Bits: Tesco trialling 12000 Avios bonus for the Premium Credit Card, Aer Lingus traffic data

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• Rob says:

  11 Aug11 August 05:22

  I think I read that the average weekly basket in most supermarkets is between £100 and £150, so £5000 is probably easily achievable.

  • Raffles says:

    11 Aug11 August 09:00

    In my little London bubble no-one has a car (or never drives it if they do) and do 3-4 small Metro-type supermarket visits a week. Haven’t driven to a supermarket for probably 20 years. Rather like Teletext and phones with dial wheels it is something I assume doesn’t happen any longer 🙂

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      11 Aug11 August 09:16

      In my little Cheshire Bubble everyone gets a weekly delivery from Sainsburys, Tesco, or Waitrose. Most will spend north of £100 a week.

      Our Tesco service cost us less than £20 a year and it works very well. I can’t recommend it enough.

      Oh, we also all have Range Rovers which are thirsty beasts.

    • zsalya says:

      11 Aug11 August 09:46

      If the relevant Metro is Tesco, then that’s c150 visits a year.
      If £35 each time, then one has reached £5k.

      Very doable if wine is included (i.e. if their wine prices are competetitive)
      As a bachelor living above Tesco in Covent Garden I probably did £2k p.a.

      • james_d says:

        11 Aug11 August 11:45

        Hello neighbour! I have cut my shopping there as much as possible after the various rat infestations! If only I could turn Nectar points into something more useful.

        • Rob says:

          11 Aug11 August 12:29

          Is that why all the fridges were empty on Sunday even though they were clearly working?! Need to get a Little Waitrose in there instead ….

        • Rob says:

          11 Aug11 August 13:01

          Fridges still empty. No sandwiches either!

• harry says:

  11 Aug11 August 06:01

  Direct, Wines & Petrol are included so with a little judicious manufactured spend I don’t think £5000 is that difficult. The weakness being: you do have to wait 12 months to get the annual 5000 point bonus, by which time you have incurred a second £150 annual card fee (not sure if the second one can be refunded pro rata, I’ll assume not).

  So crunching the math, you spend £5000 and get back a rose-tinted 20,000 Tesco points (5000+10,000+5000) = 48,000 Avios.
  Cost 2x£150 = £300 or 0.625p/ Avios
  + some insurance benefits
  + the rather mean BA Club Europe deal (pointless for us)

  You could have spent the £5000 elsewhere & picked up points & welcome bonuses, let’s assume the basic Gold card 22,000 bonus incl referral + another 9000 for your partner + 5000 MR points on spend = total 36,000 Avios for near zero cost if you cancel the card. I’ll ignore the annual 10,000 MR point bonus if you hit £15K spend.

  Of course, you could do both those & plenty of others.

  I think if I were a regular Tesco grocery shopper – I’m not – I might have just gone for it as another string to the bow & this beats my 2 MR point legacy BMI card on Tesco instore spend. If the second year £150 is refundable pro rata, that would also make the decision much easier, maybe somebody could dig? (Tesco credit card helpline 0345 300 4278)

  • Sussex Bantam says:

    11 Aug11 August 12:06

    I am a regular Tesco shopper – I dread to think how much we spend there but it is way over 5K per year. I also put much of my business expenditure through cards and so regularly exhaust churning options.

    I’m therefore interested in this card for spend not directed at sign-up bonuses. Harry’s maths above shows that for £5000 spend in Tesco I would earn 48,000 Avios for a cost of £300.

    The alternative (for example) would be to leave that £5000 spend on a BAPP. For that I would earn 7500 Avios plus 5000*2.4 from CC = 19500. Therefore the £300 fee is buying me 28,500 Avios .

    Alternatively I could leave the £5000 on a Gold card and earn 5000 + 5000*2.4 = 17000. In this instance the £300 fee is buying me 31,000 Avios.

    Of course this changes dramatically if the fee is £150 rather than £300 (which it would for year 2 and beyond) but unless we can get some confirmation that you can cancel at end year 1 and still get annual bonus I can’t see how this card can work. Am I missing something ?

    • Rob says:

      11 Aug11 August 12:28

      You can be fairly sure that, if you don’t use the card after your anniversary date, you won’t have the fee imposed for year 2.

      The regulator would take a very dim view of such behaviour. MBNA already has this policy.

      • Sussex Bantam says:

        11 Aug11 August 13:14

        In which case I may well be tempted. Well at least if the sign up bonus becomes available to all…

• Sandgrounder says:

  11 Aug11 August 06:05

  I spend over £100 per week on fuel. Consider the first 5k p/a:

  Now: 2 avios (Diamond Club) + 2.4 avios (1 Clubcard point) per £, x £5000 = 22000 avios. (I get 1 cc point/£ as I have the standard Tesco credit card)

  ‘Premium’ credit card: 4.8 avios (2 Clubcard points) per £ x £5000 = 24000 avios, + 12000 avios (bonus) = 36000 avios.

  14000 avios for £150? Not great. In the first year with this targetted signup bonus, this increases to 26000 avios for £150 = .577p/ avios- worth considering.

  So Tesco- email the signup deal to Mr (or Mrs) Sandgrounder and I will give it some thought!

  If they pull the Diamond Club cards, things obviously change in Tesco’s favour. Earning clubcard points also gives you the choice to credit to Virgin as well, which is welcome added flexibility.

• Nick C says:

  11 Aug11 August 06:23

  I used Aer Lingus a few years ago when I needed a cheap one way flight to NYC. I was very impressed. Loved the pre clearance and arriving into a domestic terminal at JFK. Liked their economy class as it’s 2-4-2 and seat reservation was free. And the flight being a little shorter made it more bearable.

  Wouldn’t particularly want to fly home via Ireland though.

• harry says:

  11 Aug11 August 06:24

  2 for 1 conversion – existing members have done OK, haven’t they?
  At what rate will my Gold Circle Points be converted to AerClub points? 
  If you are a Gold, Prestige or Elite tier member you will receive 2 Avios points for every 1 Gold Circle Point.

  And looks like AerClub members will have full Combine my Avios privileges.

  • Raffles says:

    11 Aug11 August 08:57

    It will. But …. AerClub will be revenue based redemption (I guess 1 cent per Avios, so around 300,000 for business class!). However, via combine my Avios, you can move them to BA for a redemption table based flight. How will that work?

    • Brendan says:

      11 Aug11 August 13:34

      Where does it say it will be revenue based redemption? I only see revenue based earning being mentioned.

      • Rob says:

        11 Aug11 August 14:47

        The wording on that site changes every few weeks as they push back the launch date!

        The original version said: “You can use your Avios to get a discount on the cost of your Aer Lingus flights. You will also be able to spend your Avios with an extensive range of travel and leisure partners.”

        This could of course just mean that they will be doing ‘part pay with Avios’ PLUS full miles redemptions.

        There is a reason that this scheme will launch 6-8 months later than originally announced …..

• Jeff says:

  11 Aug11 August 07:59

  Interesting update re Tesco Premium. Has anyone actually received the 5,000 Clubcard point signup bonus offer? Have seen a 2,500 one. If you shop at Tesco anyway, this is a good deal.

• Mr(s) Entitled says:

  11 Aug11 August 08:04

  I always found a use for my CC points within Tesco whilst Boost was running. There was always the opportunity to buy something I needed which represented a genuine saving. With Boost gone (and no replacement announced) I’ll probably hold off. Their partner deals can be good but they dont fall into the ‘need’ category and thus represent an actual saving. I write this as someone who would easily hit the £5,000 spend.

• Leo says:

  11 Aug11 August 08:19

  OT: Sorry to go off topic so early but it is the bits thread. Has anyone any experience as to whether or not you get hotel benefits/status if booking through Amex travel (not FHR)? Or are they treated like any other OTA? I’ve not used them before and oddly they are the cheapest option by miles due to a free night offer. I was planning to use my GHA platinum status (cheers HfP!) but the current Amex price saves about £200 and I’m not so bothered about the room upgrade- but would be nice if it happened obviously.

  • Leo says:

    11 Aug11 August 08:32

    Sorry I’ve just read today’s other post and can see that this question would fit better there so I’ll re-post in that thread. Ignore this one.

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