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What is happening with Tesco and Hotels.com Clubcard redemptions?

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The saga over the new Hotels.com Clubcard redemption option continues to rumble on.

As I wrote on Monday, Tesco launched this offer last week by stating that all pre-paid hotels on Hotels.com could be booked using Clubcard vouchers.  As you could swap your Clubcard vouchers for a Hotels.com voucher worth 3 x face value, this was a decent deal.

(UPDATE 15/7:  since this article was published, Hotels.com and Tesco Clubcard have made some changes to the way the offer is described online and to the instructions you are given when you are asked to redeem.  Whilst the list of Clubcard voucher exclusions is still showing on the Hotels.com website, as of today it seems that you CAN book ANY prepaid hotel on Hotels.com, charged in £, using Clubcard vouchers.)

Within 48 hours, highly critical comments were appearing on the Clubcard / Hotels.com page saying that the deal came with huge exclusions.  Not only could you not pay taxes and fees with vouchers, but pretty much EVERY branded hotel on the planet was excluded.

This is the list of hotel chain exclusions which Clubcard was circulating – it is vast.

Over the last 48 hours we have seen a couple of changes:

Tesco has changed its website to admit that taxes and charges must still be paid in cash

Tesco stated that NO hotels are excluded. It has posted this comment in response to questions:

“I can confirm there are no exclusions so I do hope you have a great stay when using your Hotel.com [sic] tokens.“

So, what is the answer?

I decided to order a Hotels.com voucher and test out the deal. This is the email you receive from Clubcard containing your voucher code, which arrived impressively quickly:

Redemption Instructions 

1) Click the link here and search for your desired hotel, continue with the booking and on the booking form click “apply deal or discount”. You must use this link or the voucher will not work

2) Copy and paste the voucher code above. The voucher amount will be deducted from the cost of the first room booking (excluding taxes & fees), enter your details and pay the balance.

3) You will receive a confirmation email from Hotels.com including the booking details.

No mention of any exclusions there.  And:

Terms & Conditions 

You can’t use this voucher on taxes, fees, or charges including extra guests, phone calls, cancellation fees, parking, or other charges. You must pay these charges when you make your booking, or directly at the hotel.

Please check availability before you exchange as once you’ve received the voucher, we can’t refund it.You can use this voucher only once and in full. You won’t be able to use it again, even if you cancel your booking. Vouchers cannot be added at a later date.

Vouchers cannot be used for bookings paid for in a foreign currency.

The usual Hotels.com terms and conditions apply and all bookings are subject to availability.

No mention of any exclusions there either.  Sounds good.

But what happens in reality?

Having a clear couple of days in late July, I decided to book myself into the ibis Rotherham East for some much needed R&R.  The website said that it is only 35 minutes walk from Maltby Leisure Centre and 4.5 miles from Rotherham General Hospital, so it sounded good.  I also happen to know there is a Wacky Warehouse across the road.  The ‘pay in advance’ price was £41.41, split into £34.51 of room and £6.90 of tax.

ibis is listed on the ‘excluded chains’ list circulated by Hotels.com.

I tried to input my voucher code but got an error.

Let’s click on that ‘Terms & Conditions’ link.

This is where you are taken – a brand new page headed “This coupon is only valid for Tesco Clubcard members.”

And in the small print:  “Go to http://uk.hotels.com/page/hotel-exclusions-emea/?pos=HCOM_UK&locale=en_GB for a list of non-participating hotels. Participating hotels are subject to change at any time.”

On that list – which is the same list I circulated on Monday – it says you can’t use them at ibis or a few hundred other chains.

So ….. what is going on?  Tesco is adamant that there are no restrictions, whilst the combined experiences of myself and those people who have posted on the Clubcard website suggest otherwise.   Let’s see if this is some sort of temporary IT issue or not.

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Comments (97)

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

  • Genghis says:
    13 Jul13 July 05:29

    What a mess. The lack of common sense by some people (companies) never fails to amaze me.

    @Rob are you asking for a refund of the voucher and challenging Tesco on their lack of up front notice on T&Cs?

    • Genghis says:
      13 Jul13 July 05:47

      I’m impressed with the Uber deal, however. As you said, a genuine 3x. I converted another £50 yesterday. UK use only but can be used for work trips by taking a screen shot of the ‘Your Trips’ screen. Makes avios at 1.25p look expensive.

      • Alan says:
        13 Jul13 July 19:13

        Have you checked how the invoice appears too with them when using the credit? I normally submitted those.

        Told a few folk at work today about the Uber deal, they were pretty impressed 😉 I’ve transferred a few vouchers that were due to expire. Would be even nicer if it had worked abroad too.

        • Genghis says:
          13 Jul13 July 19:17

          The emails received post journey show a zero balance. But the individual journeys in the app have a price (ie amount taken from the credit). I screen printed one only today and put it in my expense claim.

          • Alan says:
            13 Jul13 July 19:22

            What about the PDFs you get from the Uber website though? (when you click through from the email) IME those have always correctly shown the actual charge, regardless of payment method.

          • Genghis says:
            13 Jul13 July 19:55

            Never used uber website. Will check when next on computer and report back

          • Alan says:
            13 Jul13 July 20:04

            No probs – they’re very basic PDFs and issued in the name of the driver, but have a proper invoice number, etc 🙂

          • Genghis says:
            14 Jul14 July 05:45

            @Alan. The pdfs show the full fare amount.

          • Alan says:
            14 Jul14 July 22:58

            Excellent, thanks for confirming – glad it is consistent with other codes with them 🙂

    • Rob says:
      13 Jul13 July 09:38

      Nah, was only £5!

  • Andrew says:
    13 Jul13 July 05:37

    Nice article, Rob but an utterly ridiculous situation of Tesco/hotels.com’s making.

    I hope you find another way to get your Rotherham stay though – your plans sounded amazing 😉

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:
      13 Jul13 July 13:11

      Time to go viral with an appeal? #GetRotherhamRobABed

  • Tina says:
    13 Jul13 July 05:44

    Maybe, in a few days, the link will be updated to show the Ibis is bookable with clubcard vouchers: but at a higher price!

    Seems as if hotels/Tesco are making it up as they go along: perhaps they read the Cruzifuers guide to customer services which was used most successfully during the recent BA outage

  • Sam G says:
    13 Jul13 July 06:20

    Rob – it was suggested you needed to click through a specific hotel.com link you received from Clubcard for the voucher to work – did you do this?

    If this is the case the sceptic in me would say this will allow them to tweak the pre-discount pricing…

    • Rob says:
      13 Jul13 July 09:38

      No, but you don’t need to do this – I pasted all the wording into the article.

      • Sam G says:
        13 Jul13 July 12:58

        The “Redemption Instructions
        1) Click the link here” that you mention above isn’t an actual link then?

        Though you’d think they could just configure the promos to work via their main site (as I say, unless they wanted to get naughty with the pricing..)

  • Rich says:
    13 Jul13 July 06:22

    Interestingly they’ve now added another T&C on Tesco:

    Your voucher will work on 100% of pre-paid hotels on hotels.com. Any reference to a hotel exclusion list within T&C’s on hotels.com does not apply to you.

  • Andi Hawes says:
    13 Jul13 July 07:02

    I’m more interested in the fact you’d like to stay in Rotherham

    • Worzel says:
      13 Jul13 July 07:12

      Having lived in London for 10 years- a stay “anywhere” was a break, 🙂 .

    • Genghis says:
      13 Jul13 July 07:24

      Birthplace of the Chuckle Brothers and Rob Burgess?

      • Worzel says:
        13 Jul13 July 07:46

        Have emailed Rob to get an approximate date for his visit and will bimble around with my autograph book in search of the three of them! 🙂 .

      • Rob says:
        13 Jul13 July 09:34

        Paul Shane, runner Peter Elliott, that guy who was world darts champion a few years ago, William Hague and indeed Justine Greening who lived on my road and was a year ahead of me at school.

  • Nick says:
    13 Jul13 July 07:19

    Rob

    The only consolation must be you don’t ever have go a) to maltby and b) Rotherham ibis with spectacular views of the sir jack, McDonald’s, morissons oh and the M18!

  • Neil says:
    13 Jul13 July 07:30

    What a shambles from Tesco & Hotels.com! How difficult can it be to create a business model and then just implement it? If they want customer feedback, why not ask for it prior to launching the service.

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