner if you use a reusable cup.

Don’t overlook other places. McDonald’s and Gregg’s both offer good value coffee at around £2 for a latte.