Lawson Ponta – What are they good for?

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Absolutely nothing! Wait, that’s not right…

If you’ve stayed in Japan any particular length of time, chances are you’ve picked up a loyalty card for your local convenience store of choice. I’m lucky to have them all on my doorstep, but the one I tend to go to regularly is Lawson, their loyalty card is called “Ponta” and today I’m going to go through the things I personally spend my hard earned points on!

Naturally, you can spend your points in store, look out for a terminal(usually near or next to the ATM) – this machine does a ton of different stuff so hit the ponta button and scan your card…

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Next, select by category to view the things available, always double check what’s in store because they may not have everything! Prices vary but a tall can of beer or chu hi is usually about 80 points.

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for? Once you’ve decided, select your item and the machine will print you a voucher. If you’re buying alcohol you have to repeat this process from the beginning, but other items allow you to select quantity – presumably to stop people going wild on the drink! Grab your item, take it and the voucher along to the till, they’ll scan your card again too so you still get points for the things you buy!

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Finally, enjoy free stuff! Really comes in handy when I’m waiting for payday!

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Another good way to spend points is down at your friendly local Club Sega. Points can be redeemed for a variety of things, UFO machine play, medals and exclusive items.

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Usually, all the ¥100 play machines participate, but to make sure look out for this Ponta sticker on the machine.

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
To get your voucher, head over to the Ponta terminal and select the middle option (つかう), and scan your card.

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Here are all the things we can get! A single try on a UFO machine is 30 points, six goes are 150 points. Next are various amounts of medals going up to a whopping 2000 points then some clear file thingys.

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Print your voucher, then grab a member of staff and head over to the machine you want to play. They’ll add your credits and you can take this opportunity to ask them to change the items or shuffle things around a bit to give you an advantage 🙂

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Play! We’ve won ridiculous numbers of Rilakkuma’s with our points, literally dozens of the things!

You’re probably wondering how I end up with so many points, 80 points here, 150 points there aren’t exactly small numbers considering you get 1 point per ¥100 spent in store – what’s the trick?

Lawson Ponta - What are they good for? Lawson Ponta - What are they good for?
Seek out the bonus items! Many things in store off bonus points on top of the regular amount, usually in the region of 10 – 30 points. They’re often things I’d buy anyway which is great, Mets Cola(30pts), Minta(10pts) and Soyjoy Cereal Bars(10pts) are all recent examples. Occasionally a 100 point item comes around so keep an eye out!

Follow this and you’ll be Ninjaing your way to free noodles, snacks and alcohol, plus a house full of UFO plushies!

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3 Comments

  1. Richard Cooley
    14/07/2014
    Reply

    Man, I miss Lawson. I was really happy to finally go to one because I’d seen it in some anime; I thought it was like when they rename Sony to be Suny. Those little shops are great, if they ever came over to the UK I would pretty much live in one!

    • 16/07/2014
      Reply

      Yeah! It was definitely in Evangelion and probably others too! They’re so great, way better than that dodgy Costcutter back home with nasty out of date stock!

  2. walter lee
    04/05/2018
    Reply

    How can i ue d points on my card 034705186699124 at lawson and other places

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