Breaking: Tesco to halve earning rate on Tesco Clubcard Mastercard

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• AndyS says:

  2 Sep2 September 08:09

  This is most annoying. I’ve just cleared my balance to start spending on this card, but when the earning rate is halved so up to 7.99 will get nothing at all, it’s just not worth it.
  Many thanks for the heads-up. I’ll make the most of it while I can.

• Jason says:

  2 Sep2 September 08:10

  I have the old MasterCard which is 1p per £2 spend and it works out just better than out HSBC MasterCard, however with the bonus over the last 2 years HSBC has been a better earner. So not the biggest loss in the world.

  • Dave B says:

    2 Sep2 September 08:15

    I have a Finest card too. Is it 2 points per £4 spend?

• Jason says:

  2 Sep2 September 08:11

  Amex must be rubbing their hands with glee 🙂

• James says:

  2 Sep2 September 08:18

  Thankfully I have the virgin black visa to use now 🙂

  The tesco card is relegated to petrol station clubcard duties

• Nick says:

  2 Sep2 September 08:24

  Presumably this is just going to affect new cards taken out after dec, rather than being a change in t&cs for old cards? Doesn’t it put it at the same level as the debit card?

  I also assume that this is the impact of the eu rules on interchange.

  • Raffles says:

    2 Sep2 September 08:41

    No, all existing cards change.

    • nick says:

      2 Sep2 September 08:45

      Nasty. And probably a sign of things to come. Let’s hope Amex hold out for a few more years yet.

      • James67 says:

        2 Sep2 September 12:19

        Amex not affected by the rules if I understand it correctly. However, I suspect a huge clubcard devaluation is coming our way, I think this with cc only being part of the story and EU rules a convenient excuse. Will be interesting to see if this costs them a lot of business and if it does, whether we see more generous signup bonuses in future.

        • Nick says:

          2 Sep2 September 12:54

          Correct – Amex not impacted directly by the EU Regs. However, it will inevitably lead to a reduction in the transaction fee earned by Amex. The EU regs are a result of lobbying by merchants fed up with high fees. Those same merchants are not going to pay amex 1%+ if they only have to pay 0.3% on Mastercard and Visa transactions.

        • James67 says:

          2 Sep2 September 16:30

          Possibly the result might be more annual fees but hopefully bigger signup bonus as a result.

    • Liz says:

      2 Sep2 September 09:37

      Are the Finest World Cards going from 1 pt / £2 spend outside Tesco to 1pt per £8 or is it going to 1pt / £4 ?

  • Metatone says:

    2 Sep2 September 09:41

    I don’t think this is interchange – Tesco is slowly ratcheting down value across the whole club card points arena. It appears they have decided that to compete with Lidl and Aldi etc. points are not the way forward.

    • Nick says:

      2 Sep2 September 12:07

      Perhaps you are right. even with the reduced rates, Tesco should still earn 1.2p per £4 spend so they earn 1.2p for each CC point they issue (unless I’m missing something); and in reality it is a lot more because of the way they credit points per transaction rather than the invoice total. I suspect the “cost” of a CC point to Tesco is less than 1.2p.

      I agree that they’ve reduced the silly opportunities for points like the £5/1000CC pre-orders, but we saw the 5000CC for life insurance back recently. I think they’ve just realised that some of their offers were stupidly generous, and someone has (sensibly) decided to put a stop to it. As long as there are occasional bonus opportunities and the 150CC/£50 gift card survives, I’ll be happy.

      • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

        2 Sep2 September 13:11

        Points aren’t the only cost to consider though. On the margin, you need to fund the money you’re lending out (let’s say 2% cost of funds so ~0.15% cost of any given transaction), more generally you need to cover your servicing costs (call centre, statements, taking payments) and any fraud/defaults etc. You might make ‘points for spend’ go round in isolation, but it’s a pretty dim prospect when you factor in everything else.

    • James67 says:

      2 Sep2 September 12:21

      Agreed, just commented something similar above before reading yours.

• Adam M says:

  2 Sep2 September 08:32

  Why is the HSBC Premier better than using something like the BA Amex or am I not getting something here? From HSBC web site:
  1 point per £1 spent

  BA card offers 1.5point per £1 spent. Or is it the fact that the HSBC product is free and a MasterCard?

  • Jason says:

    2 Sep2 September 08:36

    The HSBC card is a MasterCard, as is the tesco credit card.
    Where I can’t usec amex I’d use tesco or HSBC card.

• Liz says:

  2 Sep2 September 08:34

  Does anyone know what happened to the 650 clubcard points awarded to the Tesco World Credit Card holders. I didn’t get anything this summer.

  • Koshka says:

    2 Sep2 September 10:17

    There was a lot of discussion about Tesco trying to quietly drop this a few months back. If you look at the following Flyertalk thread around June 12th then you’ll find some of the relevant posts. It’s worth contacting Tesco and you can refer to the leaflet that I posted on the thread if they try to deny that you’re entitled to it (same username).

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1643339-tesco-ba-2015-master-thread.html

• The_Real_A says:

  2 Sep2 September 08:37

  Any news on the debit card? Hopefully this stays at the current rate.

  • The_Real_A says:

    3 Sep3 September 01:58

    Perfect. Thanks!

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