Tesco Killing Clubcard Points For Branded Gift Cards

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For as long as I remember, Tesco has given 150 Clubcard points when you purchase £50 of branded gift cards.

This effectively allows you to get Tesco Clubcard points for shopping at a wide range of other retailers. Buy the giftcards of your choice, reap the Clubcard points for doing so, then spend the gift cards at the retailer. I’ve used the offer on several occasions when I’ve needed to buy big ticket items at Argos or Homebase.  Remembering that 150 Clubcard points gets you 360 Avios, it works out at 7.2 Avios per £1 spent.

It’s therefore disappointing to see that Tesco is flagging up the impending withdrawal of this offer.

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This is the first time I’ve seen a cut-off date mentioned in relation to the offer. It’s always possible that Tesco will extend it, but it’s pretty clear that it’s days are numbered.  If they do stick to the advertised date, then you’ve still got a 2-week window in which to buy any gift cards you might need.  The list of branded cards they offer is quite extensive, with Debenhams, Currys and House of Frazer being examples. You can see the entire range here. 

All good things come to an end

Offers come and go, and you need to take advantage of ones whilst they are around. However, this one has been about for such a long time, it long ago stopped being seen as an “offer”. Its likely they’ll switch to giving face value clubcard points, or possibly drop points entirely for branded gift cards. Whatever they switch to, it’s almost guaranteed to be a worse offer.

Remember, it’s worth looking ahead to see if you’ll need to shop at some of the supported retailers in a few months time.  If so, you should consider buying the gift cards now and banking the Tesco points.  Just ensure you are confident that the retailer isn’t going to go bust in the meantime.

Comments

  1. Adam says

    I reported this on HFP on sunday night as i came across it on the official Tesco site looking for any new deals, was nice to get a thanks from Raffles for my post!
    Talk of 1 point per £4 spent on GC’s discussed recently with a staff member and there is always the possibility of the tesco instore dec magazine having the 100 pts coupon per £20 spend.

    • Ian Macky says

      It’ll be interesting to see what they replace it with.

      If you do the numbers, there isn’t much profit margin in GCs. Even if you value a clubcard point at just 1p means Tesco is giving 3% away. There is probably another 2% for the cost of taking the £50 credit card payment. So Tesco needs to be getting these for a 5% discount just to break even. The branded cards are supplied and distributed by a 3rd party. Even if it’s a wholly owned Tesco company, it needs to make a profit itself.

  2. Adam says

    We will have to wait and see but from comments on other forums lots are planning to give up clubcard collecting after this route closes, it was literally one of the easiest ways of earning free points for everyday spends.

    • Ian Macky says

      Yes, I’ve certainly used it on occasions I got the £8 WYS £90 type things to buy a couple of £50 visa cards, with the £8 covering the 2x£3.95 fee, giving free points

      Aslo during the era of 3V, this offer was used/abused a lot.

  3. Adam says

    Agree, ive got to buy a bulk of GSI cards this week with the spend and save coupons, will be the last time!
    You could still save money in the future using the S&S coupons against a GC purchase with a small amount of points.

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