Over the last few years I’d seen many posts from Vitality promoting their Apple Watch deal. I don’t remember the specifics but I do recall it appearing to be an attractive option and as someone who likes wearable technology and keeping fit I was interested. People often ask me how it works and going forward I’ll send them a link to this post. Hello! 👋
Important – Do you have a Vitality policy?
Firstly I should say that if you do not have a Vitality policy today, you will require one to be eligible for the Apple Watch deal. If you require a product offered by Vitality such as their healthcare or insurance, see how they compare against the competition before commiting solely for the Apple Watch deal. From this point on we’ll assume you have a Vitality policy – if you don’t you can tune out now.
When you order the Apple Watch through Vitality you are technically purchasing one at full price on a 36 month interest free finance agreement. You’ll pay an initial deposit then (When I signed up last year) commit to three years at £9.50 per month. Vitality allow a health grace period of a month or two before these payments start so you can receive the watch and get your fitness up.
Activity Points
Let’s assume that you do absolutely no exercise or fail to share your activity data with Vitality (More on that next). You’ll pay that £9.50 a month until the Apple Watch is paid off. When everything is fully set up however and you do exercise or accumulate enough steps you will be awarded Activity Points. You can accumulate a maximum of 8 points per day, there are a few ways of earning points – to get the maximum 8 points you’ll need to walk at least 12,500 steps, complete a 30 minute activity at 70% of your maximum age related heart rate or a 60 minute activity at 60% of your maximum age related hear rate. Don’t know your maximum age related heart rate? It’s 220 – Age. For a 37 year old this will be 183 therefore a 30 minute activity averaging over 128BPM will score you the maximum 8 points for the day.
You do get lower activity points if you don’t quite meet these thresholds, for example you’ll get 3 points for reaching 7,000 steps or 5 points for reaching 10,000 steps. If you manage 60% of your maximum age related heart rate in 30 minute this will get you 5 points also. I find this last one really easy just taking my dog for a walk.
At the end of the month, the points you have accumulated will determine how much of the £9.50 payment is covered by Vitality. If you manage 160 or more points then Vitality will pay the whole sum, if you manage 120 to 159 they’ll pay £7.50, between 80 and 119 points they’ll pay £5 and between 40 and 79 they’ll pay £2.50.
At certain gyms where Vitality have a partnership you can gain 5 points for attending. Examples of these are Nuffield, Virgin and PureGym. You’ll also get a healthy 8 points for participating in your local Parkrun which is hosted by Vitality.
Connect your Services
To start tracking your points you’ll want to ensure your data is being shared with Vitality. You’ll want to do this as soon as you can so that your efforts don’t go unrewarded. Within your Vitality account settings you can authorise Apple Health, Garmin Connect and Fitbit to share your data with Vitality. If you have an Apple Watch through Vitality but would like to use a Garmin Edge on your bicycle for activity tracking this can be done – I done this for a period of time but recently switched to just using my Apple Watch for tracking all activity.
You can continue to link your Apple Watch to other services in addition to Vitality. For example I have my activities syncronising with Strava. If I complete an activity the data is shared in full with Strava and Vitality.
What if I terminate my Vitality policy?
Having the Apple Watch does not tie you into your Vitality policy, if you terminate the policy you’ll still have the watch and the finance agreement but you won’t benefit from any activity points meaning Vitality won’t make any contribution to the monthly payments. Therefore at worst, the Apple Watch deal through Vitality is at worst an interest free loan for an Apple Watch.
Additional Notes
I’m nearly a couple of months away from having my Apple Watch through Vitality for a full year and may share another post with how much I’ve been able to get Vitality to cover, I had visions of hitting those 160 points every month but the reality has been somewhat different!
One other point of note is that in addition to accumulating activity points towards your watch you also still gain points towards other Vitality benefits. Every single week I’ve earned a free coffee and at least six months I’ve earned a cinema ticket. There are other rewards too but I was surprised to learn those accumulate in parallel to the Apple Watch and not before/after that.
If you have any additional questions, please get in touch and I’d be happy to share.