Tesco Clubcard and Avios divorce in two weeks – how should you play it?

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• Kevin B says:

  4 Jan4 January 08:57

  Don’t forget you need to leave £1.50 in your Clubcard account if you haven’t taken advantage of the 2000 bonus for auto-converting to Virgin.

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jan4 January 09:10

    Only if you collect virgin points – if you don’t, you can just clear out the account to Avios.

• BJ says:

  4 Jan4 January 08:59

  Why would BA take a huge hit to their avios income by partnering with JL/Waitrose who only have a small market share? Doesn’t this mean that Nectar are the only viable alternative to Tesco given that Asda don’t do loyalty?

  • BuildBackBetter says:

    4 Jan4 January 09:13

    Depends on how many actually convert to avios and what rate they are willing to pay. Waitrose customers are affluent and travel savvy. Plus JLP might be willing to pay more for avios exclusivity

    • BJ says:

      4 Jan4 January 09:59

      Problem I see with this is that if customer base are more affluent and travel-savvy they are more likely reading the likes of HfP and redeeming on J/F with a 2-4-1. I cannot see that being in BA interests, they would presumably much prefer customers doing daft redemptions in Y via the least sensible option, seat selection, hotels etc.

  • Rob says:

    4 Jan4 January 09:31

    Avios wants to be the dominant partner with whoever it partners with. This is more important than scale. Remember that BA has voluntarily dropped Tesco in order to get a more prominent role with another supermarket.

    • BJ says:

      4 Jan4 January 10:08

      What do you think they would hope to achieve with a more dominant role though? Is there that much more that can be done with an avios earn/burn partnership than is being done at the monent? Interfering too much would presumably only frustrate the partner and sour relations, and for the customers there is a fine line between frustrating them and exciting them with rules and promotions.

      • Rob says:

        4 Jan4 January 10:47

        Big fish, small pond.

        What does Tesco do for BA at the moment? Nothing. Tesco, to some extent, leeches off the Avios brand equity (to get you into its stores) but does nothing for Avios in return – apart from send them money, of course.

        I think they want a partner who will do more to promote the Avios brand.

        • BJ says:

          4 Jan4 January 11:03

          Whatever it is, it will hopefully be interesting for a while at least. I’m walking distance from Waitrose, Sainsbury, M&S and Morrisons so hopefully I have all the bases covered 🙂

        • kitten says:

          4 Jan4 January 21:30

          sounds awfully like Sainsbury’s to me.

          Nectar not rolled in immediately… or posibly.

          I think it the supermarket originally involved with Avios’s precursor Air Miles, was Sainsbury”s as well.

• Peter says:

  4 Jan4 January 09:01

  This probably only applies to a few people but there is cap of 30000 points being made available through faster vouchers in a quarter.

  • blenz101 says:

    4 Jan4 January 11:44

    Yes, the cap is there for all forms of voucher faster or posal and point type (they treat Tesco Bank and Instore points differently when you request vouchers).

    It particularly frustrates MS via Tesco bank earned points as it is only possible to have one debit or credit card. Back in the day of generous instore promotions mutilple clubcard accounts could be used to get around the cap.

    • Chris Heyes says:

      4 Jan4 January 15:28

      Bienz101 Was always still easy to get round the Tesco Cap did it for years Clubcard my name Clubcard partners name Double the Cap
      Also Clubcard House in Blackburn, Clubcard Flat in Bognor Regis, 4 times the Cap lol
      That was until they twigged, but no repercussions just told only one address
      Was ok by me left me/us with still “Double” the cap

      • Blenz101 says:

        4 Jan4 January 20:35

        Yes, that’s what I meant. What the cap did/does prevent is excessive points earning via Tesco bank (manufactured spend) given you can’t personally have more than one credit or current account.

• Kelvin says:

  4 Jan4 January 09:34

  Transfer points not showing on my account even though there are 719 points there

• Lesley Sinclair says:

  4 Jan4 January 09:40

  Hope its not John Lewis / Waitrose as there are no Waitrose shops in most of Scotland ( just the south ) and the nearest John Lewis is 77 miles from us. Also no shops in Norther Ireland. Shame to leave out all the BA customers in these areas.

  • Andrew says:

    4 Jan4 January 11:50

    Online shopping is what we keep hearing is all people want to do now, so that’s still an option regardless of location.

  • Anuj says:

    4 Jan4 January 13:22

    Waitrose totally withdrew from Manchester. The only JL is far away in Trafford. By picking Waitrose BA will just reinforce how it’s a airline for Londoners and southerners

  • Jill ( Kinkell) says:

    4 Jan4 January 14:02

    Nearest JL is 120 miles away and nearest Waitrose ,I think is Edinburgh which is 150+ miles away. So most Scots are stuffed!

    • ExEDI says:

      4 Jan4 January 14:34

      Most Scots are stuffed? Are you sure?
      Isn’t it true that majority of the Scottish population live in the central belt?
      Isn’t it also true that there are 7 Waitrose stores and 2 John Lewis stores located in the central belt?
      Remember retail businesses locate where the majority of their customers are located; not where you personally are located.

• mark2 says:

  4 Jan4 January 09:53

  In order to use ‘Fast Vouchers’ you need to have your option set to ‘Vouchers’ rather than Auto Convert to Avios
  or Virgin Miles.
  So change the option momentarily while you convert the points then change back.

  • Kelvin says:

    4 Jan4 January 10:25

    Thanks for that

  • Harry Holden says:

    4 Jan4 January 10:39

    This alarmed me as I was a lazy auto-converter having realised bonuses were a thing of the past. It appears that the Auto-convert has already been removed as when I logged onto the account, the option to order Fast vouchers was already there.

• BJ says:

  4 Jan4 January 10:11

  What about Amazon/Morrisons?

  • Navara says:

    4 Jan4 January 10:28

    Or Lidl

    • ankomonkey says:

      4 Jan4 January 15:12

      Or multiple supermarkets. Cover the vast majority of the population… Then the supermarkets can compete with juicy offers for their customers 🙂

• Sharon S says:

  4 Jan4 January 10:16

  Will Virgin accept more than one clubcard account auto converting to one flying club account ? ie Creditcard, Clubcard & Current account.

  • Rob says:

    4 Jan4 January 10:45

    Your points should all be flowing into the same Clubcard account. If not, ask Tesco to merge them – it makes your life a bit easier.

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