Write a review

Go to business site

John Lewis: Partnership Card reviews

Name: Partnership Card
Rating: 1.86 (894 reviews)

View other John Lewis products

1.86

Based on 894 reviews, last reviewed 30th Apr 2026

No new 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

700% increase in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

88%

Latest highest rating:

4

High interest although you gain points using your cr... High interest although you gain points using your credit card whilst shopping in John Lewis Reviewed on: 17th April 2026

Latest lowest rating:

1

Zero TRUST, and HONESTY Customer service is shocking. A distinct lack of ANY rewards for points earned. You call to say you have recieved zero vouchers depite clocking up ove... Read more Reviewed on: 30th April 2026

Read all reviews See your review

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.

Smart Money People is the UK's leading financial services review and insight hub. Together, we can make financial services work better for everyone.

John Lewis Partnership Card reviews (894)

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

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

Still no response from my complaint of 20 October...

I left a review on 1 Nov concerning the Partnership Card, having written to the Partnership on 20 Oct with that complaint , the synopsis of my letter was: 1. Why wasn’t I told that my cards would be cancelled if I ordered new contactless cards? 2. Why did they have to be cancelled before I had registered my new cards? (That has never happened to me before.) 3. Why are the telephone queues to speak to someone so unacceptably long? 4. How do I apply to have points credited to me for the expenditure that I have to put on to other cards until I can register my new ones, due to this oversight by The Partnership? They acknowledged my letter on 1 Nov, indicating that they were investigating the complaint and would reply, & that if I hadn't heard in 8 weeks of raising the complaint I have the right to refer the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service. I have yet to hear from them and will post the final response when I receive it. Reviewed on: 29th November 2016

Payment problem

I tried to pay and was given three options: 1) minimum amount, 2) full amount, 3) something in between. There is no box to click on and so I went to "Make payment". I got a message telling me that my payment was successful but no indication of how much I paid. I rang customer services. I was on hold for 19 minutes during which the female robot told me almost 60 times that they were busier than expected. The agent told me that there are boxes to click on but they aren't visible. He was unable tell me how much I paid and wouldn't know for 24 hours. An absolute shambles! Reviewed on: 26th November 2016

They seem incapable of fixing their own mistakes, or indeed of communicating at all.

Note - this review relates to the John Lewis Partnership card, not John Lewis in general. Back in September, they made a small mistake in processing one of my transactions. Since then I've phoned, written and used their secure messaging service. None of these has produced any response at all. They seem to be in some sort of melt down. I've just arranged to get a new credit card from a different supplier. Avoid the John Lewis Partnership card at all costs. Reviewed on: 24th November 2016

(new) Website is major backward step

New website is a major backward step with loss of simple functionality: - No longer gives total of transactions pending - you have to calculate yourself whereas previously was there - No longer able to download statements in useful format - MS Money version missing, plus cannot download a PDF copy of statement, yet they want you to go paperless! Reviewed on: 23rd November 2016

Appalling

Around 6 months ago I had a phone call from JLFS saying my card had been compromised and that they would stop my card and issue a new one. Fine. All went well and the card arrived and no problems. Excellent service I thought. In November my bank pointed out that I had several out of date, unused for months direct debits that they felt was a risk to my account security and should be cancelled. One of these was to pay the full amount of my Partnership card each month and quoted the old, cancelled by JLFS card. I carefully checked that the new card had a direct debit, it did, so I cancelled the old card number DD. In November no DD was taken for the new card. Duly phoned them the day after it was due to be told I had cancelled the DD. They simply could not grasp that they had set up 2 DDS and that the new card was active on my bank account. "No it's all cancelled at our end". Did not bother as most companies do to query why it had been cancelled. So I am fortunate enough to be able tell them I'll pay off what I owe and it's goodbye from me! Cancel the account. Frankly the service from all areas of John Lewis seems bogged down in red tape. I have had problems with the stores. Lovely people but working with their hands tied behind their backs. That's another story. Reviewed on: 22nd November 2016

ONGOING LACK OF CUSTOMER AWARENESS ISSUES

Bland boiler plate apologies. Site still lacks functionality and unable to download statements into e.g money format. What a shame - previous website much better. JLP are in reverse gear. Reviewed on: 22nd November 2016

Do you have a different John Lewis product?

Share your experiences with products to help others make smarter financial decisions and learn more about different products available. Write a review

Are you a business? Get insights, reply to reviews, invite customers and understand their needs

Alternative products

Credit Card
from Bank of China (UK) 4.12 from 2 reviews
Everyday credit cards
from Lloyds Bank 4.05 from 67 reviews
Bip Credit Card
from NewDay 4.78 from 2286 reviews

Want to see more from John Lewis?

Travel Insurance
from John Lewis 4.15 from 3 reviews
Breakdown Insurance
from John Lewis 4.03 from 1 reviews
Car insurance
from John Lewis 2.80 from 33 reviews

View all products

Join Smart Money People

Keep up to date on ratings of your favourite businesses. Find out about our awards and write new reviews with ease

Create an account

News, guides and insight from our team

View resource hub