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Big changes to Tesco Clubcard – with no notice – as many redemptions dropped or cut in value

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Tesco announced a pile of changes to the Clubcard scheme yesterday.  We have covered these in detail on Shopper Points today – click here.  We covered them for The Guardian as well – see here.

In general, the changes are bad.

Some little-used ‘two times’ deals will now give 3x face value, but a lot more deals which used to give 4x face value are dropping to 3x.  This mainly impacts restaurant and days out vouchers.

From a travel perspective, it is actually positive to neutral:

National Express, Megabus and redspottedhanky.com (train tickets) credit now gets you 3x the face value of your Clubcard vouchers, up from 2x

There is no change to the Avios or Virgin Flying Club conversion rates 

You have also gained Uber and hotels.com as new 3x face value redemption partners this year.  Uber is now my preferred redemption as we use it heavily and it is a genuine ‘3x’ value.  If I took Avios instead I would be giving up £3 of Uber for every 240 Avios I earned which means I would be ‘paying’ 1.25p per Avios – and I don’t value them at that.

To do this without ANY notice at all stinks, however.  It particularly stinks that we are just 9 days from the end of the current Clubcard collection quarter.  People have 10 weeks of points locked up inside Clubcard which cannot now be spent at the old 4x redemption rate.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

Tesco Clubcard

Comments (257)

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

  • Dominic says:
    16 Jan16 January 06:47

    Morning! If I have the Platinum Card I won’t qualify for the Gold sign-up bonus; is that correct? Thanks

  • Genghis says:
    16 Jan16 January 06:47

    Decisions decisions. About to start remortgage process so said I wouldn’t apply for any new cards. Still not worth screwing up anything in “real life”. Anyone any thoughts?

    • Rtid says:
      16 Jan16 January 07:11

      I have been through this dilemma. I have been churning the SPG, BA Amex, Gold and the upgrade to Plat for 2 years. Also started 2 remortgages in the period and I had no problem at all. My credit score remained 900+ and when speaking to mortgage advisors they were fine with it. I guess it will differ based on personal circumstances/lender erg but we had no problems at all.

    • RTS says:
      16 Jan16 January 09:14

      Might credit score doesn’t seem to ever get affected when i am churning… and there has been times when i have opened and closed several cards in the space of a month.

    • Cate says:
      16 Jan16 January 12:09

      We’ve recently mortgaged and card churning never got a second look in in terms of priorities. You never know when the mortgage rates will change so it’s a double risk. We locked ours in for five years just before the rate went up which makes up for the lost churn by a mile.

  • Lou says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:02

    I’m intrigued, what’s the gold to platinum upgrade offer?

    • Lou says:
      16 Jan16 January 07:03

      Whoops, just saw it further up 🙂

      • Mike says:
        16 Jan16 January 07:54

        Lou – It is a bonus 20K MR for upgrading from Gold to Plat and spending £1,000. Cancel the Plat and get a pro rata refund of the £450 card fee. Upgrade must be done using a special AMEX link – which someone may post here for you as I don’t have it to hand.

        • shd says:
          16 Jan16 January 11:37

          Does this only work from the personal Gold to personal Plat?

          Is there a similar offer for the small biz Gold to small biz Plat ?

      • Grimz says:
        16 Jan16 January 10:44

        How long is this bonus on for? I have just hit the bonus on the Gold card and i have a referral for BAPP and Gold in the next month or so is it worth me upgrading to Plat?

  • Simon says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:06

    Still want to know how the card companies will handle “you can’t have the same bonus again” once the “right to be forgotten” data protection legislation kicks in May.

    I am hoping that, after cancelling a card I’ll be able to exercise my right to have all their data on me deleted, which will make me a new customer as far as their system is concerned. (I know it will not be this simple but it does raise questions for card companies and the credit reference agencies.)

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:
      16 Jan16 January 07:22

      They can just ask you the question during the application process. Obtaining money by deception is fraud. Not sure I’d like to rely on the defense that MR points are not money.

      • RIccatti says:
        16 Jan16 January 08:23

        The fact that MR or any points are not redeemable for fiat money is written in T&Cs of each scheme. Otherwise, one will have tax liability.

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
      16 Jan16 January 07:30

      Might be an angle there if you cancel your entire relationship (I expect issuers will retain information on closed accounts for fraud prevention, but purpose limitation prevents them from using that data for commercial purposes), but I would expect you to struggle to exercise that right if you still hold other cards – as you might do with Amex. They could reasonably argue that they need to hold a full recent picture of you in performance of your current contract; which would not require your consent.

    • George says:
      16 Jan16 January 07:45

      Right to be forgotten is superseded by laws regarding the storage of financial transactions IIRC, so sadly this won’t work.

      • Bagoly says:
        16 Jan16 January 08:21

        Grammar pedantry: I think the correct word is (or used to be!) “trumped”!

      • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
        16 Jan16 January 08:24

        Disagree, they’ll have the data but I don’t think they would have grounds to process it for commercial purposes.

    • S says:
      16 Jan16 January 09:46

      Yes, but businesses also have the right to protect themselves against fraud, and they will pull off that excuse and won’t forget everything they know about your Membership Rewards account.

    • John says:
      16 Jan16 January 09:52

      You may gain the right to be forgotten but they already have the right not to issue you with a card unless you let them remember you.

      It’s the same thing with this “open banking” nonsense. Eventually financial institutions will require that you share all your transaction data with them or else you won’t get the best interest/mortgage/loan rates or even credit cards, but they will still comply with regulations or whatever by offering a basic non-useful product which doesn’t require sharing data.

      • the_real_a says:
        16 Jan16 January 14:05

        I see where you are going and agree to an extent, but there isn’t a central database. You will provide a login for each financial institution, so you can choose to be selective.

  • Tilly says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:13

    Was going to cancel both gold and BAPP cards at the end of the month. So I shouldn’t now? As a newbie to this hobby (only 7 months in) this is a bit disappointing if I can’t play the card churning game. Was relying on being to apply again in August with husband’s referrals.

    • Polly says:
      16 Jan16 January 14:48

      You really ought to upgrade your gold to plat then refer your OH for a card he doesn’t have. You will getn20k for a 1k spend in 1 month..You will also get 18k if you refer someone too. Always be earning towards a bonus.
      So keep going, nothing has changed…

      • Tilly says:
        16 Jan16 January 22:16

        He already has the gold and BAPP cards. Working towards our second 241 companion voucher on the BAPP at the moment so I’m doing all my spending on the supplementary card on his account.

        The plat charge card is expensive and for someone like me on an average London salary it’s a lot when we’re also holding 2 x BAPP card accounts too although i really need to downgrade/close mine and get the pro rata refund. Was going to do it this weekend to start the 6 month wait to reapply but now wondering based on this article if i should hold off.

        Majority of my points come from sign up bonuses as I don’t travel abroad for work, only up and down the country and around London on public transport.

  • Matt says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:27

    So I know we don’t know what will happen, but what are the rumours?

  • ee says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:28

    Urgh, I applied to upgrade my gold to platinum but no instant decision (seems I always get this but my partner with 1/4 of the income usually gets instant acceptance). Strange. She needs referring back to gold at the end of the month so hopefully the 6 month rule won’t change until February…!

  • Anthony says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:32

    Can a Amex Gold business card holder refer someone for the normal Gold card?

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

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