National Book Tokens Reviews 

Unable to buy online as Mastercard will not authorise payment as it goes through a money transfer service (Hemmingsway Marketing) rather than a bank, so can't be tracked. Annoying, but don't bother. Give your friends cash instead!

Phsycial gift cards are shipped via an untracked service, which, for the price, is ridiculous, particularly at Christmas. My order has never arrived and I was told if I wanted to swap to an e gift card, I would need to cancel the order, pay for a new order, and wait for the refund. Ridiculous! I won't ever order from here again as I now have a recipient with no Christmas gift.

Having received a notification of having been gifted a book token at my only email address I tried to redeem it. The 'system' then rejected my email address (the same one the notification had been sent to) as incorrect. The unhelpful support assistance keeps repeating, robot like, that the recipient email is not the same as the gifters input despite the notification being sent to my one and only address.
Infuriating !!!! Whats wrong with cash ?

I have a £30 physical token. Found a book in WH Smith I wanted. Unfortunately the cashier destroyed the PIN when trying to see what it was thus rendering the token useless. I then filled in an on-line claim form on the National Tokens website claiming a faulty token. Within five hours they sent me a downloadable replacement token. So great customer service. I now just need to go back into town to spend it.

Supports local bookshops, not corporate megas, can use online at Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

Impossible to use online and hardly any book shops accept them. Very disappointed waste of money.

Why is there not an option for zero stars? Tried to get the pin number on gift card and it just fell apart making it unreadable. Leaving card useless. Tried to register on website but couldn't get that to work. No help line and now have a useless piece of card costing £20. DON'T BUY THESE CARDS get an Amazon voucher if you have any sense.

I was given a National Book Token for my birthday by my very generous work colleagues. So, so disappointing to find that it’s virtually impossible to use it online. I get that they are trying to get people into bookshops to stop them dying out but I was so shocked at the price of books. Could only use this in Waterstones or WH Smith. Tried to use it on Awesome Books online but to no avail. Physically buying books is a waste for me - I don’t keep them but do give to charity. My £60 isn’t going to go very far sadly.

We've been using personalised book tokens as raffle prizes for our small community book swap - being able to print our logo onto them is lovely, and for our visitors/raffle winners they really like that they can in turn support our local independent book shop in the same town, or at a larger UK-wide book shop if they wish.
The order process is super-quick and easy and usually dispatched the same day - the gift cards come with space for me to write a note, an envelope, and a bookmark, which means we can make it a lovely prize to receive.
All our recipients so far have been delighted.

While embracing new technologies in reading you cannot beat a good book and a National Book Token is a good gift for someone and get them to get a book.
The problem is, despite the proud website boast of "Spend Everywhere" the reality is you are limited both to where and to what value. The logo should read, "Buy anywhere but spend where we say and pay twice as much".
The token cannot be used in Sainsbury's, Asda, WH Smiths, Amazon or the Works. All of which sell books.
It can used in Waterstones - in my experience a new book by Simon Scarrow was £11 in Asda but £19 in Waterstones.
Once purchased you cannot return the card for a refund - due to it being unfit for purpose - and get a refund. You are stuck with it and need to pay inflated prices from a limited selection of sources.
So if you want to encourage someone to read a real book avoid this token. Buy it with cash and give it to them.
Asda, sell the tokens and books but absolutely refused to sell the book using the token?

National Book Token's goal of forcing everyone into shops to spend double the price of books online makes these useless for most. I can't use these online anywhere and don't have the means to take a train to a city right now.

My book tokens got lost in the post and Mark who is one of the customer solution advisors refunded me with no issues. He was very helpful in rectifying said issues.

Totally disappointed!!!!
received gift card as a gift about a year ago. not used it so far and not expecting to use in future either so wanted help so i can get a refund. however it was impossible to contact them

Absolutely shocking service from national Book Tokens. my 16 year old daughter bought a £30 gift card for my wife for Mother's Day. It never arrived and when she queried the delay, their customer service rep (Mark W.) initially said it had been delivered to the correct address, then he asked if any of her family could have spent it. On replying that her siblings are all younger than she is, Mark confirmed it had been spent in Leeds (200 miles from where we live in Scotland!) and then asked her if she had anyone in the family who could have been in Leeds the day it was spent!!

It is tantamount to saying that my daughter is a liar and thief when all she wanted to do was give her mother a present using her hard earned pocket money and now she is being made to feel like a criminal. We will not be buying from them again.

I purchased a book token online as a Christmas gift . It never turned up and eventually I was refunded. Unreliable service, don’t bother with them .

Trying to use my token online - near impossible. Most booksellers won't! Foyles declared my card to be invalid when I'd checked that it was OK. Smiths Waterstones etc all said wait for the shops to open. They're not really interested in NBTs.

It’s ridiculous that the national book tokens are only accepted at Waterstones’ stores and not online; we are in a pandemic with stores shut- the policy should be reviewed and changed with the current times!

Unfortunately, the previous customer whom reviewed here, obviously ordered from the administrators of this scheme, who only recently started selling direct (unfortunately trying to cut out Bookshops in the process). All beware that they offer a poor service, charge post and packing, plus delivery is very, very slow. They even have the cheek to charge you £1.99 for some token card designs! Most people order National Book Tokens from Firstbookshop.com who were the very first online retailers in 1999. That's freepost and fast too. I work at a Junior School and they have been giving us a 30 day credit account since 2001. The customer service at First Bookshop UK is outstanding. So please support them, as they are an independent (their books are cheaper than Amazon also!).

Really poor experience overall. The token didn't work which was really disappointing for my son for whom it was a b-day present and he could not buy his books when he enthusiastically ventured to the bookstore.
To rectify the problem, it took me long email communication with the company, phone calls, submission of receipts, card numbers etc to get it sorted.
It is one of these products that steals your time...Shame that such simple technology can not be put right for every customer.
No recognition from the company to compensate us for this nuisance