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John Lewis: Partnership Card reviews

Name: Partnership Card
Rating: 1.32 (862 reviews)

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1.33

Based on 862 reviews, last reviewed 24th Dec 2024

100% decrease in 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

67% decrease in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

88%

Latest highest rating:

5

Customer satisfaction They are vgery focussed and always go the extra step to ensure we are happy Reviewed on: 24th August 2024

Latest lowest rating:

1

Disaster of a credit card company - total fail! We recently tried adding our John Lewis Partnership Card to Apple Pay, only to find it blocked by NewDay, the card provider. Shockingly, this happened... Read more Reviewed on: 24th December 2024

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About this product

Read our John Lewis Finance Partnership Card reviews to help you to find out about the pros and cons of taking out the Partnership credit card. What kind of features does the John Lewis Partnership card have? What do people think of John Lewis' customer service? Does the card have great benefits?

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John Lewis Partnership Card reviews (862)

Review of the John Lewis, Partnership Card:

Reasons for ineligible or derisory credit limit?

Told ineligible for the newday JL Partnership card - despite >40 years loyal JL/W customer, credit score excellent, £12,000 credit limit and superb payment record - I have commented on Trustpilot and Linked-in and direct to upper echelons of JL. I was upset and livid to begin with. Composure regained - withdrawn my application - I have been thinking about why ineligible and why paltry credit limits. Newday is akin to a parasite, not a lender in its own right, it has to borrow to lend. It pays interest between 2% and 6%+ on its borrowings - source: loan notes listed on London Stock Exchange - so cannot afford to subsidise cardholders that do not pay interest. Newday is a puppet, its strings pulled by funds advised by Cinven and CVC Capital Partners. With plans to float on the stock market, newday wants to increase the number of cardholders to boost its standing in the minds of investors. One cardholder with for example £5000 credit limit and paying the whole of the balance monthly (no profit for newday) equates to 10 cardholders each £500 limit, mostly incurring interest (profit for newday). Newday has taken out a loan circa £650M to pay JLP for receivables (source: newday results presentation August 2022) - a loan carrying interest will ultimately have to be paid for by cardholders. The presentation highlights perceived benefit of the JLP account. "Higher customer transaction volume and loyalty. Diversifies customer base towards prime. Delivers growth and attractive profit profile." Newaday’s 28.9% cost to income ratio maintained only if existing and new cardholders pay at least the same amount of interest. Ineligibility is I would think also orchestrated by JLP. A JL manager assures me JLP would have been satisfied with its due diligence. JLP is in financial difficulty. Its overheads and operating costs are unsustainable: top-heavy with overpaid managers and ceo, not attracting enough retired part-time workers for saving on National insurance it is suffering wage inflation, most generic products and services on offer are a soft touch for competitors. With profit margins shrinking, JLP strategy is for JL Financial Services to become an important profit centre in its own right. As agent for insurers, JLP gets commission. Likely a cut of the interest paid by cardholders. I would think JLP wants to reduce the cost of the vouchers cardholders get when using the card whether or not in JL and/or W. A form of cash-back, the idea of the vouchers was that cardholders would mainly buy from JL and/or W, not as I suspect most do to mostly buy elsewhere. The points differential is not enough to deter. As JL Financial Services knows how much cardholders spend, what they buy when and where, I suspect JLP has analysed every existing credit limit and told newday to get rid of what JL regard as unprofitable cardholders via ineligibility or derisory credit limits. Although it appears that JLP has alienated its core customers, from JLP's perspective it could be argued partly our own fault for not regarding JL and W as our sole suppliers. I am proper loyal to W in particular but I gather my attitude is unusual. If f i were to buy elsewhere something that JL or W sells then what I spend elsewhere wouldn't be helping JLP so rather than shop around I only shop at Waitrose. I doubt JLP rates newday for customer service, more likely for ruthlessness. JLP is I suspect using newday to do its dirty work. In its presentation newday says "Moved to the latest version of Customer Management bureau data and tightened growth strategies for existing customers" and "Tightening of affordability criteria and initial credit limits for new customers". On balance if what i reckon is correct or something along those lines then that doesn't say much for JLP's ethics but then again JLP is not what it was. Reviewed on: 30th August 2022

Good rewards

Love the fact that I get rewards for using my card Reviewed on: 28th May 2024

Excellent on clarity and reward

Like the reward and the very clear website and online account management. I have borrowed cash recently. This needed to show on my statement but did not appear quickly enough. However, easy to get the money! Reviewed on: 24th May 2024

Great benefits with John Lewis vouchers, with increa...

Great benefits with John Lewis vouchers, with increased cash back on spend at John Lewis and Waitrose stores. Good app for managing card account, for security checks when making on line transactions and reviewing spend against credit limit Reviewed on: 24th May 2024

Great for Waitrose customers

Great if you shop at Waitrose and John Lewis Reviewed on: 24th May 2024

As an ex JL employee, I was confident that moving to...

As an ex JL employee, I was confident that moving to the New Day card would be easy and didn’t anticipate any problems- how wrong I was…Constant issues with making payments on the app, the latest being adding a new payment card showing as a Mastercard when it’s a Visa card. That doesn’t give me confidence, I’m moving back to HSBC credit card. Reviewed on: 28th March 2024

It is alarming reading these reviews.

It is alarming reading these reviews. I joined basically for the vouchers. Must admit thought the joining instructions were hard to follow and I had to ring helpline for clarity which was surprising. Been a member about three months and the only problem I’ve found so far is that it can take a few days or more for transactions to show up in the app, especially credits when you return goods in person and it’s put back on your card in the shop. . Also when you pay the balance online it doesn’t show up for days and days. So you can’t see an accurate balance most of the time and it is stressful wondering if it will appear. I’ll give it a bit longer before I give up but this time lag is a bit worrying Reviewed on: 25th March 2024

Fair offer and good promotion on products

Fair offer and good promotion on products Reviewed on: 14th March 2024

Beautiful products.

Beautiful products. Large variety off products. Easy to get to. Reviewed on: 16th February 2024

Avoid this card at all costs they have lost my £500...

Avoid this card at all costs they have lost my £500 payment which was done via their App. Newday only seem capable of answering questions from there script,and basically say its not their problem despite the money clearly going into their bank account.What are John Lewis doing getting involved with this bunch of cowboys! Reviewed on: 22nd January 2024

Lost a payment £1200 October 23 still not received r...

Lost a payment £1200 October 23 still not received refund absolute nightmare to deal by no means get this credit card you be sorry you been warned Reviewed on: 17th January 2024

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