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tesco partner offers hassle

(58 Posts)
madeleine45 Thu 12-Dec-24 12:45:11

In the past I have tended to save tesco vouchers and use them for christmas food. Now a widow and living alone I thought despite their value going down from +3 to +2 worth I would look at some of the partner deals. What a monumental hassle it all is!! There is no simple choose a hotel ,use vouchers etc and have looked through a lot of different things., and they all seem to be set up in the most complicated way possible. Having read some of the reviews I am not the only person who thinks this. Do they hope you will be put off by the palaver and only use the vouchers in Tesco? I will definitely make sure to use mine, but if Tesco think that they get good will from customers , the way this is organised certainly does not help to promote good feelings.

ferry23 Thu 12-Dec-24 13:17:03

Oh I so agree. I almost gave up using my clubcard when I was issued with a new one. The palaver of trying to get onto the website with the new card was ridiculous - the amount of security hoops I had to jump through was more akin to trying to launder hundreds of thousands of pounds made through South American drug cartels rather than trying to access my £20 worth of vouchers!

Nandalot Thu 12-Dec-24 13:23:31

I love my Tesco vouchers! To be fair I have never used them for a hotel stay but regularly use them for Chef and Brewer and Pizza Express meals when we have extra grandchildren visiting. We always use them for our railcards and have used them in the past for Legoland.
(I do have a lot of vouchers as DD and her two hungry teens live with us.)

growstuff Thu 12-Dec-24 13:38:34

I confess that I have never tried to launder money through drug cartels, so I can't compare. However, I've had a Tesco Clubcard for years and haven't experienced problems redeeming the vouchers, either for shopping or for third party 'treats'. I like them. They're paying in full for my online shop before Christmas.

keepingquiet Thu 12-Dec-24 13:46:57

I wish I knew how they worked! I've been shopping with my Clubcard for years but never used these vouchers- how do you get them? I feel I'm missing out somehow...

Tizliz Thu 12-Dec-24 13:58:51

keepingquiet

I wish I knew how they worked! I've been shopping with my Clubcard for years but never used these vouchers- how do you get them? I feel I'm missing out somehow...

start here. secure.tesco.com/clubcard/reward-partners?srsltid=AfmBOoraqquyl_98ZPDLnVJs6SfIoKlVyO2bb-95UcV3J7ASE7YTTeNc

do find it difficult but you probably have enough to make it worthwhile. If some have expired you can ring up and ask for them to be reissued

keepingquiet Thu 12-Dec-24 21:44:42

Tizliz- thankyou.

I used the link to find out I could get £3 off a senior railcard costing £30.

Then I clicked on my account to find I have no vouchers, so I still don't know how people manage to go on holidays and things with their Tesco vouchers. I shop at Tesco all the time and always use my clubcard- what am I doing wrong?

Floradora9 Thu 12-Dec-24 21:52:28

keepingquiet

Tizliz- thankyou.

I used the link to find out I could get £3 off a senior railcard costing £30.

Then I clicked on my account to find I have no vouchers, so I still don't know how people manage to go on holidays and things with their Tesco vouchers. I shop at Tesco all the time and always use my clubcard- what am I doing wrong?

Look up the phone number for the Tesco clubcard helpline. I find they are always very good so they will tell you what is happening to your points. Do you show your clubcard every time you shop ? That is important .

Redrobin51 Thu 12-Dec-24 21:53:13

I've found the Tesco helpline very helpful. Ring them up and say you are a bit confused on how to get your vouchers and I am sure they will explain the procedure. Good luck.x

keepingquiet Thu 12-Dec-24 22:00:50

Yes, I already said I use my clubcard everytime and Tesco is my local store so I use it a lot.

Thanks anyway- I may give them a ring if I've time tomorrow but maybe I just don't spend enough. I'm pretty frugal really and only get a few pounds worth of coupons every three months. I suppose you have to spend more to save more, which defeats the object really.

Allira Thu 12-Dec-24 22:19:40

Years ago I bought some good quality crockery with mine which is still going strong.

Otherwise, I've just used them at Christmas for food.

madeleine45 Thu 12-Dec-24 23:02:42

Yes worth checking with the helpline. Some years ago, my husband and I joined our clubcards together. At that time we literally kept all our vouchers through the year, to buy all the christmas food and drink. I was not well , so my husband wen t to get all the christmas stuff , and fortunately was known by the local staff there. He went to pay with the vouchers and she said they had all been used. he adamantly said that none of them had been used as they had been collected in a drawer and never left the house. We lived in North Yorkshire and it was found that it had all been spent in Hertfordshire. The sneaky thief must have worked in tesco as they had removed my name and substituted another name and then spent the lot!! It was a major hassle at the time as I was worried someone had got into our bank details or whatever, but the tesco fraud people investigated and we were given the money back but it was a rotten thing to do.
Thank you all for your comments, and I will probably get in touch with the help line in the new year, for myself - to ask for their assistance in seeing I dont make a mess of it, but will also be asking them to look at the way it works - or doesnt work and suggest that they should make it as easy as shopping on line with them !(Not that I find that very easy either, time consuming!!)It has been good to have a moan about it and hear your responses. When you live on your own there is no one to come bank and share it with, good or bad. Happly Christmas to you all and may you get good value for your purchases!!

Marydoll Thu 12-Dec-24 23:13:18

keepingquiet

I wish I knew how they worked! I've been shopping with my Clubcard for years but never used these vouchers- how do you get them? I feel I'm missing out somehow...

If you log on to your Tesco account, you will find them stored therethere. A few weeks ago, I found £32 worth of vouchers, I never knew I had!

keepingquiet Fri 13-Dec-24 09:56:55

It said I had none. I think I will ring them today to get some clarity.

I tend to spend my coupons on groceries so maybe that's why?

What's the difference between a coupon and a voucher?

Marydoll Fri 13-Dec-24 10:06:03

Does a coupon give money off an item and a voucher is like getting cash?

Marydoll Fri 13-Dec-24 10:11:51

Here you go!

Jaxjacky Fri 13-Dec-24 10:27:23

I used some of ours two weeks ago for three free months of Disney + it was simple to do.

Tizliz Fri 13-Dec-24 10:31:42

Marydoll

Does a coupon give money off an item and a voucher is like getting cash?

Yes, coupons are only valid for a short time and you have to buy a specific product, vouchers can be used to pay for either groceries or experiences and are valid for three years

TerriBull Fri 13-Dec-24 11:08:54

I tried to get a Tesco Club Card whilst using that store, to cut a long story short, the access road to my usual Sainsburys was non accessible for a few months, gas works. So found myself shopping in Tesco for a while. Sometime in the dim and distant past I must have had one of their cards registered to an old address and phone number, would it allow me to change any of that online? Positively impossible umpteen goeshmm Sometimes life's too short. Since that time road repaired and we now have a brand new and excellent Aldi in walking distance of Sainsbury's and Waitrose so the out of town Tesco I briefly used is history for me.

Dickens Fri 13-Dec-24 11:39:19

In spite of the fact that my OH and I previously ran a small business, fairly successively, I don't have a 'business head' so am talking from a relatively ignorant POV.

... and this is what I question about vouchers and coupons - under any supermarket reward scheme, be it Clubcard or Nectar, or whatever.

Where does the money come from to support these schemes?

Supermarkets do not freely give you anything. If there were no such thing as rewards schemes, they would have to compete on price alone which would result, inevitably, in a race to the bottom for them.

Isn't that why these schemes were developed? To keep customers 'loyal' to the supermarket? To keep their market share? Otherwise, we'd just shop around.

Have we not already paid for these vouchers that give £10 / £15 off our groceries? Surely the cost of these is simply loaded onto the various goods the supermarket sells?

Are we not, in effect, simply paying-up-front, and then getting that same money back in the form of vouchers?

Anyone ?

TerriBull Fri 13-Dec-24 12:01:59

I think the retail rationale behind the Nectar/Tesco Club cards, is as you say Dickens to procure the customer's loyalty. The annual turnover and profits of our larger supermarkets , particularly Tesco enables them to offer such sweetners I imagine. I probably won't stay that loyal to Sainsbury's now Aldi has arrived in my town. I shop between Sainsburys, Aldi and Waitrose anyway, the occasional thing coming from Marks. New to Aldi I think they offer excellent value on some of their lines and they are able to undercut their competitors by having fewer goods on offer, but I think that has not deterred the general public in flocking to them. Their rapid ascent has given the major chains a run for their money. I think I read somewhere Tesco has 40,000 products whilst Aldi will only have 2,000. I think it could be argued that the consumer is offered too much choice if a supermarket carries such an excessive number of items. .

keepingquiet Fri 13-Dec-24 16:02:40

Alleuluia! I have spoken to a very nice lady who explained to me that there is far more benefit in 'banking' the vouches that in spending them to get money off your shop, which is what I have been doing for seven years!

Although I was still a bit confused about the £3 off a railcard offer because she said if I banked my vouchers it could be £18 off.

She basically said it was silly to use them to get money off groceries when they were worth far more if you used them for the partners offers.

So I am very grateful for this thread and hope to start 'banking' my vouchers from now on, and really wondering why no one ever told me this before!

Dickens Fri 13-Dec-24 17:35:32

“The Tesco Clubcard price thing is a scam,” Twitter user @figureight captioned a photo of Oreos priced at 60p with a Clubcard and £1 without."

"These always used to be 60p but now it’s a ‘special offer?"

(editorial from The Independent earlier this year)

Hmm...

Allira Fri 13-Dec-24 17:51:30

I can cope with Tesco vouchers but Waitrose and M&S loyalty cards are a complete mystery.

I used to get money-off vouchers from Waitrose and M&S but have never had any for years even though I do shop at both.

Allira Fri 13-Dec-24 17:52:50

Dickens

^“The Tesco Clubcard price thing is a scam,” Twitter user @figureight captioned a photo of Oreos priced at 60p with a Clubcard and £1 without."^

"These always used to be 60p but now it’s a ‘special offer?"

(editorial from The Independent earlier this year)

Hmm...

Everything's gone up, I suppose, and anyone without a Clubcard would pay £1