Tesco Clubcard devalues Cosmos holiday rewards – what next?

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• Simon says:

  3 Feb3 February 06:54

  I’ve no experience of them but you can get 4 times the value at Funway Holidays until the end of March with no cap that I could see.

  Intrepid (small group adventure travel) is also 4 times until the end of March although capped at £800.

• Sinizter says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:23

  Any suggestions where I can trade in a watch (such as Rolex or other big brand) bought from Goldsmiths ?

  Also, any idea how much loss on retail I might have to take on a Rolex ?

  • Sideysid says:

    3 Feb3 February 07:45

    Rolex prices do not fluctuate much (apart from when there’s a price increase by Rolex).

    I would say you would have to be willing to take a 10-20% hit on the watch depending on the desirability of the model e.g. submariner vs Air King on the likes of fleabay.

  • Hu says:

    3 Feb3 February 07:55

    This forum/blog is about frequent flyer community not about making profits.

    • Stripy says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:26

      I’m pretty sure it’s up to Raffles to moderate/decide what comments should be on HIS blog.

      • GlennM says:

        3 Feb3 February 10:11

        Quite agree, freedom of speech and all that. If you don’t like what you read, simply avert your eyes.

        • Rob says:

          3 Feb3 February 10:55

          Technically HFP is a benign dictatorship …. like Monaco or something …..!

        • Worzel says:

          3 Feb3 February 11:38

          Perhaps Stripy(8:26 am) could have done this?

    • Sinizter says:

      3 Feb3 February 09:34

      Cash tickets have better availability than points redemptions.
      Self righteousness is free.

  • Rob says:

    3 Feb3 February 10:46

    Your best bet would be to work backwards. Start with a reputable second hand jeweller, take him a list of what is on offer at your local Goldsmiths and ask him what has the highest resale value.

    Remember that you could get the same watch duty free for 17% or so under list price, so I reckon you’d be taking at least a 25-30% hit on the list price as a guess, even for a brand new boxed item. Obviously if you want to try ebay or (more sensibly) a reputable watch selling website you would do better.

    • sinizter says:

      3 Feb3 February 11:02

      Thanks. Sounds logical. Your post has given me somewhere to start.

  • craig says:

    3 Feb3 February 11:01

    Are you simply trying to convert clubcard points back to cash via a reward redemption, or have you already bought this Rolex?
    If the former, why don’t you just advertise your clubcard rewards on eBay, just make sure you redact the codes in the images. Lots of people aution their vouchers as rewards to be taken, the winning bidder then tells the seller what they want to redeem against. That way there is far more flexibility than being stuck with a watch you might have to take a big loss on.
    Generally, vouchers sell around 1.7 to 2 times their face value.

    • sinizter says:

      3 Feb3 February 11:06

      I haven’t bought anything yet. It is a route I would like to learn more about, since it does open up a few more options.

      If I feel that I don’t need an Avios conversion this year, I am very tempted to buy a Rolex, use it for a little while with a view to selling on in the future. The annual price increases should help. Being quite a watch fan, it would be lovely to have a Rolex or other big brand for a little while – something I couldn’t really justify paying full value cash for.

      Thanks for the tip, but that route is something I would prefer to avoid. You are not protected against chargebacks via Paypal, at all. I have been stung even with signed for delivery receipt.

• marmaliser says:

  3 Feb3 February 08:27

  Cosmos was an excellent deal a many years ago with 4x and no cap. Dubai and Cyprus all on vouchers 🙂 . Motorpoint was at least 5 years ago !! just sold our “Free” car

  • James67 says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:58

    Just curious, did you get close to your original clubcard value back on the sale? If so then it really was almost free.

• Tom says:

  3 Feb3 February 08:30

  I always found Cosmos to be grossly overpriced when using Club Card vouchers. I could never find a way to gain real value, it was hundreds of pounds cheaper to book the holiday individually.
  I find Goldsmiths to be the best non-Avios redemption method.

  • craig says:

    3 Feb3 February 09:14

    Yeah, a lot of negative feedback from disgruntled customers on that. I find the feedbacks are definitely worth spending the time going through, especially redemption experiences, and you’ll see certain options such as car hire, airport parking and hotels redemptions often also have similar tales to tell.

  • GlennM says:

    3 Feb3 February 10:15

    I too have enjoyed redeeming Clubcard against Goldsmiths during their 4x rewards, mainly for their Mont Blanc range, but its now a year (and it didn’t reoccur this Christmas) since the last bonus 4x. My general perception is that bonus opportunities at Tesco CC are reducing, and that these reductions/devaluations will now become common place. The lack of an Avios bonus in quite some time, seems to me a case and point.

• xcalx says:

  3 Feb3 February 08:30

  Tesco Gift Cards can still be found on the Rewards page under Entertainment of all places. £25 and £50 values. I was one of the lucky ones last January with £1350 for 53000~ MR points

  • xcalx says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:42

    Sorry the above comment was meant for the

    “How to get Waitrose vouchers from Amex Membership Rewards points”

  • Rob says:

    3 Feb3 February 10:50

    Thanks, how weird!

    I should have ordered more last year. I bottled it and ‘only’ asked for £550 which I thought would cover a new iPad. I could have ordered £10k+ if I’d wanted so it was difficult to know where to compromise! I thought if I went too crazy I would get nothing at all.

    • Polly says:

      3 Feb3 February 14:56

      Please post if you see anything similar appearing in the future! Sounds like it was a fab deal at the time…

• craig says:

  3 Feb3 February 09:10

  The best redemtpions for clubcard are RAC membership, the ferries and channel tunnel, Goldsmiths (esp when on offer) and some of the holiday options like Al Fresco or Siblu. At the moment I’m turning over loads of points (through 3V cards, Tesco credit card etc) to redeem with Topps Tiles at 3 x value.

  • Will says:

    3 Feb3 February 10:25

    I have brought my wifes RAC membership in the past with CC vouchers (got a better deal this year with insurer). I use £20 of Tesco CC annually to do a day trip to france on eurotunnel. It works for me as nobody has to directly pay which would reduce the benefit of cheap wine we are actually buying. I think its down to perception of value and real life requirements at the time.

    Free car sounds very interesting. wasn’t even in the game then. surely if the limit is 30k points per month (£300) it would have taken a while to get enough points for a car. at least a years worth of max points (5k value?)

    🙂

    • Rob says:

      3 Feb3 February 10:55

      The 30k limit did not exist then.

    • craig says:

      3 Feb3 February 11:46

      Absolutely! Am already thinking of combining 3x redemption for Le Shuttle and 3x redemption for Siblu, take a week’s holiday somewhere in france and relax, before loading up with ‘produce’ to bring back to blighty for the next several months! 🙂

      • will says:

        3 Feb3 February 16:04

        A saturday daytrip in December is £60 return (£20 of CC vouchers).

        Eurotunnel actually changd their rules last year so you can do a daytrip over 2 days and still get the day price. next year we will go over the night before and stay in a cheap IHG property on points, start early and make it home before dark (never happened in the past!)

        :o)

        • craig says:

          3 Feb3 February 16:15

          Very interesting will – thanks for the top. In your experience is the cash and CC reward price always the same?
          I’ll have to see if there is a hotel nearby to use my HHonors on…..

        • will says:

          3 Feb3 February 17:25

          you find the trip you want and then cost it up before getting the voucher (via email now) and then calling up to book. it used to be painfully complicated but its all much quicker.

          it goes up each year (from my experience) so might have to use £21 of CC vouchers this year. you dont get change so worth trying to get a number for the out and the return that divides by 3 😉

          the prices vary but you can see all that on the website. there are certainly some IHG hotels in calais. just means I get a bit more of my weekend back so I dont mind using the points.

• Lady London says:

  3 Feb3 February 14:40

  Compared with converting to Avios even at standard Avios conversion rates I calculated I need at least a 3x booster rate just to equal what converting them to Avios instead is worth. My valuation of Avios also did not take into account the relative extra flexibility to Avios bookings particularly as a BA Gold cardholder. So until the booster rate offers x4 rather than x3, I might just about look at Goldsmiths but that’s pretty much the only booster spend I would look at.

  I’ve had a couple of survey requests through recently that basically asked why do you buy at Tesco. One of them even asked me to give the three reasons I buy at Tesco so I said 1) Clubcard 2) Clubcard 3) Clubcard. This is truly the only reason I ever shop at Tesco. It’s clear they have been trying to reduce the cost of Clubcard so I hope they got the message.

  • will says:

    3 Feb3 February 16:06

    if there wasnt CC where would you shop tho. sainsburys for nectar? I dont know of a better scheme. that and a large tesco is under 5 minutes walk from my flat

• will says:

  3 Feb3 February 16:05

  whats the most anyone you have heard anyone managed to collect in a CC statement before there was an enforced limit?!

  • will says:

    3 Feb3 February 16:31

    harsh

    I guess these people were collecting hundreds or even thousands per statement?!

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