Remembering the Glasgow SNAPfax: The unofficial student’s guide to Glasgow in the 90’s and 2000’s

Long before the days of UniDays and Student Beans - Glasgow had SnapFax.

To the younger generations, no, SnapFax is not an old-world version of Snapchat powered by Fax machine - it was an old discount book offered to the students of cities across Britain.

The magnetic discount book sat in students pockets across Glasgow & Edinburgh - ruining bank cards and giving young folks free access to clubs across the city.

It wasn’t just for dodging entry fees though - you could get deals on food, drink, and just about anything else, from haircuts to sandwiches.

The student SnapFax had competition in the city in the form of the prolific ‘yellow card for life’ which was used for discounts at so-called ‘Scream pubs’ (chain pubs across Britain targeted at student punters like The Arc, The Hall, or Curler’s Rest) which have since been renamed Mitchell & Butler’s.

The thriftiest among us would carry both cards - while most of us would have one or the other that would sit at the bottom of our book bag forgotten for most of the year.

A Yellow Card for Life would cost you around a fiver - with the promise it would last forever (try using it at a Mitchell & Butler’s pub nowadays and see how well that pledge holds up) - while a SnapFax was free for most of the years it was on offer, until the late 2000s when they started charging a small fee - anywhere between £2 - £3, or perhaps more if one of the student PRs thought they could make a couple of extra quid off you.

Talking about the SnapFax PR’s, they were prolific during Fresher’s Week, you couldn’t turn a corner near the universities without tripping over one of the hoppy highly energetic PR’s who would promise you that Glasgow could be yours with a SnapFax.

Some of the best deals in Glasgow by the folks at SnapFax included:

• Free entry to the Shack
• 50p off at Gregg’s
• Free entry to Garage
• £3 foot-long from Subway
• Two for one fajitas at Los Borachos.
• Free entry at Archaos
• £1.25 beers in Wetherspoons
• McDonald’s discounts
• Free entry to John Street Jam
• Free drinks at Spy Bar
• Cheap drinks at Alaska
• 30% discount at Gilt-Edged on Saltmarket