John Lewis Partnership - Credit Cards and Account (store) Cards

Credit Cards and Account (store) Cards

Unusually, John Lewis department stores did not accept Visa and MasterCard credit cards until 1999, previously only accepting the John Lewis Account Card (a form of charge card) and the Switch (now Maestro) and Delta (now Visa Debit) debit cards.

On 28 March 2004, the John Lewis Partnership announced the launch of their own credit card — the Partnership card. This was launched with HFC which is a division of the banking giant HSBC. It was launched as a MasterCard with a choice of four designs (effectively four different colours).

The credit card follows on from, and supersedes, the John Lewis (and Waitrose) account cards which have been around for 40 years. These cards are no longer available, and holders of these are being encouraged to replace them with the Partnership card. They can, however, still be used, and some cards from the mid-1970s are still in use.

The Partnership card is designed as a cashback credit card, with 6 months interest free credit and a 16.9% APR. It offers a 1% rebate for purchases at stores (including online stores) that are members of the John Lewis Partnership (such as John Lewis and Waitrose). For purchases at other stores it offers a rate of 0.5%. The rebate is awarded as vouchers which can be spent in a store of the John Lewis Partnership. Vouchers are earned by accumulating points, with 1 point awarded for every £1 spent in John Lewis Partnership stores, and every £2 spent elsewhere. 500 points earns a £5 voucher. Earned vouchers are sent to card holders by post and can be spent in a store of the John Lewis Partnership.

Read more about this topic:  John Lewis Partnership

Famous quotes containing the words credit, cards and/or account:

    Especially with our first child, we tend to take too much responsibility—both credit and blame—for everything. The more we want to be good parents, the more we tend to see ourselves as making or breaking our children.
    Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)

    Skill sheets, workbooks, basal reader, flash cards are not enough. To convey meaning you need someone sharing the meaning and flavor of real stories with the student.
    Jim Trelease (20th century)

    Realism, whether it be socialist or not, falls short of reality. It shrinks it, attenuates it, falsifies it; it does not take into account our basic truths and our fundamental obsessions: love, death, astonishment. It presents man in a reduced and estranged perspective. Truth is in our dreams, in the imagination.
    Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)