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John Lewis: Partnership Card reviews

Name: Partnership Card
Rating: 1.31 (890 reviews)

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1.31

Based on 890 reviews, last reviewed 27th Mar 2026

No new 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

20% increase in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

88%

Latest highest rating:

4

The JLP card offers cashback based upon spending and... The JLP card offers cashback based upon spending and it is possible to generate £100+ cashback per year. Managing the account is straightforward via t... Read more Reviewed on: 22nd January 2026

Latest lowest rating:

1

I used my card to pay for petrol at my local Sainsbu... I used my card to pay for petrol at my local Sainsbury's. Later that day I received a message saying there was a suspicion of fraud. A simple glance a... Read more Reviewed on: 27th March 2026

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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?

Find out more about the Partnership card by reading our reviews from the Smart Money People community - people like you. You can also write your own John Lewis Partnership Card review to share your own experiences.

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John Lewis Partnership Card reviews (890)

Review of the John Lewis, Partnership Card:

JLP and Newday in cahoots.

Told I'm ineligible - despite >50 years loyal JLP customer, 5 figure credit limit and score excellent - I have after communications with JLP managers concluded that this oust has been orchestrated by JLP. From sources including JLP and Newday websites,, I speculate: JL stores are in financial difficulty, currently supported by Waitrose itself on the brink. It’s not that JLP doesn't want higher spending loyal customers, it sure does; but what it wants is custom that doesn’t sap profits.    With the HBSC JL Partnership card, each £1 spent qualifies for a point, whose number depends upon whether spent at JL and/or W or elsewhere. The more elsewhere the less JLP gets the more it costs JLP. I think it used to be one point for every £1 spent in JLP, two for every £1 elsewhere. Nowadays for some eligible purchases at JL and W 5 points for every £4 spent; and for other eligible purchases at JL and W 1 point for every £4; 1 point for every £4 spent elsewhere. Fewer vouchers for spending elsewhere is not a deterrent. For example, if a card-holder with £5,000 credit limit spends £4000 a month elsewhere then JLP issues vouchers. Vouchers can only be used in JL or W but it doesn't follow the purchase price has to exceed the vouchers value. A cardholder could amass a substantial sum in vouchers without having spent a penny at JL or W. When using vouchers to buy in JL or W not have to buy anything involving any extra payment for the difference between the vouchers and price. JLP would make a loss. JLP says that over the last five years £230m has been issued in vouchers. How much of approximately £126,000 a day average has gone to customers that haven't paid JLP anything. By enlisting Newday to either render higher credit limit existing Partnership cardholders ineligible or where the applicant is eligible a substantially lower limit JLP is reducing the value of vouchers issued. JLP is probably getting a share of any interest paid by new card-holders and paying a lower commission on receivables (transaction sales). JLP I suspect envisages that where an existing Partnership cardholder is rejected that person would obtain a desired credit limit from another card provider and continue to buy from JL/W whenever. Whether enough existing Partnership cardholders would want to continue loyal to JLP is a separate issue. A JLP partner qualifying for discount told me that for most goods and services there are cheaper deals elsewhere. Not a deposit-taker Newday hasn't any revenue beyond credit cards. It borrows to re-lend, loan note interest between 2% and 6+% a year - with interest rates rising costs will go up: for how much longer its business is sustainable is anyone's guess. To finance JLP's transaction, Newday has taken out a loan of £650M. Any cardholder paying the whole balance monthly is getting an interest-free loan from the date of purchase to balance payment date - if you time it carefully then up to 45 days - so for that reason alone an existing JL Partnership cardholder is ineligible. Newday plans to float shares on the stock market next year so boosting the number of cardholders is to impress shareholders. A £5000 credit limit to one card holder (unlikely to pay interest) is akin to £500 limit to 10 card holders (likely to pay some interest). The net proceeds of a stock market float (rumoured capitalisation £2.5Bn) would provide a injection of interest-free cash. The sad part is that JLP could increase its profit margin and number of loyal customers without having to resort to destroying long-term customer relationships with JLP. Instead of the vouchers issued regardless of where a JL Partnership cardholder spends, the vouchers should be linked to the myJohnLewis and myWaitrose cards. Show or scan a my-card before paying and have the voucher value credited to the my-card - and since printing on paper is costly to administer, to issue every JL and W customer a my-card which can be produced by the customer at the check-out for credit and debit with the points/voucher value. Reviewed on: 5th September 2022

Still cannot pay by BACS

Still having payment from Santander rejected . Had to pay by cheque . Being charged interest for first time in years , very humiliating , cannot get through to these idiots from HSBC Reviewed on: 6th January 2017

If you love John Lewis you need this!

The John Lewis partnership card is fantastic. Being a mastercard I've never had a problem with anybody not taking it, and the best bit is that you get rewarded with John Lewis vouchers. They've got it right with their vouchers not having a use by date (although the gift card does), which means you can't lose them by not using them. Reviewed on: 25th December 2016

No Excel Compatible Download

New software does no include the facility to download transactions in excel compatible format as before. CONSIDERING THIS IS THE MOST WIDELY USED SPREADSHEET PACKAGE IN THE WORLD, HOW ON EARTH WAS IT NOT INCORPORATED? Must have employed the duffest programmers in the country not to spot this. My rates are very reasonable if they need any consultancy. Reviewed on: 19th December 2016

2 months after new website still cannot pay bill

Website changed 9.10.16. No communication whatsoever. Old system didn't mind whether payment reference for current card or not - new one does and won't accept payments with misleading message. No acknowledgement or warning from JL Finance (actually HSBC) despite knowing about it for 9 weeks. They didn't included this scenario in their testing. Ridiculous. Rubbish. We're off to get a credit card from a proper company. Reviewed on: 12th December 2016

Terrible customer service

Horrible, horrible service. They have broken something what previously worked perfectly. Card now only works intermittently, this morning I had problems in a Waitrose store - If they can't even get their card working in their own stores, what hope is there!!! Customer services are useless and seem to have no idea what is actually going on. Different messages from every customer service representative that you speak to. For a company that prides itself on customer service, this is a real failure on behalf of John Lewis. Reviewed on: 6th December 2016

Post October, they fell apart

Worst upgrade ever! You can't use the card, you cant pay the bill, and you cant contact them. Serious brand damage! Reviewed on: 5th December 2016

Have Had ENOUGH

After repeated attempts to contact the JL Partnership Card department to determine why my card works in some outlets and not others and on-line in some stores but not others (John Lewis itself being one) I decided to cease using the card. On my final attempt to contact customer services I decided to apply for a Marks and Spencer Card whilst waiting - the call was never answered! I now have a M&S credit card - their points and am so so happy. Thanks JL Reviewed on: 5th December 2016

Even worse than I thought - can't download 2nd page of statement

Further to the message left a few minutes ago, the situation is even worse than I said. I have just tried to download (export) the second page of my statement - it doesn't work! It just downloads the same data as the first page. So, there seems to be no way of downloading the second page of a statement. It seems no-one in the shambles of their IT department actually TESTED this website! And to make matters worse, if you try to access "transactions" to do it that way, there are no transactions to view - that link should be called "recent transactions" - as it becomes blank on your statement date. I have tried copying and pasting from the screen - works but huge re-formatting task. All just absolutely third-rate website implementation. Very disappointed in JL. Reviewed on: 4th December 2016

It wasn't broke - why did they "fix" it? (their website)

Yes, along with everyone else, just adding my voice to then myriad complaints about the "new, improved" website. But I'm lucky - having seen all the much more serious issues others are reporting involving actual financial loss. My problem is just that downloading statement data used to "just work". Now it is a tedious exercise of downloading a page at a time of supposedly .csv data which is actually formatted with quotes ("xxx","yyy", etc) so has to be imported to Excel, processed and re-exported before my financial management software will recognise it. Fortunately, I know how to do this, but it is a complete pain in the ****. Hopefully someone will take action soon and fix it. Mind you, Lloyds also revamped their website to make downloads more awkward - would you believe that they give the option to download a .qif file, but then tell you you have to edit the file name after export to add the .qif manually! Progress, eh? Reviewed on: 4th December 2016

What a shambles

i had to pay my last months bill via the telephone service, this was after many hours holding. Thought JLP would have got it sorted by now but no they have not listened to customers. Tried to pay via my bank account app but the payment bounced straight back, same on PC. Tried paying via their website but said payment unsuccessful. Phoned and was told to make sure I had the funds in my account. Cheeky b*****. Anyway, told to cancel my existing payee details on bank account and reset them up. Been trying for two days and system will not accept new details. Bank say details incorrect and JLP say it is a banking fault. Fed up now so will send them old fashioned cheque next month and let them pay the extra bank charges for processing this piece of paper. Reviewed on: 30th November 2016

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