Rainy day rewards, explained

If you have seen a poster in a café window or a post from a venue near you mentioning Rainy Rewards, here is the short version: it is a free treat that switches on when rain is forecast, and it costs nothing to join. This post explains how it actually works, because "free coffee when it rains" sounds almost too simple to be real.

What a Rainy Reward is

A Rainy Reward is an offer from a local venue, a café, a pub, a restaurant, that only switches on when rain is forecast for the day. A free hot drink, two for one on cocktails, a discount on food, whatever the venue chooses. Each participating venue sets its own reward and its own rainfall trigger, the amount of rain that needs to be forecast before the offer turns on.

You do not pay for this. You join Rainy Rewards for free in the Rainy Refunds app, and from then on, any day the forecast crosses a nearby venue's trigger, that venue's reward is live and waiting for you.

How the forecast decides

This is the part worth being precise about, because it is easy to assume the reward depends on it actually raining outside. It does not.

Each morning, Rainy Refunds checks the Met Office forecast for your area. If the forecast for the day crosses a venue's trigger, that venue's reward goes live from the moment the forecast is checked until the end of the day. Nothing is judged after the fact. The forecast decides, once, in the morning, and that decision holds for the rest of the day whichever way the weather goes.

That also means you know early. If your local café's reward is live, you will see it in the app first thing, well before you have decided whether to bring an umbrella.

How you redeem one

When a reward is live near you, it shows up in your Rainy Refunds account. Go to the venue that day, within its redemption hours, and show the reward from the app. There is nothing to submit and nothing to prove beyond having the reward open on your phone, the venue's staff can check it in seconds.

You do need a free account to claim, because rewards are redeemed from the app rather than handed out on the spot to anyone who walks in. Signing up takes a couple of minutes and immediately shows you what is live nearby.

Why venues do it

For a venue, a wet forecast usually means a quieter day. A Rainy Reward gives people a reason to come in anyway, and it costs the venue nothing until someone actually redeems it. For Rainy Refunds, it is a way to put the same forecast-driven idea behind our insurance, that a number decided in advance settles things automatically, in front of people who have never bought a policy and may not need to any time soon.

Not the same thing as the insurance

It is worth separating the two clearly, because they share a mechanic but not a purpose. Rainy Refunds is parametric rain insurance for a named event: you buy a policy, name a trigger, and if the Met Office forecast for your event crosses it at the agreed check time, you are paid out automatically, no claims process, nothing to submit. Rainy Rewards is free, has no policy behind it, and simply gives you a treat from a local venue on a day rain is forecast. One is cover you buy for a specific day out. The other is a standing perk for being signed up locally. Both are settled the same way, on the forecast, whichever way it goes. Those policies are underwritten by Tokio Marine HCC; Rainy Refunds Limited is an Appointed Representative of Stubben Edge and Partners Limited, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Join and see what's near you

Rainy Rewards is free to join, and there is no commitment beyond creating an account. Sign up in the Rainy Refunds app, and the next time rain is forecast near you, check what has switched on.