Nectar Points and a Clubcard Balance After a Death

Can you transfer Nectar points when someone dies, or move a Tesco Clubcard balance to a relative? It comes down to one thing: the individual scheme's terms. There is no single UK rule. Some loyalty programmes will shift a balance to a spouse or household member on request, some cancel the points the moment they are told the member has died, and a good many simply let the balance expire quietly through inactivity while the family is busy with everything else. The one constant is that time is against you — the longer nobody asks, the more likely the points are gone.

These balances are rarely large enough to matter to an estate, and formally they are treated as worth nothing. But a well-used Clubcard, Nectar or Boots Advantage account can hold a meaningful amount in vouchers, and it is a small, avoidable loss when it disappears purely because nobody knew to ask in the first few weeks. This page compares how the main schemes behave, explains why loyalty points are not really yours to inherit, and shows where the job sensibly sits among the bigger things you are dealing with.

The short answer: it depends on the scheme, and time is against you

Because loyalty points are governed by the terms and conditions of each individual programme, there is no general right to inherit them and no single answer that covers Nectar, Clubcard and the rest at once. What there is, in practice, is a spectrum. At one end sit schemes that will help a family keep the value — moving a balance to a household member or issuing vouchers on production of a death certificate. At the other sit schemes whose stated position is that points are personal to the member and are cancelled on death. And running underneath all of them is the inactivity clock: most programmes expire points that have not been earned or spent for a period, so doing nothing is itself a decision that loses the balance.

The practical takeaway is the same whichever scheme you are dealing with. Ask early, ask specifically, and ask before the account is closed. A phone call or message that reaches the scheme in the first few weeks has options that the same request three months later does not.

Why points are not really yours to inherit

Loyalty points feel like money — they add up on a card, they buy things, a balance can run into a decent sum. But almost every scheme's terms say two things that change the picture after a death. The first is that the points have no cash value: they cannot be exchanged for money, only redeemed within the scheme. The second is that they are personal to the member and non-transferable. Put together, that means points are not a possession the member owned outright and could leave to someone; they are a benefit under a contract with the retailer, and the contract sets the rules.

This is why a family cannot simply demand a balance be paid out the way they can with money in a bank account. The retailer is within its rights to cancel personal, non-transferable points on death if that is what its terms say. What softens this is that many retailers choose, as a matter of goodwill and good customer relations, to help a bereaved family keep the value even where the strict terms would not require it. That goodwill is real, but you have to ask for it — it is not applied automatically, and it evaporates once the account is closed.

The schemes that will move a balance to the family

The two largest UK schemes — Tesco Clubcard and Nectar — are both built around households as much as individuals, and both have, in practice, been willing to help a family retain value after a death rather than simply cancelling a balance. Several schemes are structured so that points can be pooled or a card linked to a partner's, which makes moving a balance to a surviving spouse straightforward where they agree to do it.

Rather than rely on what a scheme did for someone else, the reliable approach is to contact the programme directly and ask three plain questions: can the balance be transferred to a named household member; if not, can it be issued as vouchers to the member's account before it is closed; and what proof do they need to do either. Have the membership number, the death certificate details and your relationship to the member ready. Get any agreement in writing or note down who you spoke to and when, because these arrangements are discretionary and it helps to have a record if the account is later closed by another part of the business.

Finding the accounts in the first place is often the real obstacle, especially where the person who died was the one who managed the household shopping and the apps. If their loyalty logins were locked inside a password manager with no master password, or if they were the partner who quietly handled everything and left no list, tracing what existed can take longer than dealing with it — a wider problem we cover in the piece on when one partner did all the admin and then died.

The schemes that cancel on notification, and the inactivity trap

Not every programme is accommodating. Some state plainly that membership ends and points are forfeited on the death of the member, and they will close the account and cancel the balance when you notify them. That is legitimate under their terms, frustrating as it is. The lesson from it is a slightly uncomfortable one: notifying a scheme of a death can itself be the trigger that cancels the points, so it is worth asking about transfer or vouchers in the same breath, before the account is formally closed.

The quieter loss is inactivity. Most schemes expire points that have sat unused for a period — often a year or two, though it varies — and after a death an account naturally goes quiet. Nobody is shopping on it, no points are being earned, and the clock runs down until the balance simply disappears. This is how the majority of loyalty value is actually lost after a death: not through a deliberate cancellation, but through months of silence while the family deals with more pressing things. If you know an account exists and holds a worthwhile balance, deal with it early rather than leaving it on the bottom of the list.

Are loyalty points part of the estate?

Formally, no in any meaningful sense. Because points have no cash value and cannot be turned into money, they are treated as worth nothing for the purposes of valuing an estate, and they do not normally appear in the estate accounts or affect whether inheritance tax is due. An executor is not expected to hunt down every loyalty card and put a figure on it.

That formal position does not make the points useless, though. "Worth nothing to the estate" is not the same as "worth nothing to the family". A large balance can still be spent on shopping the household needs, or converted into vouchers where the scheme allows a transfer, which is a real and immediate benefit even if it never touches the formal valuation. The sensible way to think about it: points are not an asset to be inherited and accounted for, but a bit of value to be used up sensibly before it lapses. Contrast that with something like a catalogue account, where a debt genuinely is chased or written off as part of the estate — loyalty points sit on the opposite, low-stakes end of the same admin list.

How to deal with them, and where they sit among bigger jobs

Keep this task in proportion. It belongs on the list, but well down it, behind anything involving money owed, income stopping or accounts holding real cash. A workable order looks like this:

• Note which schemes existed as you go through the wallet, the phone apps and the email inbox — the same sweep that turns up subscriptions and an online seller account with money still in it.
• Prioritise by likely value. A card used for the weekly shop over years may hold a worthwhile balance; a rarely used one probably does not, and is not worth chasing.
• Ask about transfer or vouchers before closing anything, and get the answer recorded.
• Use or convert a worthwhile balance promptly, before inactivity expiry takes it.
• Let the trivial ones go. Not every card is worth a phone call, and your time is better spent elsewhere.

It is worth being honest about what this exercise really shows. Loyalty points are the smallest kind of money a death touches, and the fact that families spend any energy trying to rescue a Clubcard balance says something about how little else is often left to hold on to. The things that genuinely protect a household — the mortgage cleared, an income replaced, a funeral paid for without borrowing — are the ones worth putting in place while you can, rather than points that lapse. If reading this has prompted that thought, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker look at cover against your own circumstances. Our guide to bereavement admin, assets and contracts gathers the rest of the after-death jobs, large and small, in one place.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Loyalty schemes are UK-wide contracts, so the terms that decide whether points can be transferred, and the inactivity rules that expire them, apply the same way wherever the member lived. There is no separate Scottish or Northern Irish loyalty-points rule to know. The only regional difference is the same one that runs through everything else after a death: if a scheme asks for proof that you are entitled to deal with the member's affairs before it will discuss the account, the document it wants takes a different form — confirmation through the sheriff court in Scotland, and a grant following Northern Ireland's own process, rather than a grant of probate. For points, most schemes will act on a death certificate and a sensible request alone, so this rarely arises — but it is the reason a firm may ask for more where a larger, cash asset is involved.

Frequently asked questions

Can Nectar or Clubcard points be transferred to a relative?

It depends on the scheme's terms. Most UK loyalty programmes say points have no cash value and are personal to the member, but several will move a balance to a household member or issue vouchers on request with the death certificate. Ask before the account is closed, not afterwards.

Do loyalty points count as part of the estate?

Formally they have no cash value and are usually treated as worth nothing for estate purposes, so they rarely appear in a valuation. That does not make them useless: a large balance can still be spent or converted into vouchers where the scheme is willing to allow a transfer.

What happens if we just stop using the card?

Points often expire after a period of inactivity, typically a year or two depending on the scheme, and the balance quietly disappears. If the account is closed on notification of the death without a transfer request, the points usually go with it. Deal with them early rather than last.