Did Tesco really contribute towards my holiday? (Tesco Clubcard)

Member Name: paulpry118

Product:	Tesco Clubcard
Date:	21/06/09 (159 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: So many things to spend your clubcard points on

Disadvantages: None

had completely forgotten I had wanted to do this review and it wasn't until the Tesco Delivery driver asked about my holiday and was telling me that he had change his mind about using his Tesco Clubcard vouchers to pay for his holiday that it reminded me that I had wanted to put my point of view about the Clubcard vouchers across. So here goes.


Applying for a Club card

The Tesco Clubcard is a loyalty scheme offered by Tesco. You can pick up the card (looks like a standard plastic Credit/Debit card with Tesco Clubcard printed on it, your unique club card number and your name)and application form at any Tesco, then either post your application form in using the free post address or register your card on the telephone using their freephone telephone number or alternately register on-line however you still need to pick up a card in-store, register this card on-line as a temporary card then Tesco will send you a new card once you have registered on-line in about 3 weeks. You can also link other members of your family's cards to your account and also get a key fob to use instead of carrying around a card (I've given my Dad a fob in case he ever goes into Tesco). When you have your card or key fob, just hand it over to the cashier when you pay for your purchases and they will scan your card and your points are added.


Collecting Clubcard points

Once you have your card, you can then collect one point for every pound you spend in-store, petrol purchased at Tesco or on-line with Tesco.com and Tesco Direct. You can also get extra points by linking a Tesco Credit Card to your cCubcard (5 points for every £4.00 spent with Tesco and 1 point for every £4.00 spent everywhere else), Tesco Insurance (points vary), Tesco Mobile Telephone (3 points for every £1.00 spent on Top up), Tesco Broadband (points vary), Tesco Opticians (not sure how points work), green Clubcard points for reusing carrier bags (1 - 4 points depending on size of bag reused), recycling mobile telephones or ink cartridges through Tesco (up to 200 green points) and for buying your gas and electricity from EON (1 point for every £1.00 paid I think).


When do I get my vouchers and how much are they worth?

One point is worth 1p and every three months (February, May, August and November) Tesco send out a Statement with any vouchers you have accumulated in pounds, any odd pence is carried over to the following statement or you can opt to join the Christmas Club which means they send you out a statement four times a year but you don't receive your vouchers until the November Statement and if you have more than £100.00 in vouchers you can get a bonus of between £1.00 and £5.00 These vouchers show the value it is worth along with an on-line code for you to use, if you want to either spend on-line or exchange for rewards(see further down). Your vouchers are valid for 2 years. With this statement, you are also sent extra vouchers for you to get extra points or money off certain items in-store. When you shop in a Tesco shop and hand over your Clubcard, points are added to your account and a statement showing how many points you got on that shop and how many you have is printed at the bottom of your receipt, sometimes you can also get a voucher tailored to some items that you buy either giving you more points or money off certain items (my last visit gave me a £3.00 money off voucher for Pampers nappies).


Spending your vouchers.

When you receive your paper vouchers through the post you can use them in store on groceries (£1.00 is worth £1.00), or you can double the value of a £5.00 voucher to £10.00 to spend in certain departments in store (Clothing, Toys, Baby Goods, Cosmetics, Skincare and Fragrances, Tesco Mobile Top-ups, Wine and Champagne, Flowers, Plants and Gardening, Travel Insurance or On-line Grocery Delivery Charges). This exchange can be done at the customer services desk in store. Lastly you can exchange a £5.00 voucher for a £20.00 voucher to spend with Tesco Partners (various different large chain restaurants, magazine subscriptions, days out to various attractions and Theme Parks, Air miles (£2.50 in vouchers gives you 60 air miles) or BA miles (£2.50 gives you 600 miles but only when you are a member of the BA Executive Club), Holidays (including Butlins, Cosmos and Virgin), Cinema tickets, Theatre shows and Weekend breaks (large Chained hotels such as Marriott and Hilton).


Exchanging your vouchers

If you choose to to exchange your vouchers for Clubcard Rewards (previously called Clubcard Deals), you select your reward on-line, add however much you want to exchange to your shopping basket, use the on-line code that is on your voucher at check out and the reward tokens are sent out in the post about 5 days later. You can then use you tokens as full or part payment towards your chosen reward.


My experience of using the vouchers.

I have a Tesco credit card with is linked to my Clubcard which I use for everything then clear the balance at the end of the month so it doesn't cost me any interest and use EON for my electricity (only because they took over Powergen) but this boosts my Clubcard points.


In the past I have always used my vouchers for my Christmas shopping, before child it would be to buy a load of alcohol, after child it would be to buy Birthday and Christmas presents for Holly (just 5 days in between) and any left over would go towards the Christmas grocery shop. This year however we decided we would use the vouchers as part payment towards our holiday to Egypt booked through Cosmos. We got the Cosmos brochure, decided where we wanted to go, exchanged my £177.50 worth of vouchers and received my £710.00 worth of tokens. You need to receive your tokens at least 1 month before you intend to go on holiday and then tokens are valid for 6 months. The tokens can be used as your deposit if you have booked far enough in advance that you only need to leave a deposit on your holiday or if not you pay for your holiday in full, send your tokens in the post to Cosmos using special delivery and they will then, when they receive the tokens, they will either use them as the deposit or if you have paid in fill, credit the token amount back onto your credit card that you paid with.

However this Reward isn't as good as it sounds. I checked Cosmos holidays on-line, which is normally how we book our holiday, to receive an on-line discount, the on-line discount for this holiday was £320.00, however you can not use the tokens if you book your holiday on-line, it has to booked over the telephone, which meant we lost the on-line discount and was limited to using just one company. I would normally call into my local travel agent to find out which company is offering the cheapest deal on my desired holiday, then book on-line to get it even cheaper. So although we had £710.00 off the cost of our holiday, it had cost me my £177.50 vouchers and I had lost the £320.00 on-line discount I had in fact only saved just over £210.00, which if I had shopped around could have got this back with booking through another company.


I will continue to collect my Clubcard points but whilst looking through the Tesco Reward site today found they now offer the rewards for Children's Live Shows (Hopefully Cbeebies Live will be included nearer Christmas so I will use some of the tokens towards this) take a couple of family days out in the summer, maybe treat Darren to a £14.00 Top Gear Magazine subscription for a year and possibly take a country weekend break to a fancy hotel and any left I might double up to get some clothes for myself but I doubt I will use any for my grocery shopping again.

Would I recommend have the card?


Yes I would. It costs you nothing to get the card and even if you only shop in Tesco once in a blue moon it would be worth getting the card because they hold your points indefinitely until you have enough to be sent a voucher, but if like me, you are saving your vouchers up to use on a holiday I would check the prices with other companies because it may be more cost effective to keep your vouchers and use them for other things.

To find out more about a Tesco Clubcard visit http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/clubcard/


or telephone 0800 591 688

or write to


Tesco Clubcard
Freepost
Tesco Sco 3145
Dundee
DD2 3ZR

Many thanks for taking the time to Read. Anna

This review can be found on another review site.

Summary: Check before you spend your points on holidays, it may not be worth it.