What is Friends Extra?
Friends Extra is a new benefits website exclusively for u3a Friends. Friends Extra provides access to a wide range of offers, discounts and additional services. Friends can make savings on well-known brands, shopping, travel, days-out and much more.
Read on for more information or download the presenation below.
How does a u3a Friend access Friends Extra?
Friends Extra is exclusively available to anyone who signs-up to receive the u3a Friends Newsletter.
Click on the button below to sign up to Friends.
When someone signs-up to the u3a Friends Newsletter for the first time, they will receive an email with a link to the Friends Extra benefits website.
Each issue of the Friends Newsletter includes a link to the Friends Extra benefits website.
What kind of benefits does Friends Extra offer?
Friends Extra covers a wide variety of benefits such as:
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Health and wellbeing discounts on eye care, health tests, gyms, spa deals and golf courses.
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Shopping savings on major brands and retail discount cards.
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Travel discounts from selected partners.
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Lifestyle and leisure offers, like family days out, trips to the cinema and theatre.
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Insurance offers on home, car and travel insurance.
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Access to financial advice and a legal helpline.
How to use Friends Extra and find out about the offers available
Once on the Friends Extra website:
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Browse the offers and services listed in the different sections. You can also search using the A-Z and navigation bar at the top of the Friends Extra site.
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Click on the links to see more details about each service.
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To access an offer or service, you will be prompted to create a Friends Extra account, or to sign-in if you already have a Friends Extra account.
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More details about Friends Extra can be found under ‘How does it Work?’ at the top of the page. There are also links to helpful information in a section at the bottom of the Friends Extra web page.
How to use the u3a Friends Extra website
Could Friends Extra have any negative impact on a u3a's Gift Aid claims?
No - the Trust has taken professional advice and received clear and succinct advice in writing that the benefit of Friends and Friends Extra does not affect u3as’ eligibility to claim Gift Aid. This is because the opportunity to join Friends is open to anyone, not just u3a members, and is free of charge.
Who provides the Friends Extra benefits scheme?
Friends Extra is provided by Parliament Hill Limited on behalf of the Third Age Trust Trading Limited. Parliament Hill is a specialist member benefits organisation that works with many large membership associations throughout the UK.
There is a feedback form on the Friends Extra website to enable users to contact the company. Parliament Hill can also be contacted by email to
How can someone trust this service and the service partners?
Parliament Hill has agreements with over 80 trusted brand partners and works with a large number of membership associations. All the brand partners go through an appropriate due diligence process before they can be accepted and become service partners to Parliament Hill.
Parliament Hill is also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This requires a significant process and system checks and reporting. This due diligence goes into extra and considerable detail when the brand partner is offering regulated services, such as insurance. As part of their ongoing Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) monitoring, Parliament Hill undertakes a six-monthly due diligence process for each regulated product that is marketed through their platforms. The details of this are then recorded and monitored. They also undertake a yearly calendar of benchmarking of regulated products, as well as following up on issues of quality or price that arise from this review.
What protection is there for online payments?
All transactions are made directly with the service partner. Friends Extra and Parliament Hill do not ask for payment information.
The services partners process their own sales. Parliament Hill does however monitor complaints and feedback and address with partners as and when required. The volume of sales merchants used to process sales across the market is quite small – services partner contracts include stipulation on the legal process of data and the protection of member details. Ultimately, any transaction Friends and members make is with the relevant brand partner and is subject to their associated terms and conditions. Members also have the usual statutory rights if anything went wrong, as they would when making any other purchase.
Who should I contact about an offer or product or service?
All the services and offers are provided directly by the service provider. To find out more, details can be found on the service provider’s page on the Friends Extra website. Each service has its own page and contact details on the site.
Last updated 28th March 2024