Earn LEGO Insiders points no matter where you buy LEGO

The brand new LEGO Insiders program – a rebrand of LEGO VIP – will allow you to earn points on purchases no matter where you buy your LEGO.

At the moment, you can only earn LEGO VIP points on sets you buy directly from LEGO.com or in LEGO Stores. The only exception was the LEGO Group’s pilot initiative at Target in the US, which allowed fans to earn one point for every $1 spent (well below the usual rate of 6.5 points per $1 spent in the US). But with the LEGO Insiders program, everyone will be able to earn bonus points on all purchases worldwide.

While the Target system involved taking a photo of your receipt and uploading it to the VIP Rewards Centre, all you need to do under the Insiders program is scan the QR code in the instruction manual of your sets. These QR codes – which are unique to each individual set, even across multiple copies of the same product – have been in sets since 2018, and until now have directed users towards the LEGO Builder app.

When LEGO Insiders launches on August 21, however, scanning the code will take you to a landing page with one of two options: continue to the LEGO Builder app, or head to LEGO.com to redeem bonus Insider points. You’ll then receive a flat 20 points for every single set you register to your Insiders account – a number the LEGO Group has deemed to be the right ‘balance’ between risk and reward.

“We had done some research on what was the right value, and what did we expect people to earn?” says LEGO Insiders Global Director Jason Whiting. “Because a lot of this will be kids’ sets. We wanted to make sure we found a number that they could get some value out of that, but that also didn’t drive any type of fraud. It’s really about a balance. We did a bunch of testing to find the right level to put it in.”

Twenty points is a nominal amount compared to the number earned when buying directly from official LEGO channels, but consider that you’re often likely to find better discounts through third parties than the equivalent number of points when buying full price at LEGO.com. Those 20 points are effectively just a bonus for the consumer – and for the LEGO Group, the registration of specific sets will allow for more targeted marketing.

“Our marketing is very static,” Whiting adds. “We’re going to communicate about what we think you’re interested in, but what we often don’t know is things that you might have an interest for in your household. Your child might be getting these as gifts, and they weren’t bought directly from us. So you might find a situation where we’re sending you an email that actually has zero relevance, because you already own the set.

“Part of this is our ability to say, ‘Hey, if you want to have personalised email, we can also use this information to make sure that we recommend better products for you that you might not already have, or we could potentially stop sending you information about products you already have.’ We’re looking at how we can be better at personalising experiences by knowing what you have, not just what you potentially have bought within a LEGO Store or at LEGO.com.”

The beauty of this system at launch is that the QR codes required for registering sets have actually been present in instruction manuals since 2018 – and even retired sets will earn bonus points. So if you’ve got a stack of instruction booklets lying around, have them handy when LEGO Insiders launches: you’re basically sitting on a goldmine of free points.

LEGO Insiders will replace the LEGO VIP program on August 21, 2023. Click here to find out more about what the new loyalty scheme will entail.

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