Launched to some fanfare a few weeks back, but almost immediately beset by problems with vouchers not working and excluded hotel lists being unclear / very long, Tesco Clubcard recently added Hotels.com as a 3x redemption partner! Full details on the Tesco site at https://secure.tesco.com/clubcard/boost/hotelscom/UK-009591.prd After Raffles had his well publicised issues with it, and based on what he found out when the Tesco press office got in touch with him to apologise, and with all the chain hotels showing silly prices for an upcoming trip, I figured I'd give it a try.... So, a few things to know. You must browse and book through the special Tesco landing page on Hotels.com - http://www.hotels.com/?rffrid=mdp.hcom.GB.550.000.00 - otherwise the voucher won't be accepted! And it needs to be a hotel that accepts pre-payment, "pay at hotel" only hotels won't work Having found the hotel you want to stay at, the next step is to find the tax-exclusive price. Thankfully this doesn't seem to be a vat-exclusive price, just the one excluding any city taxes and fees. For my recent 2 night booking, the headline price was £238.30, which turned out to be £216.64 in "hotel" and £21.66 in "taxes". Now, head to the Tesco clubcard site, go to the hotels.com redemption option at https://secure.tesco.com/clubcard/boost/hotelscom/UK-009591.prd , and pick the amount you want to redeem. Any amount over the "hotel" price will be lost, and only £5 chunks of clubcard points can be used. So for me, I turned £70.00 of clubcard points into a £210 voucher It took a couple of minutes for the order confirmation to come through, and maybe 5 more minutes for the second email with the code in. Then, back to hotels.com via the special link, find the hotel, click through, apply the voucher, and pay the rest. For me that was the £6.64 of hotel cost from the voucher £5 chunks, and the £21.66 of taxes, total amount £28.30. In total, that gets me £238.30 of hotel for £98.30, so more than 2x value, but (due to £5 chunk requirements and no use on taxes) not the 3x the headline rate suggests
Isn't the biggest problem that only "Independent" hotels are included? Basically EVERY chain hotel is excluded... which puts me off slightly. I know I might be missing out on some wonderful "local" experiences, but I'm a bit guarded travelling as a gay couple and being part of an internationally recognised brand gives me a bit more confidence we'll get fair/indifferent treatment.
Great breakdown and good to see it actually does work! I'm still a bit light on Clubcard Points at the moment so won't be trying it out soon, but there definitely could be value there.
Presumably you miss out on cashback as well as Welcome Rewards, so there's a +/- 20% rebate abandoned as well. Well worthy of a full blog post though, especially if you took screenshots along the way. (something I need to do more of, as I only think of the blog post after the fact...)
I believe that, as long as you book through the magic link, chain hotels are included. Bookings made with the Tesco vouchers don't get cashback and don't count for Hotels.com rewards, so there's another bit of value gone, but I think it's still a decent deal...
Sounds like a good idea in principle, but in reality just too complicated for the average consumer to understand.
It's a hell of a lot easier than the existing Tesco Clubcard Hilton (UK Only) redemptions, which involve making a booking on the phone, requesting a code from tesco, posting things to Hilton, hoping it doesn't get lost in the post, dealing with hotel staff who still try to charge you etc...
For anyone interested, I've written this up with a few more details and screenshots for the main site - https://insideflyer.co.uk/2017/07/hotels-com-tesco-clubcard-good-bad-ugly/
Great post, but I did get a bit lost when you wrote that there is a £100 maximum and you spent £210... Flying straight to Barcelona from Birmingham?
Maximum use of £100 clubcard points = maximum voucher of £300 I've tried to make it a bit clearer in the article, did that help?
Makes sense to me. Although the cashback and welcome rewards works out as the better option for me. Think I'll continue auto-converting my Tesco points to VS.
I can't think of a single reason to auto-convert to VS. Let the vouchers build up and wait for a transfer bonus. Admittedly the bonus has only been 10% since the devaluation, but it's still better than nothing.
Unless VS used to have a higher conversion rate, and Barry1984 has grandfather rights to that higher rate. I've never been a VS miles collector, so not sure if they used to offer a higher rate, like BA/Avios.
VS is relatively recent,and has always been 250 per £1, apart from promo bonuses. So no grandfathering... What they have done is offer 1,000 miles for setting up "auto-convert". But you are free to turn off auto-convert (and turn it back on if another 1,000 mile bonus is offered) without missing anything.
