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I just received an email announcing some substantial Tesco Clubcard changes. Here it is in full:

“We want to let you know about a change we’re making to the value of the Clubcard vouchers you use with our Reward Partners.

Previously your vouchers were worth 2 times their value with some of our Reward Partners – and others were worth 4 times.

We’ve decided to make things easier. From today, you’ll get 3 times the value of your vouchers across the majority of our Reward Partners at tesco.com/clubcard/boost.”

Obviously the first thing I checked was what was happening with transfers to Avios and Virgin Flying Club, and I’m pleased to report that there don’t appear to be any changes there.

As you can see above, the transfer rates are still advertised as being 240 Avios or 250 Virgin Flying Club Miles per £1 of Clubcard vouchers.

The changes are already in effect and the big losers are the previous 4x redemption options, including restaurant partners like Pizza Express, where you will now only get 3x the value of your Clubcard vouchers:

Given that the sort of restaurant chains that participate usually have 241 and 50% discount offers available that aren’t stackable with using Clubcard vouchers, you weren’t often really getting 4x in real value, but it’s certainly worse now (unless the rules on stacking deals are also changed?).

The big improvement from the Tesco Clubcard changes is with the old 2x partners, which now offer 3x the value of your vouchers. As regards travel, the first thing that sprung to my mind was to check the coach and train options, and it’s good news! Megabus, National Express and train booking site Redspottedhanky are now all 3x partners – that’s an improvement of 50% over the old 2x rate!

Bottom line

I haven’t had chance to analyse things fully yet, but my initial impression is that the Tesco Clubcard changes are positive overall.

The old 4x partners rarely resulted in a genuine saving of that scale, given the ubiquity of other (non stackable) discount options, so weren’t often a great use of Clubcard vouchers really.

The old 2x options now offer a genuine 3x value and that’s a big improvement on things like coach tickets and train tickets (though Redspottedhanky still has annoying fees you need to bear in mind).

I’m sure there’s lots more to discuss here – go and have a look and please share what you spot in the comments below!