Tesco Clubcard devalues Cosmos holiday rewards – what next?

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This is a slightly peripheral article for Head for Points, but in the last few days Cosmos has drastically reduced the value of Tesco Clubcard points if you use them for a holiday.

Historically, you could convert your Clubcard tokens into Cosmos holiday vouchers at 3x face value, with a £300 per person cap. This was a very good deal, if Cosmos if your ‘thing’.

The deal has now worsened dramatically. You can now only convert your vouchers at 2x face value. More drastically for heavy points collectors, the maximum discount you can have per person is just £100.

Over the last couple of years, the overall value of Tesco Clubcard has been sharply reduced. If you converted to Avios or Flying Club miles, you won’t have realised it, but it has been going on.

Of course, some of the jumbo deals in the past were just too good to last. When Motorpoint joined, they were letting you get a discount on a car for 4x the face value of your vouchers, with no cap. Plenty of heavy collectors got a free car!

Similarly, Virgin Holidays let you redeem at 4x face value with no cap. Lots of people got a lot of totally free holidays from that.

Most Clubcard deals are now just 3x face value. It is difficult to see where the real value is these days. I would suggest:

Goldsmiths still let you buy watches and jewellery at 3x face value with no cap

Safestore (where I have been redeeming recently) gives you 3x face value with no cap

Some of the cruise offers still give 3x face value, with no cap

This article from last year looks at the other travel deals you can get for Clubcard points and whether they are worth a look – the answer was generally ‘no’!

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

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Category

Tesco Clubcard

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

Trevor says:

3 Feb3 February 17:42

I agree that voucher redemption value depends on what is available at the time, what bonus and what is required at the time for you personally. I’ve never tried to make money out of my vouchers (no Rolex ideas here), and have only in the last year (thanks to HfP) become far more picky about my redemptions with them (ie no general transfers to Avios, though in the past it was my main source). Every few months now I’ll go through and see what, if anything, has changed and what is best value, then make a list (including value and whether email or snailmail redemption) so I know what I can act on quickly if the mood hits. Got 10 Odeon tickets at £2.50 each back in Aug which was good value – about to use the last. Some days out at 3-4x are good value too, and since I like La Tasca, I might be visiting them sometime soon. Of course an Avios transfer bonus would trump a lot, but not all, and I’d still keep some vouchers for future use. As for quality and devaluations, I also rate the feedback and based on that, Cosmos wasn’t really an option for me. Hopefulyl it’s just a one-off for now.
- craig says:
  
  4 Feb4 February 09:22
  
  The problem with the restaurant redemptions is that all the chains involved offer very good deals anyway, such as codes to quote at bill time offering 2-4-1 deals or other discounts. So when you compare CC at full price to cash at this reduced price you’re really getting x2 value at best.
  Odean is a good one though.
  - Trevor says:
    
    4 Feb4 February 10:51
    
    Good point re restaurant specials. I used a vouchers to take us and another family to Bekonscot – they also don’t allow the family entry special when paying with Tesco vouchers, but it only meant paying a couple of quid more with vouchers hence at 4x still represented very good value, while other days out, not so much.
Steve says:

3 Feb3 February 20:21

At the risk of a slating, I recently uses some clubcard points for a yearly magazine subscription!!
pazza2000 says:

3 Feb3 February 22:03

I’m a sucker for an occasional 4x Prezzo redemption. Best of the (Clubcard) bunch imo.
- pazza2000 says:
  
  3 Feb3 February 22:08
  
  sans Avios / FC miles of course
Maria S says:

4 Feb4 February 10:00

Funway might be 4 times the value till March, but is not uncapped in the sense that you can only pay for up to 50% of the holiday
El collectico says:

4 Feb4 February 20:31

In response to the person interested in cashing in vouchers against a Rolex I have a few suggestions.

I’d reccomend they try and get a watch that is in high demand, the current must have model is the GMT black/blue, quite scarce so your possible return should be quite high. Failing that if you are getting it for yourself, get what you like as you may not be able to accrue that ammount of points again. I think they are going to limit large point coupons as they must’ve taken a battering.

Secondly, to get enough points to get a Rolex (cheapest gents is about 5200!) you must have taken ‘advantage’ of many promotions and probably several cards. I must caution you that any redemption over 300 pounds is now sent to ‘large claims team’ which then fully audits how the points were earned. I know this because I lost out on a watch as it took three weeks for coupon to come and I was crapping one! If you’re happy you’ve earned them correctly, fire away. Do remember that you are only supposed to use one coupon per order too.

PS, A few years ago I got a Rolex Submariner, paid fully with coupon. They were £3450, list is £5200 now so they do go up and after wearing this I’d still at least get my money back. Good luck.