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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 (October 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.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

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Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

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British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to up to 80,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 80,000 Avios. You will receive 8 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 22nd October 2024, the bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to up to 40,000 Membership Rewards points, worth 40,000 Avios. You will receive 4 points per £1 spent for the first three months, on up to £10,000 of spending. The card is FREE for your first year. Click here to read our full card review. Click here to apply.

American Express Business Platinum

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American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer and FREE for a year Read our full review

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.

  • Scottydoggiom says:
    16 Jan16 January 10:25

    This will be bad news for me as churning cards is my main source of points !

  • Maria J says:
    16 Jan16 January 10:25

    Hi my husband has just closed his Amex Platinum and need to decide what to do with the Amex Rewards? Which program is best to transfer to? Thank you

  • s says:
    16 Jan16 January 10:34

    no more churning will mean I no longer use AMEX. the sign up bonuses are a huge incentive – Will avoid due to the £140 annual charge on the gold card and without a viable way to earn AVIOS to make a 2-4-1 worth the £195 there is no point.

    it will mean plenty of redemption availability for those with lots of avios earned through work but the hobbyist looking to get club world or first flights on the cheap are out of the game.

    • Anna says:
      16 Jan16 January 11:03

      I wonder if there has been any pressure from BA/OneWorld? It would be natural for them to want to limit loyalty perks to the people who spend the most money with them, which is not the same as those who spend most money on Amex cards.

  • Rob says:
    16 Jan16 January 10:38

    I was under the impression that Avios had changed the rules and that – even if there was no WTP cabin – they pretended their was? This is why the BA1 London City ‘all business’ service is now bookable.

    • Lev441 says:
      16 Jan16 January 10:49

      Rob – I was able to do this using the Avios call centre a few months back – unless it’s changed since then?

      • roberto says:
        16 Jan16 January 11:00

        Avios would not let me use the lloyds voucher on Ba1 from LCY when I called a couple of months back. I hung up and phoned back a few days later and got the same news.

      • Genghis says:
        16 Jan16 January 11:39

        When I last checked you can price it up online.

    • Anna says:
      16 Jan16 January 11:00

      Yes – the system charges a notional WTP 40,000 avios each way for using this route.

  • Lev441 says:
    16 Jan16 January 10:48

    It’s the flights that use the mid haul ex bmi 321’s – mainly middle eastern routes
    From the top of my head it’s:
    – tel aviv
    – Cairo
    – Amman
    – Beirut
    – Moscow

  • MJT55 says:
    16 Jan16 January 11:16

    Can I ask a sort of related question here please? With the 10K bonus MR points for a £15K spend on an Amex Gold card, are these only payable if you “renew” (i.e. pay the second year’s membership fee) or if you cancel before then is there anyway of getting hold of this too? Hope that makes sense?!

    • Genghis says:
      16 Jan16 January 11:41

      The 10k bonus will be paid a month or so after your anniversary date so you will have to pay the £140 fee (refundable pro-rata).

    • Rob says:
      16 Jan16 January 12:14

      You get the points after 4 weeks. You can then cancel and get a pro-rata refund, so roughly £128 of your £140 will come back. As your Lounge Pass reloads with another 2 visits you may want to keep it for longer until you’ve used those.

      • MJT55 says:
        16 Jan16 January 16:05

        Thanks. Have hit target but still have another six months until renewal. Based on the original article it sounds better to hold on to it rather than cancel card and get a referral (for a bonus which may or may not exist) in six months time…

    • Grimz says:
      16 Jan16 January 12:56

      Wait till the points post around 6 weeks after year end and you get a pro rata refund on the £140 2nd year fee.

  • Clive says:
    16 Jan16 January 11:16

    Erm… does the referrer get the points bonus even if the referred person has had the card within the last 6 months and is ineligible for their own bonus? I had always assumed both bonuses depended upon the 6 month gap, but now I’m wondering if the referrer’s bonus doesn’t since they might not know the situation of the person they’re referring?

    • RTS says:
      16 Jan16 January 11:53

      Valid question. The T&Cs make no mention re: the referred must not have held the card in the past 6 months for the referral bonus to be paid out.

    • Cate says:
      16 Jan16 January 17:51

      I’ve referred MrCate from my plat for a SPG card although he recently cancelled his (Nov I think) and I was credited with 18mr.

  • Combatjohnny says:
    16 Jan16 January 11:22

    I guess I am probably in a much lower spending bracket than most people on this site so a change in the rules would definitely hit me hard. I haven’t even been in the churning game a year let either!

    • Lewis King says:
      16 Jan16 January 11:41

      Been in the game a bit over a year but definitely not a big spender by any means either. This would be very disappointing, but I have had one first class redemption to Mumbai and another soon to New York so I’ll have had my fair share of rewards if it does all change! The continued downward trend on prices for tickets is making reward flights less valuable too.

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