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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’!


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

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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.

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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

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year 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.

Comments (41)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Trevor says:

    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:

      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:

        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:

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

  • pazza2000 says:

    I’m a sucker for an occasional 4x Prezzo redemption. Best of the (Clubcard) bunch imo.

  • Maria S says:

    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:

    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.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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