Why has Lidl scrapped Coupon Plus rewards in favour of Points?

Yesterday, I got 10% off a shop at Lidl, in a ‘Coupon Plus’ reward for spending £250 in a month, which saved me just over a fiver.

Today, Coupon Plus rewards have been replaced in Lidl’s loyalty app by Points, which are earned at a rate of one for every £1 spent. A coupon for £5 off a shop costs 500 points – so to get the same saving I must now spend £500. Twice as much.

It’s not the only way my spend currency seems to have weakened. Coupon Plus gave users a series of free items at monthly spending thresholds, starting with a bakery sweet treat at £10, followed by a fresh vegetable at £50. Points can also be turned into coupons for free items in the app, but a chocolate brownie from the bakery costs 90 and a cucumber is 100, each requiring the same spend in pounds sterling.

Lidl has been rolling out Points internationally since 2024. It maintains users will earn more than one point per £1 in practice, thanks to campaigns such as double or triple points when buying certain products. There are also ‘Rewards of the Week’ – select products that require fewer points than usual for a limited time. To kick things off, Lidl has given all users 100 points for free and is offering double points on all fruit bought up until 22 May.

Standard coupons, a core feature of the app, remain unchanged. These give users discounts on a weekly-changing personalised selection of products.

‘You asked, we listened’

Time and use will tell whether points feel as generous as Coupon Plus rewards, but they certainly have work to do, and not just with me.

“It is far worse,” wrote one Lidl Plus user on Reddit. “Now, to get a £10-off coupon it’s £1,000 spend. I spent £350 to get £10 off previously.”

Another said: “It’s ridiculously worse. ‘You asked, we listened.’ Yeah, right.” 

Lidl has indeed told app users: “You asked, we listened.” It says the move is based on customer feedback.

What it has given them more of is choice. While customers had no say in Coupon Plus rewards, points can be exchanged for close to 200 different products in a ‘coupon marketplace’ in the app. In fact, browsing the 12 food & drink categories, one begins to wonder how much choice people want in a loyalty app, and whether it’s all getting a bit too complicated.

Lidl has the been the UK’s fastest-growing bricks & mortar supermarket for 34 months in a row in Worldpanel by Numerator data. The discounter’s market share has grown from 5.8% to 8.4% since the app launched in 2020. In its most recent financial year, roughly half of Lidl’s growth has come from an increase in loyalty spend, and half through switching.

One of the reasons the app has proved so powerful is its accessibility. Coupon Plus didn’t require thought. It just gave users some nice free stuff. Will they be as quickly drawn in as repeat customers when confronted by 193 choices?

Users can also save their points for up to two years, while Coupon Plus rewards expired in a matter of days. Many users may now simply ignore the product choices and save points until they have enough for money off a whole shop, a proposition requiring less time and thought, if not particularly rich in customer insight for Lidl.

And to be fair, I sometimes didn’t get to £250 spend in a month, so didn’t quite reach 10% off a shop. As points last for two years, I now will reach the equivalent of £5 off a shop, eventually. 

Marc Houppermans, executive partner at Discount Retail Consulting, says a “large number” of shoppers wouldn’t have made it to monthly spend threshold. “Moving to points allows the shopper hold on to the possibility of redemption for longer.

“I also think from an accounting perspective it is more efficient to analyse the outstanding points balance and track redemption rates.”

Lidl has used standard, personalised coupons to nudge people toward new categories or products, and to persuade them to switch for their full shop. It can still do this.

With Points, it can continue to invest in occasional, bigger rewards to attract more spend at strategic times – but from a more margin-friendly baseline. This, together with adopting a unified international approach, seems the most likely explanation for Points.