The Frequently Asked Questions tab contains answers to many of the most common questions asked by our members. You should find the answer to your question here. If not, please feel free to get in touch using the details in the Contact Us tab.
KidStart is a free shopping club that gives its members cash savings back for their children, grandchildren or friend's children when shopping at a wide range of retailers, service providers and other companies. Members can also donate their savings to a school of their choice or to one of a number of children's charities. The where you can save section of the website has full details of the potential savings.
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KidStart is simple to join and use. See the how does it work section for more information
KidStart is free to join and use. The process is easy and will not take much more than a minute. You just need to click on the join now button and fill in the basic information required. Once you have completed the form, click on the finish button. We will send you a confirmation email to the email address you registered and you should click on the link in the email to confirm its receipt. You are now a member and will accumulate KidStart Savings on your eligible purchases. Now, or at a later stage, you can complete the other parts of the member's profile information which include:
KidStart is completely free to join and use.
Yes. You will need a valid email to join. We use emails to keep our members informed of new retail partners, special offers, account balances and the like. You can unsubscribe from these emails if you wish in the My Preferences tab of the My Profile section.
You can register as a member and earn KidStart Savings even if you do not have any children. KidStart Savings can be donated to a school of your choice or to one of a number of children's charities.
You can also use KidStart to save for a child that hasn't yet been born. The KidStart Savings will accumulate in your own Kiddybank. In order to transfer the KidStart Savings from your Kiddybank to a linked savings account, you will need to register a child against your Kiddybank - you can either wait until you have a child or register yourself as the child now and change the name later.
We need your address for security purposes and in case there are problems transferring money into your linked savings accounts.
We need your date of birth so that we can use it in combination with other information for security purposes to verify you are the registered member if you contact us.
Once registered as a member, you can sign in through the KidStart website by using the login at the top right hand corner of the webpage. You will need your username that you chose in combination with your password to log in. Some browsers such as Internet Explorer allow you to remember your name and password for future visits but we suggest you do not use this feature if your computer is used by anyone else.
A Kiddybank is KidStart's name for a member's or their child's account. When a member makes an eligible purchase, KidStart automatically adds the appropriate KidStart Savings to the member's Kiddybank. If a member has registered children, a school or charities against their account, the balance will automatically flow into those Kiddybank's once the transactions are cleared according to the allocation that the member has set.
To register a child, use the Saving For tab in the My Profile section.
In order to save for someone else's child, you need to get permission from the parent of that child. Ask the parent to use the Invite Family & Friends page to invite you to save for their child. When you receive the invitation email, click on the link within the email to complete the process and determine the allocation you would like to set
After you have registered a child, you can link a savings account by clicking on "link a savings account" next to the child's name in the Children tab in My Profile. Depending on your child's birth date, KidStart will prompt you either for details of their Child Trust Fund or for details of an alternative savings account.
KidStart can link to any Child Trust Fund account or any savings account that accepts electronic cash payments. These include bank accounts and most Building Society accounts. If you have a savings plan for your child which does not accept electronic payments (eg: a long term savings bond) then we would suggest you link your own bank account and transfer the money with your existing payments.
To save for a school use the Saving For tab in the My Profile section. You can search for any UK school by first entering the county of the school and then entering part of the school's name. If too many schools are returned by the search (only the first 20 are displayed) then try entering more of the school's name.
To save for a charity use the Saving For tab in the My Profile section. You can select the charity to which you would like to donate your KidStart Savings.
After you have registered recipients in the Saving For tab under My Profile, click on the blue button marked edit allocations. You can split the allocations evenly by ticking the even allocation box, or divide your savings according to a percentage split by entering the appropriate percentages next to each recipient.
There are a number of ways to earn KidStart Savings. Within the shopping section of the KidStart website, each retailer has its own information page and this contains information on what savings are available and which transactions are eligible. It also contains information on how transactions are tracked for that retailer. We track transactions in a variety of ways. The main ones are as follows:
The icons in the shopping section of the website give you information about the different retailers. You can see what each mean by holding your mouse over the icon.
We will automatically know when you are due KidStart Savings when
You will typically see the transaction shown against your account the day after the purchase, however some retailers take longer to report to us so please wait 10 days before querying any missing transactions.
To receive KidStart Savings for shopping online, you must shop by clicking on the retailer links within the KidStart online shopping section. This allows us to record purchases that you have made.
KidStart retailers that offer savings for purchases in the high street and over the telephone are indicated with the red credit card icon. When you make a purchase from one of these retailers, just use your registered debit or credit card to ensure that the purchase is registered. There is no need to quote your account number or show a loyalty card; your purchase will be automatically registered by our systems.
You can register your cards in the Registered Cards tab in My Profile. We only ask for the card number and expiry date. We never ask for the 3 digit card security (also known as CCV) code.
You can register any Visa, MasterCard or Maestro cards. We allow you to register up to 10 cards although you must have permission from the cardholder to register a card.
Our system rejects purchases made by duplicate cards. Occasionally secondary cards (ie: those where there are two cards issued on the same credit card account) have the same number as the primary card. In this case, please make sure that you only register the 16 digit number once with KidStart. Both cards can then be used to make purchases.
Not at this time. We identify your offline spending through banks' card settlement systems and will initially only be able to do this for cards on the Visa or Mastercard networks.
The KidStart Savings you receive for the original transaction will be reversed
You can use the "My Kiddybank" section to monitor your account balances and check on purchases made. You can see purchases for up to three months.
Recent purchases are shown as pending to allow for returns and to give time for the retailer to pay KidStart the KidStart Savings. This normally takes 1-2 months depending upon the retailer and type of purchase. Some retailers take longer to pay us, and we try to show this on the retailer information page.
No. Unlike many other loyalty programmes, KidStart Savings do not expire.
KidStart strives to get the maximum KidStart Savings for its members' children. However there are circumstances where rates may change from that previously advertised. However you will always receive the rate that was advertised at the time that you made the purchase.
Retailers occasionally run special offers such as free delivery or discounted prices. You can see what offers are available by clicking on the information button next to the retailer in the shopping section of the website. Special offers are available to members IN ADDITION to Kidstart Savings.
A Kiddybank is KidStart's name for a member's or their child's account. When a member makes an eligible purchase, KidStart automatically adds the appropriate KidStart Savings to the member's Kiddybank. If a member has registered children, schools or charities against their account, the balance will automatically flow into those Kiddybank's once the transactions are cleared according to the allocation that the member has set.
Your Kiddybank statement can be viewed at the My Kiddybank section of the members website. Details of recent transactions can also be seen in the same section by clicking on the Transaction Details tab.
The Kiddybank statement shows the balance in your Kiddybank split into various different parts. The columns show you how much is in your Kiddybank, how much has been transferred out to date, and how much has been saved for your children or other recipients by you and your friends and family. The transferred out amount includes both transfers out to linked savings accounts as well as transfers to schools, charities and children of other members for whom you have agreed to save. The rows in the statement show the totals split by the children you are saving for. "Your children" are the children you have registered personally. "Others" are children of other members that you have been invited and agreed to save for or else charities or schools.
There are several reasons why KidStart Savings may be shown as unallocated:
The Transaction History shows all of your purchases that are pending (ie: are still waiting final clearance from the retailer). You can also see the last 3 months of cleared transactions. The Transferred out to child savings shows all the recent transfers out of your Kiddybank either to a linked savings account or to another member's child that you are saving for.
To invite someone else to save for your children use the Invite Friends and Family tab within the Share KidStart section of the members site. You can use this to send an email under your name to anyone you chose along with a personal message. When the recipient clicks on the link within the email and accepts your invite, they are automatically able to save for your children.
If you receive an email invite so save for someone else's child, please click on the link contained within the email. After logging in, or registering (if it is your first visit), you will be directed to a web page where you can accept or decline the invite.
You can use the Personal tab in the My Profile section
You can use the My Preferences tab in the My Profile section.
You can close your account by emailing KidStart using the contact page or by writing to us at our contact address. If you provide details of a bank account number and sort code, we will electronically transfer any remaining KidStart savings in your Kiddybank to this account less an admin fee of 2.00 which covers the costs related to us making the payment. If your KidStart Savings is below 2.00, then we will close the account without transferring the balance.
If there has been no activity (ie: no transactions or logins) on an account for a period of 12 months, your account may be considered dormant and you will need to email us to reactivate the account. We will periodically close dormant accounts in which case we will email your registered email to let you know. If we hear nothing back from you at this stage, we will close the account and your KidStart savings will be lost.
Don't worry, you can still save using KidStart. KidStart is setting up arrangements with a number of providers of savings accounts to allow you to open an appropriate account. Alternatively you can always register your own account details in the short term
We automatically deposit money into the savings account that you have chosen. KidStart checks the balance of each child's Kiddybank at the end of the month, and if the balance exceeds the minimum deposit level, the balance is transferred. KidStart's minimum deposit level is normally £10, but some Child Trust Funds have higher minimum deposits.
You can see this in the Transfer History tab in the My Kiddybank section.
KidStart does not have access to this information, but you should receive a regular statement from the company who manages your child's savings account. Please get in touch with them directly
Once KidStart has transferred the KidStart Savings to the linked savings account, KidStart cannot get the money back. You will need to talk to the company that manages your child's savings account directly but in the case of CTFs, deposits once made cannot be reversed.
Once registered as a KidStart member, members can select to save for any of the charities listed on our website or any school in the UK. There is no restriction on the number of children, schools or charities a member can choose to give to.
Our website contains details of all registered schools in the UK so that KidStart Members can save for whichever school they wish. If you do not see a school listed, please Contact Us.
If you represent a school or PTA, KidStart can help you in telling parents, alumni and others about the opportunity to use KidStart to support your fundraising efforts. In particular, we can send an automated invite to your email list with your school pre-registered and we can also provide you with your own dedicated fund-raising page. Please Contact Us to discuss the opportunities.
KidStart carefully selects which charities to include on KidStart according to a number of criteria. First and foremost, the cause must by child related. Secondly, we carefully screen charities for suitability for taking part. Finally we are interested in helping charities that are perhaps less well known than some but have a good cause to help out.
If you represent a children's oriented charity and wish to be part of KidStart, please Contact Us.
KidStart pays accumulated KidStart Savings given by members to schools and charities twice a year
KidStart receives slightly more from retailers than the rate advertised to members. This allows us to cover the costs of operating the service and charges we incur for making payments to member's nominated accounts and so on. There are no charges for members - your children receive all the KidStart Savings you have earned.
See the contact us on the Help page for information on how to contact us
KidStart is authorised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to carry out some regulated activities such as arranging investments on your behalf. (Ie: if we put money into a child trust fund which is invested in share or unit trusts, this is a regulated activity). The FSA oversees KidStart in carrying out these regulated activities to ensure that they are performed appropriately. The FSA does not regulate all of our activities but we ensure that we comply with or exceed all of the FSA's requirements. We are not authorised to hold money on behalf of members.
KidStart is primarily owned by employees of KidStart most of whom are parents of young children themselves (none are yet grandparents!). KidStart is also backed by a leading venture capital firm, Delta Partners.
The website you are viewing is a secure site, certified by Thawte, a leading independent certification authority. This means that the information you provide is encrypted during transit between your computer and our server. The website has the highest possible level of protection using 128 - bit SSL encryption. Further details are contained in our Privacy & Security Policy
Your security and privacy is extremely important to us. You will see full details of how we keep your information secure in the Privacy & Security Policy.
This is called a CAPTCHA and helps us protect the KidStart website against unwanted automatic computer programs called 'bots'. It's a test that humans can pass but the bots can't.
See the contact us tab on the Help page for information on how to contact us
If you have forgotten just your username or both your username and your password then simply click on the Forgotten Username or Password link and enter your registered email address. Once you answer your security question you will be shown your username immediately and be given the option to reset your password.
If you have forgotten just your password then simply click on the Forgotten Username or Password link. Once you enter your username and answer your security queston we will send a system generated password to your registered email address. You will then be able to login with this system generated password and you will be asked to reset it to a more memorable password.
If you believe that you are due KidStart Savings that has not appeared in your Kiddybank within 10 working days, simply go to the Contact us tab of the Help section and fill in the required information.
We process thousands of transactions per day, but unfortunately a small number of transactions do not track properly. We will endeavour to credit missing transactions as soon as possible, but please do bear with us as it can take a number of weeks for retailers to get back to us to confirm purchases.
Missing transactions are often caused by firewalls or virus software that has been set to block our cookies which are used to track purchases. You can test if your system accepts our cookies by clicking on this COOKIE TEST LINK. If you get the messsage 'YES' then your cookies are being tracked correctly. If you get the message 'NO' then they are being blocked. If they are being blocked you will not be able to earn KidStart Savings at most KidStart retailers until you unblock them. You may be able to do this by changing your firewall or virus software settings.
Please note:
If you think your card has been lost or stolen you should notify your card issuer immediately. Once you have received a replacement card you should amend your card details in the Registered Card tab in the My Profile section.