You can no longer book Hilton hotels with Tesco Clubcard points from January

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Tesco Clubcard continues to lose travel partners. After the departure of Avios, Hilton has now announced that it is leaving Tesco Clubcard on 31st December.

You can see details on this page of the Clubcard website.

If you have already exchanged your Clubcard points for a Hilton voucher, but not booked, you will need to book and stay by 31st December 2021. If this is not possible, Tesco will refund your Clubcard points.

If you have an existing booking made for 2022, don’t worry. Hilton will not be cancelling bookings which have already been made.

How does the Hilton / Tesco Clubcard partnership work?

The Hilton / Tesco partnership only covers hotels in the UK and Ireland.

It was (and remains, until 31st December) a decent offer:

rooms always include breakfast

all room categories are included, so if you need a bigger room or a suite then you can often book one, as long as you have enough Clubcard points

after many years of complaints about the booing process, Tesco and Hilton finally created a dedicated website (click here)

How to exchange your Clubcard points

You can exchange your Clubcard points on this website. £2.50 in Clubcard points will give you £7.50 to spend at Hilton hotels in the UK & Ireland. Your tokens are emailed to you within 30 minutes and can then be used on the Tesco / Hilton booking website.

Whilst tokens have historically been valid for six months, you will now have to book and complete your stay by 31st December.

Bookings can be made up to four days in advance.

Do you still receive Hilton Honors points and status benefits on Clubcard bookings?

Historically, yes. Some hotels do post these stays as non-qualifying, but my understanding has always been that they are meant to count.

Were Hilton hotels a good way to spend your Clubcard points?

It’s not bad as you receive 300% of the face value of your vouchers.

Note, though, that the price charged is the cancellable bed and breakfast rate. However, the booking you make will not be cancellable. This means that you are not getting a true 3x face value redemption with Hilton – you should be comparing the amount of vouchers required with the price of a non-cancellable bed and breakfast rate.

For example, if a refundable room was £150 and a non-refundable room was £120, the Clubcard rate would be £150. As your room is actually non-refundable, however, you are really getting something worth £120. Instead of getting 3x face value for your vouchers, you would be getting (£120 / £50) 2.4x.

You can check out pricing and availability, and see the official statement on the end of the partnership, on the Tesco / Hilton booking page here.

What is the best alternative Tesco Clubcard redemption?

We’ll look at all of the Tesco Clubcard travel partners in a day or so.

Hotels.com remains a Tesco Clubcard partner and is probably the best alternative. The only snag is that you will not be able to earn Hotels.com Rewards in conjunction with Clubcard vouchers. This reduces the ‘real’ value by at least 10% because Hotels.com Rewards gives, effectively, 10% of your spend back in free night credit.

How to earn Hilton Honors points and status from UK credit cards (December 2021)

There are various ways of earning Hilton Honors points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE Hilton Honors Gold status for as long as they hold the card? It also comes with Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Radisson Rewards Gold and MeliaRewards Gold status. We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

The Platinum Card from American Express

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

Did you know that the Virgin Atlantic credit cards are a great way of earning Hilton Honors points? Two Virgin Points can be converted into three Hilton Honors points. The Virgin Atlantic cards are the only Visa or Mastercard products in the UK which can indirectly earn Hilton Honors points. You can apply here.

You can also earn Hilton Honors points indirectly with American Express Gold (20,000 bonus points), the American Express Rewards Credit Card (5,000 bonus points) and – for small business owners – American Express Business Gold (20,000 bonus points) and Business Platinum (40,000 bonus points).

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which can be used to earn Hilton Honors points.

(Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)

Category

Hilton Honors, Tesco Clubcard

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

Jimmy says:

12 Oct12 October 09:23

Does anybody know if you can combine hotels.com. E.g. have one stay for 300. Then immediately make another booking for 300?
- Blenz101 says:
  
  12 Oct12 October 09:28
  
  Yes, or just book two nights. Restriction is on voucher size being max £250 cc points i.e. £750 per booking. So in your case you could convert £200 CC into a £600 hotels.com voucher and book 2 nights. Note taxes are not covered and you will get no change if you convert too much.
  
  You can do back to back bookings which is normally how I’ve used the vouchers for extended stays in the Maldives. Book 2 nights, another 2 nights, another 2 etc. I would book the same room type until you are prepared to move. Then email the hotel to let them know plus sort out transport etc.
  - Jimmy says:
    
    12 Oct12 October 09:30
    
    Nice – thanks – when you say tax – do you meant “resort fees”?
    - Blenz101 says:
      
      12 Oct12 October 09:40
      
      Do a dummy booking and look at the breakdown. You can only use the voucher value against the base fare.
      
      Any VAT, tourism taxes, transfer fees etc. will need to be paid.
      
      i.e. If you booking was in the UK (and VAT was back at the full 20%) you would want to exchange £480 vouchers for a £600 booking as the 20% VAT of £120 would need to be paid by credit or debit card.
      - Jimmy says:
        
        12 Oct12 October 09:46
        
        Thanks – appreciate it 🙂 – seems like the next best use of CC next to virgin points.
      - Genghis says:
        
        12 Oct12 October 10:31
        
        £500.
- the_real_a says:
  
  12 Oct12 October 12:35
  
  Remember to email/call the hotel in advance or speak to reception at checkin to have the bookings “merged” if you want to stay in the same room.
  - Jimmy says:
    
    12 Oct12 October 14:03
    
    Good idea. Thanks
Jonathan says:

12 Oct12 October 09:50

Tesco need to improve their travel rewards sector a lot more, although it wasn’t their fault that Avios is no longer a partner of theirs, it was almost certainly a very popular choice

Rob hasn’t mentioned which made party made the decision for this agreement to come to an end, but either way it doesn’t really matter.

Virgin points are an okay redemption, but their route network compared to BA’s is nowhere near as good, plus BA guarantee seat availability, Virgin Atlantic, it’s pot luck !
- Mikeact says:
  
  12 Oct12 October 10:18
  
  Who actually pulls the strings with these decisions ?
  In this case, Hilton, ‘We can get all the business we need without Tesco.’
  Or Tesco, ‘Hey guys, we’re getting ripped off. ‘
  ?
- Paul Pogba says:
  
  12 Oct12 October 10:48
  
  It feels like Tesco are giving up on Clubcard, hotels.com must be in the balance as a partner in the next 12 months since Expedia are reviewing their whole loyalty offering. They don’t seem to have any interest in enticing earn opportunities or introducing new spend partners as the old ones roll off.
  - Aeronaut says:
    
    12 Oct12 October 16:22
    
    If you saunter around a Tesco store, you cannot possibly come away with the impression that Tesco are giving up on their Clubcard – as there are now lots of products scattered across the store which have lower prices only available to Clubcard holders.
    
    Rather Tesco seem to be re-orientating Clubcard to focus on their core business of supermarket retailing – the common suggestion for this shift is it’s a way for Tesco to defend against the budget retailers (Lidl, Aldi etc).
    - Crafty says:
      
      12 Oct12 October 19:49
      
      +1
      
      Clubcard is far stronger than it’s ever been. It’s actually Asda it’s taking chunks out of.
    - Paul Pogba says:
      
      12 Oct12 October 20:13
      
      Clubcard offers are the sort of bi-weekly offers available at nearly every supermarket only they’re only applied if you swipe your loyalty card. Its a smart way of drawing people into the scheme but as someone that would always have collected points it does nothing for me. On the other hand in the last few years there have been fewer point bonuses, a 4x multiplier went to 3x and partners like BA (and now Hilton) are falling out.
      
      Across the road at Sainsbury are giving Nectar points/Avios out like they’re confetti.
      - Jimmy says:
        
        12 Oct12 October 20:35
        
        Agree – Tesco CC used to be one of the best loyalty scheme around, its now a shadow of its former self.
        The large majority of people dont care about saving 50p of a loaf of bread – they will go where convenient.
Jonathan says:

12 Oct12 October 10:14

I’d be interested to know the impact this will have on the more prolific users. Will you now have to trade down from WA to Hampton? £3600 of free hotels is equivalent to a £5-6k gross paycut!
Ben says:

12 Oct12 October 12:06

Hilton always was a bit of hassle to convert – I had a couple of painful experiences at Hilton hotels trying to get them to honour the vouchers. At least Hotels.com is a more efficient and straightforward process to use the points ( and much more choice & international as well. ) One wonders whether this is a longer term process to phase out the points & “Reward Partners” offer and change the focus towards “Clubcard Prices” ( essentially swiping a card to get cheaper prices on specific products , slightly akin to Lidl’s app , rather than collect reward points ). This would be much cheaper to run and Tesco would still harvest lots of data.
the_real_a says:

12 Oct12 October 12:52

The same hotels were almost always available for a cheaper price through Hotels.com (with breakfast) and significantly cheaper without breakfast without any blackout dates (which were many).

The reward just didn’t make sense when Hotels.com was available.
Richard M says:

12 Oct12 October 13:06

You can still get Hilton Honors ponts by converting CC points to Virgin first.

The Tesco Hilton offer was UK only and a bit uninspiring
- Blenz101 says:
  
  12 Oct12 October 14:18
  
  Blugh rate though. Better to go via Hotels.com and book what you want.
  
  Even as a Diamond if I was going to spend Tesco CC points at Hilton I would send to Hotel.com and book a club level room. Value will be far better.
  
  It’s a shame Hilton couldn’t still take Tesco’s cash without driving their customers to third party sites.
captaindave says:

13 Oct13 October 07:04

“The wombles of Wimbledon common are we ”

Probably a bit shady, but someone had left a £200 ish spend receipt in the trolley i used, put the points on my card at CS, and as a bonus they credited a few quid that would have been due from clubcard savings…