Confession time …. how I just used a pile of Clubcard points

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Back in June I ran this article discussing other possible travel-based uses for Tesco Clubcard points which may be worth a look. After all, they offer a huge variety of options and it would be foolish to be blinkered to other uses apart from Avios or Flying Club miles.

The general conclusion – if you read the comments to that post – was that airline miles still offer the best travel use of Tesco Clubcard points, given the small print attached to a lot of the other deals.

However, on a quiet Sunday evening recently I decided to trawl through the Tesco website. And I remembered something which I knew but which I’d forgotten – Tesco is a partner with Safestore!

Now, we have a huge pile of stuff in this warehouse conversion in London:

…. which simply does not fit in our house. It costs a lot of money as well, albeit it costs a lot less than a bigger house! We only keep the stuff because, as some point, we will move and finally get it all back into use.

Anyway, Tesco is a partner with Safestore. And, for once, there is no small print, no nasty conditions. You get 300% of the face value of your vouchers knocked off your Safestore invoice.

So, yesterday, I turned up at the centre and settled a chunk of my latest bill with Clubcard tokens. (Cue the usual wide eyed look from the staff as I wiped out 75 per cent of my bill. Sadly they didn’t take Amex to settle the balance!)

The maths works for me:

This is a bill I have to pay in cash if I don’t use the vouchers

I get a full 3 x face value for my Clubcard points

My Safestore contract is already in place – they are not charging me an inflated price because I am using vouchers

Every £100 of Clubcard vouchers got me £300 off my Safestore bill.

I could have got 24,000 Avios for those vouchers. However, I would effectively have been paying 1.25p per Avios, and that is far too high – I tend to value Avios at 0.75p based on how I use them. Even if I waited for a 30% Tesco to Avios conversion bonus, I would still be paying more than 0.75p per Avios.

And, of course, I get to free up some ‘real’ cash, which is always useful.

In fact, I am so pleased with this deal that I will ensure that I try to generate enough points each quarter to cover my future Safestore bills.

Obviously not a lot of other Head for Points readers are likely to use their vouchers this way, but the lesson of the day is that it is worth seeing what else is available. I also realised that Clubcard offers massive discounts on London Zoo tickets, a fortnight after my wife took my daughter and paid full price.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

Tesco Clubcard

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Neil says:

18 Sep18 September 07:38

I was just thinking that if you have a significant pile of CC vouchers then converting them to Goldsmiths may be worthwhile.

I’ve generated about £600 of vouchers this year alone. At base conversion that’s worth £1800 in Goldsmiths and I believe it’s fairly common to see a 4x promotion come Christmas. If that’s the case then even another £100 or so of tesco vouchers would allow me to get something like an Omega Seamaster watch effectively for free.
- Rob says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 08:06
  
  There is an odd rule now at Goldsmiths about ‘one voucher per purchase’. I’m not entirely clear what they mean by this, but I think you would need to convert all your CC vouchers in one transaction (so no mixing vouchers from family members). You would also need to persuade Goldsmiths to ‘hold’ the item you want for a week, since Rolex stock fluctuates and shops do not have full control over what they get. If they sold your watch in the meantime, it may be a while before they got another.
  - Neil says:
    
    18 Sep18 September 19:27
    
    I was aware of the ‘one voucher per transaction’ rule but if you have plenty of CC points then it’s not such an issue to convert all at once – I have a feeling that this rule is to prevent people hoarding points over years (since the CC points expire after 24 months) and walking away with something like a Rolex Daytona for ‘free’.
    
    My only concern is that I’ve read that if you try to convert a significant sum to Goldsmiths vouchers, it will likely trigger a manual review of the transaction. This may bring the Tesco microscope a little too close for comfort for those of us who have benefited heavily from 3V, ink cartridges, pre-orders etc. Tesco may suddenly decide that you have abused the scheme….
Johnny5a says:

18 Sep18 September 07:43

re:London Zoo
your wife could have got two of the cheapest train tickets in London for £1.30 adult (not sure kids cost) and get a 2-4-1 entry
Clive J says:

18 Sep18 September 07:47

While the best deal does appear to be Avios, I guess it depends on what you have an immediate need for. Recently I have converted some to RedSpottedHanky at x2 to pay the train fare for a trip.
- trickster says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 12:30
  
  RSH used to be a higher conversion (x3 I think). Shame it was reduced, but it’s still not a bad deal.
erico1875 says:

18 Sep18 September 07:50

As you pointed out, airline miles can have a different value to different people.
These fixed 3 x value deals are brilliant if your ccpoints are cost neutral or less.
GOLDSMITHS is another great place to redeem at 3 times the value.
- erico1875 says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 07:52
  
  Neil beat me to it
John says:

18 Sep18 September 08:17

You need to get your wife in the habit of telling you every time she wants to go anywhere! There is always a deal from some sort of rewards program for even the most obscure attractions. I once got free entry for the whole family to some castle in the midlands from yoghurt pot codes (which of course also earned Tesco and Amex points when I bought them).
CA says:

18 Sep18 September 08:40

Eurotunnel is another one that is x3 value and can be used to pay for the cheapest tickets.
- will says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 09:40
  
  I do a day trip on eurotunnel every year (booze cruise for LOTS of xmas wine). our trip over is free with around £20 of CC tokens which is great 🙂
  
  some places over there even pay your ferry or eurotunnel if you spend enoujgh but I prefer to shop around.
  
  I have used goldsmiths and resturants (when they were 4 times). I think red spotted hanky was 3 times when it first came along.
Mr Bridge says:

18 Sep18 September 08:44

I do wonder how long it will be before the bubble bursts.

I have been earning loads of cc points for free, going to tesco express there is always a heap of discarded receipts, same with the main shop I look in the shopping trolleys for receipts, if they have a bar code on the bottom, you know that cc points were not claimed, I get about 100 cc a week , by taking a couple to customer service ( make sure you look at the receipt in case your asked any questions about it ( payment method, what did you buy)
added.
Before this one ends in 2015( thanks to nick the **** clegg), reuse plastic bags, my shopping would fit in about 5, but I make sure I use 20.
- will says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 09:42
  
  Extreme collecting methods!!
- Brian says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 10:52
  
  No doubt the bubble will burst sooner rather than later if enough people use your ‘methods’…!!
- Freebs says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 12:00
  
  Be careful with adding clubcard points from discarded receipts to your account. Tesco have on many occasions banned people and/or removed their points for doing just that. The occasional one is fine, but not lots every week.
- Simon says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 12:47
  
  I read someone who said Tesco had banned them from collecting anymore points from receipts handed into customer services due the large number of points they had added via this method so they must monitor this sort of thing.
  - john says:
    
    19 Sep19 September 06:24
    
    Obviously, you should use an independent clubcard account to do this sort of thing. Also, put through receipts paid in CASH only. Perhaps the occasional card one is fine, I’m not sure how Tesco monitors this sort of thing but I wouldn’t be surprised if they recorded the last 4 digits of the card used on each cc account.
- john says:
  
  19 Sep19 September 06:28
  
  Do green clubcard points exist in Wales and NI?
  
  The economy is probably on its way up barring more cockups from Osborne. Is the amount of supermarket / CC promotions related to the economy (because people have more money to spend / lend), or inversely related (to make people think they are getting more value for spending less)?
Exitcontrol says:

18 Sep18 September 09:21

I hope you’re not storing “rubbish” that would be a real waste of CC points if you were!
- Rob says:
  
  18 Sep18 September 09:25
  
  The value of the stuff (ignoring nostalgic reasons) is certainly less than the storage cost, so from that view ….
  - john says:
    
    19 Sep19 September 06:25
    
    But the value of your time to sort it all out and throw it away, versus the value of your kids’ time after you finally kick the bucket…. :p