Pret – £20 Monthly Coffee Subscription

For years, I’ve wondered why Pret have such an appalling loyalty system. By appalling, I mean they didn’t have one, they simply allowed staff to give stuff to people they liked. So, the ‘beautiful people’ got stuff and others didn’t. Although I did once see a young French boy (well, he spoke French, so I made an assumption) at Heathrow T5 proudly giving the staff member a 2p coin for a bottle of water, not realising that it wasn’t the £2 coin that he needed. The boy looked crestfallen, but the staff member then told him that he could have it for free. It was all rather lovely and helped Anglo-French relations no end.

Anyway, I digress. Pret have now launched an all you can drink coffee option, although smoothies, hot chocolate and tea are also included. It costs £20 and it allows you up to 5 coffees per day in, I think, any of their shops (bar a motorway service station outlet). This now makes them cheaper than JD Wetherspoon, who have unlimited hot drinks for between 99p and something like £1.89, depending where you go. You have to wait 30 minutes between drinks, to stop you getting rounds in for friends.

It’s a ferociously competitive offer and I hope that other locations do something similar. I’ve signed up, primarily because the first month is free. I’m not in the UK for two of those first four weeks, but, since it’s free, I’ll go with it. From then on, the £20 per month seems very reasonable. I’ll report back about how well it actually works….