Founder
Ian is the founder of Surff and writes on data, privacy, loyalty and rewards.
Nando's Rewards hands you free food three times on every lap of its chilli wheel - at 3, 6 and 10 chillies - and the two claims you hear most often about it are both wrong: redeeming a reward never resets your count, and reaching 10 does. Here is the whole scheme against the current terms: the £7 rule, the three tiers priced from Nando's own menu, the 366-day reward clock and the quiet detail that every lap - the first included - starts you one chilli in.
Read articleClub Pret costs £5 a month for half-price barista-made drinks, which makes the break-even one line of arithmetic: the subscription pays for itself once the full menu price of the drinks you would have bought anyway passes £10 in a month. Pret publishes no drink prices, so this guide runs every calculation in a form you can plug your own till receipt into - and works through the rules that actually decide the value: the 30-minute clock, the one-drink-per-transaction rule and the pause button.
Read articleA McDonald's Rewards point is worth about 0.075p to 0.08p when you spend it well and nothing at all six months after you earn it. That is the honest headline: since the 17 March 2026 tier rises the best food redemption returns roughly 7 to 8% of qualifying spend, down from 12 to 13%, and the expiry clock now does as much work as the earning rate. Here is the full valuation - tiers, expiry, strategy - worked through at the current numbers.
Read articleThe Greggs App runs six stamp cards at once, earns one stamp per item rather than per visit, and hands you a free hot or iced drink just for registering. The catch sits at the other end: every reward you earn dies 31 days after it lands. Here is the whole scheme - stamps, free coffee and the birthday treat - checked against the current terms.
Read articleStarbucks Rewards pays 10 stars per pound, and since 3 September 2026 a free latte costs 600 of them - £60 through the till for a drink worth under a fiver. The cheap tier is the better deal, the birthday drink is Gold-only, and the card top-up everyone warns about is actually optional. Here is the whole scheme, worked through at the current rates.
Read articleBuy five drinks in a reusable cup at Costa and the sixth is free - no scheme hands over a free drink of your own choosing faster. Greggs needs nine drinks, Caffe Nero five with its app-and-cup bonus, and Starbucks now wants £60 through the till before a latte comes free. Here is the maths on every scheme, checked against the current terms.
Read articleEleven big-name food and coffee apps, four completely different machines underneath: stamp cards, spend points, flat cashback and prize wheels. The strongest hand a regular back up to 20% of their spend in free drinks; the harshest quietly delete points within six months. Here is every major UK scheme compared on the same maths, checked against the current terms.
Read articleClubcard pays as weak a headline rate as any forecourt scheme - half a penny a litre at Tesco's own pumps, a shade more at the roughly 200 Esso sites with a Tesco Express - yet ends up with the richest ceiling, because vouchers double with Reward Partners and the credit card lifts fuel earning to a point per litre. Here is how the points work at both kinds of forecourt, and what changed in 2026.
Read articleBPme Rewards pays 1 point per litre, 200 points make £1 and a typical 12,000-mile driver earns about £7 a year - double points on Ultimate never come close to paying its premium. Add a card that loses everything if it sits unregistered for 12 months and a voucher list that has quietly shrunk to three names, and the small print matters. Here is what your points are worth and how to use them well.
Read articleNectar at Esso pays 1 point per litre and a point is worth half a penny - about £7 a year for a typical driver. Redeem those points against a full 60-litre fill and they double to 1p each; redeem them on a 10-litre top-up and they shrivel to a sixth of that best case. Here is how the points work, what they are really worth and every trap in the small print.
Read articleTexaco Star Rewards pays the highest standing rate of any UK fuel loyalty scheme - a full 1p a litre back - but nothing is redeemable for yourself until you hold 500 points, and 12 months without a fill wipes every point. Here is how the scheme really works, worked through with real numbers.
Read articleMost UK fuel loyalty cards pay back about 0.5p a litre - roughly £7 a year for a typical 12,000-mile driver - and the schemes that look most generous hide the biggest catches. Here is every forecourt scheme compared with real numbers, the traps to skip and what genuinely cuts your fuel bill.
Read articleYour digital footprint comes in two kinds: the trail you leave on purpose and the one that builds up in the background. Here is the difference between an active and a passive digital footprint, with real examples, a quick quiz and what to do about each.
Read articleGoogle keeps a running record of what you search, watch and do - and it will show you almost all of it. Here is where to look, what you will find there and the settings that decide what gets saved from now on.
Read articleYour phone is not recording your conversations to sell you things - and the truth is stranger. Here is why the microphone is innocent, what ad targeting actually uses instead and the settings that genuinely reduce the creepy timing.
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