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Should you ditch the Tesco Clubcard Mastercard for the IHG Rewards Club Premium Visa?

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The devaluation of the Tesco Clubcard Mastercard takes place this month.  Today I want to consider whether you should ditch the card for the IHG Rewards Club Premium Visa, especially whilst the latter has a special sign-up bonus until the end of the month?

To an outsider, neither of these cards is an obvious choice for an Avios collector.  However, both of these cards have reward currencies that convert into Avios points.  Clubcard is 1 : 2.4 whilst IHG Rewards Club points are 5 : 1.

Let’s summarise what you are now getting from your Tesco Clubcard Mastercard.  The representative APR is 18.9% variable.

No annual fee

1 Clubcard point for every £8 you spend.  This means 0.125 Clubcard points per £1, which converts to 0.3 Avios per £1.

But …. you only earn points on multiple of £8 spent per transaction.  Buy something for £7.99 and you earn nothing.  Buy something for £15.99 and you only earn 1 Clubcard points.  If you bought your £5 lunch on your Clubcard Mastercard each day, you would spend £200 over a month but get nothing back.  Your effective Avios earning rate will be lower than 0.3 Avios per £1.

You get flexibility to use your points for other things if you don’t want Avios.  As well as Virgin Flying Club miles there are many other redemption options via Clubcard Boost.  I tend to use my Clubcard vouchers to pay Safestore bills and just bought a pile of Lego for Christmas, getting double the face value of my points.

Now let’s compare this to the IHG Rewards Club Premium Visa.  I am legally obliged to tell you that the representative APR is 42.2% variable including fee based on a notional £1200 credit limit.

£99 annual fee.  That is not a good start, although in the first year this is offset by the sign-up bonus.  You get 40,000 IHG Rewards Club points (worth 8,000 Avios if converted) if you apply before 31st December – and there is no spending target to trigger the bonus.  That said, you get better value using the points for Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Crowne Plaza etc hotel stays.

2 IHG Rewards Club points for every £1 you spend.  These converts to Avios at 5:1 although you can only convert in chunks of 10,000 points.  You would be getting 0.4 Avios per £1.

You earn 0.4 Avios per £1 on ALL of your spending – there is no ’rounding down per transaction’ nonsense as with the Tesco card.

You receive Platinum status (mid tier) in IHG Rewards Club for as long as you hold the card.  This has some benefits on stays at IHG brands.

If you spend £10,000 on the card in a card year, you receive a voucher for a free night at ANY IHG hotel.  If you use this at, say, the InterContinental Times Square in New York you’d be getting at least £250 of value.  This easily offsets your £99 annual fee.

As you can see, there are reasons why you may be better off swapping your Tesco Clubcard Mastercard for the IHG Rewards Club Premium Visa especially if you would spend the £10,000 required to trigger the free night voucher.

One word of warning though.  The Tesco card has already devalued in response to the new EU credit card rules.  We do not know if the IHG Rewards Club Premium Visa card will also cut its earning rate soon or not – although as you are paying £99 for the card it may be able to keep paying out two points per £1.

Note that you cannot get the IHG card if you have any other card issued by Barclaycard.  This includes the Hilton HHonors Visa.

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Category

British Airways and Avios, IHG One Rewards, Tesco Clubcard

Comments (108)

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

  • Ant says:
    4 Dec4 December 10:56

    So which one is best to use now if the choice is Tesco MasterCard or the Lloyds avios MasterCard?

    • Rob says:
      4 Dec4 December 11:01

      Lloyds has a fee and a lower earning rate, although of course your ‘real’ Tesco rate will be lower than 0.3.

      Would you spend enough to get the upgrade voucher, and would you use it?

      Do you have any other ‘no FX fees’ cards?

      If the answers are Yes and No then Lloyds would be better overall than Tesco. If the answers are No and Yes then save £24 and go with Tesco.

      If your answers are any other combo then you need to do the maths!

      • Oleg says:
        4 Dec4 December 11:48

        I have a similar question like Ant so thanks for the reply! And seeing as I don’t stay in IHG hotels this one does not tickle me unfortunately.

      • Ant says:
        4 Dec4 December 12:17

        Thanks.
        Yes I will spend enough and no other FX cards that give points.
        Think will stick with Lloyds for the moment.

  • Jerry says:
    4 Dec4 December 11:06

    OT – has anyone tried to use their unique American Express BA code (received via email) to book a short haul (non domestic) flight before 7th December and get a £25 discount discounted from the booking total? Our code is 11 digits and BA site only accepts max 8 digits. Went round in circles with Amex and BA on the phone, each blaming each other. BA agree code doesn’t work. Apparently Amex have sent the email to 180,000 customers! We were invited to book offline, but after wasting an hour and a half trying to save £25 we gave up.

    • Rob says:
      4 Dec4 December 11:43

      Do they not work? Oh dear.

      I was planning to run an article where we can give our unused codes away but perhaps not …..

      • Brian says:
        4 Dec4 December 12:59

        Mine worked okay.

      • Brian says:
        4 Dec4 December 13:00

        And there is no obligation to use the BA card to make the booking, so you can use a debit card without any problems! (Or any other credit card)

        • Jerry says:
          4 Dec4 December 13:07

          Brian – Out of interest how many digits was your unique code and where did you enter it – home screen or payment screen?

          • Jerry says:
            4 Dec4 December 13:28

            I have managed to apply the code (by not logging in) to a different (random) route (LGW-FUE) and the voucher did apply (apply on the fare quote page by selecting the dot promotional code under the banner ‘Log in as an executive club member) The code discounted per ticket (2 pass) so a £50 saving (Didn’t book though). Your planned article should be ok Rob.

          • Brian says:
            4 Dec4 December 16:44

            My code was 11 digits. I didn’t log in before using it, only afterwards when completing the booking. My brother has a code, too, and it’s likely that he won’t be using it, so an article is probably a good idea, Rob – we can do our bit for the sharing economy!

          • Rob says:
            4 Dec4 December 16:59

            Ok. Will do it on Sunday.

          • YL says:
            4 Dec4 December 18:12

            My code is 11 digits. I tired a dummy booking yesterday and it works.

      • Scottnothing says:
        4 Dec4 December 13:34

        Mine worked the day the email came out.

    • CV3V says:
      4 Dec4 December 11:47

      i tried to use the code and it didnt work and listed lots of error messages, but i assumed the main reason was my flight started in GLA and not a London airport.

      • Jerry says:
        4 Dec4 December 11:55

        UK Domestic is definitely excluded from the voucher code offer – although you have to study the text of the offer closely to spot that – as the headline is ‘short haul’.

  • Toby says:
    4 Dec4 December 11:36

    Hey!
    Am I being really silly, or is the sign up bonus 20,000 points – NOT 40,000? I can’t see 40,000 anywhere!

    • Rob says:
      4 Dec4 December 11:41

      Where are you looking? Links in the article take you to the 40k page, I just checked. Barclaycard website says 20k so do not go there.

      • Toby says:
        4 Dec4 December 12:24

        Just me being silly! I navigated away from the IHG page and went direct though Barclaycard! Turns out I can’t apply anyway as I have three (!) Barclaycards at the moment – not used two of them for a few years though! I wonder if I cancel all three now, what the chances of being accepted for this one will be? :/

  • Sussex Bantam says:
    4 Dec4 December 13:08

    My TFI credit says it only applies if you use it as a contactless card – I’m guessing therefore not for Oyster top-ups.

  • Dave B says:
    4 Dec4 December 13:29

    Halifax Clarity visa pays back £5 once per month after £300 has been spent.( no oversees load). Worth considering?

    • Roger says:
      4 Dec4 December 15:21

      … IF you have or had the relevant Halifax current account.

      Stand alone Clarity cards don’t. The Halifax Clarity MasterCard, that is.

  • harry says:
    4 Dec4 December 19:50

    If you’re just after MS, then over-paying Council tax via paypoint also gave me an unasked-for cheque about a month later.

  • Doug says:
    4 Dec4 December 19:50

    Hey I think it would be cool if we had an article for people to share tips for getting the best of amex shop small.
    The basic stuff would be getting £10 top-ups in OL shops, but as not everyone lives in London or uses Oysters there might be other ways. It would be so cool if we there is some shops selling gift cards around…
    Anyway, this week I’m NOT COOKING!!

    • mark2 says:
      4 Dec4 December 20:21

      Yesterday someone tried to convince me that it was to my advantage that they used iZettle so could not do ShopSmall. Something to do with how the data was stored; he did not convince me, although we shall buy our dog food there as they are the stockist but not go out our way to spend.
      Another shop in the town confirmed that they were perfectly happy to put £10 on each card (we have 12 between us).
      Getting lots of Amex card is the best way to benefit from Shop Small and other cash back deals. So get lots of cards with supplementaries except MBNA who use the same number for both cards. Too late for this year probably.

      • Brian says:
        4 Dec4 December 22:22

        Yes – and they’ve given up the statement credit idea in the States this year, so maybe there won’t be any next year here! 🙂

    • Rob says:
      4 Dec4 December 22:20

      There is a Shop Small article tomorrow, feel free to post your ideas in the comments there!

  • SoloFlyer says:
    4 Dec4 December 23:56

    Rob! Also worth noting that Barclays treats non dynamic currency charges (Like BA, iTunes and Amazon) as foreign transactions and earns 4 points per £ 🙂 always use my IHG when j book BA flights now

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

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