Raw deal on holidays for Tesco Clubcard holders

slightly different problem with tesco clubcard points but my wife and I have had several weekends away with tesco clubcard but hotel chains in the scheme seem very reluctant to offer rooms using this scheme. I have to book very many weeks ahead, have to be very flexible with both the weekends selected and also destination required. It makes me wonder whether this scheme is worth pursueing

Noticed this a couple of years ago, tried to book two nights for four in a mercure hotel in london using my vouchers, This was also 3 months before i intended to go, on getting the price from central reservations at mercure i was quoted the price of £700 for 2 double rooms bed and breakfast while at the same time on the hotels website i could get the same deal for £490, when queried i was told i would need to take it up with tesco, which i did to no avail, spoke to the highest person i could regarding this but the informed me that they could not discuss their tie in with the hotel group and if that was the price quoted that was what i would have to pay, got my vouchers returned used them for eating out, which is still dodgy, you have to do your homework there as well as some resturaunts are at it too.

I have also had the same situation with Irish Ferries. I looked for prices to sail from Holyhead to Dublin on 25/4/14 going out and returning on 1/6/14, both trips on Fast Ferry services. Price using Tesco Clubcards was £359 and with no Clubcard use £319. Why should we have this differential? I feel I’m being cheated out of a promised ‘deal’.

I have used the Clubcard voucher scheme since it started but I do feel it has gone downhill since they stopped giving you 4 times the amount. I have used them for short breaks in the same 5* hotel for years, but found that last year the difference was really noticeable, it was costing £260 per night on vouchers and less than £200 without- making one wonder if it is really worth using them for this.

Many years ago I did buy a holiday and paid virtually in full (you are unable to do this now) with the Tesco vouchers so things are definitely not getting better.

I have used the Clubcard voucher scheme since it started but I do feel it has gone downhill since they stopped giving you 4 times the amount. I have used them for short breaks in the same 5* hotel for years, but found that last year the difference was really noticeable, it was costing £260 per night on vouchers and less than £200 without- making one wonder if it is really worth using them for this.

Many years ago I did buy a holiday and paid virtually in full (you are unable to do this now) with the Tesco vouchers so things are definitely not getting better.

I have looked at various websites and found other people have changed their minds on using Tesco vouchers and decided to return them and book direct with Macdonald Hotels. Food for thought.

I booked a Cosmos holiday with my Tesco clubcard vouchers prior to seeing your information in the latest Which. Checked online and found the one week holiday I booked for 2 people costs 877.52 including an upgrade for B&B and transfers. The cost of the holiday with the clubcard vouchers was £1000.50. I added in transfers which cost £12 each but when I booked with the clubcard vouchers I was not given the option to not have transfers. We are actually hiring a car so don’t need transfers but I wanted a like for like comparison.
They really should make it clearer when you go on the website and I believe Tesco have a responsibility to be up front about their deals.

I have used the Tesco clubcard scheme for many years, but I question whether I will continue to do so after the way I was treated just before Christmas. I purchased an Apple TV via the rewards exchange. There was a 25% discount from the standard price by using the vouchers – but my issue is the fact that when I reported the Apple TV as faulty to Tesco, they simply did not want to know, stating that the item was a “corporate gift” and that I would have to take-up the issue with Apple. (Reluctantly, I had no choice but to take this course of action – and Apple were very helpful and supplied me with a replacement Apple TV). I was offered no help at all by Tesco, even though they were happy to supply the item. In future, I shall purchase electrical items from John Lewis, who would, I am convinced, have replaced the faulty item should I have had to return it to the retailer. Not good customer service, Tesco

I see the comments about Cosmos when using Tesco clubcards for booking holidays in the January 2014 edition of Which? If you want to use Clubcards for booking holidays, you could do worse than convert the Clubcard points to Avios (formerly Airmiles). Since collecting Airmiles using Tesco Clubcard my wife and I have had a totally FREE return flight to Lisbon with BA and a totally FREE return flight to Paris, also with BA, who incidentally were excellent. In both cases it included taxes and charges etc. In the second instance, Airmiles were in the process of converting to Avios, which charge taxes and fees, and I was allowed to book the flights in Airmiles and convert to Avios afterwards. Avios regularly have special offers and the latest offering is a 24-day Caribbean cruise with a 40% discount on the P & O price with 10,000 Avios. The result is a 24-DAY Cruise with outside cabin for £1289 each, advertised P & O price is over £2100, a saving for the two of us of about £1700. For another 20,000 Avios we get a 4-star hotel room in Southampton the night before sailing, 25 days car parking at the hotel and a taxi to and from the docks at the beginning and end of the holiday – ALL for £45, and we still have 20,000 Avios in the bank. We sail in March. Bearing in mind we pay the same price for the groceries with or without collecting Clubcard points, they really are free. To put icing on the cake, we now have a branch of Aldi just 100yds from Tesco. Now we have cheap groceries and fantastic special offers from Aldi, the full range of goods available at Tesco that aren’t available at Aldi, not to mention the regular 5p per litre discount offers on petrol when we stock up with goods which we would have bought anyway in the fullness of time. The offers are all out there, all it requires is engaging brain.

We booked a holiday with cosmos using our tesco vouchers to find there was a difference in price I wrote an e-mail to them asking why, I got a reply that made sense and they asked me what type of holiday and where the broucher price was 499 per person, they came back with 374.75 per person and when I went to book 355.75 then we had to take of the 75.00 per person in vouchers total price for 7 nights in egypt 5 star all inc 280.75 I think a great deal you just have to ask why the price is so different.

When booking a Virgin holiday when using the Tesco clubcard, one is forced to go through a live phone operator, thereby loosing the approx 5% discount available to those who book online. Also, when trying to book a Cunard cruise before the end of Feb 2014 in order to obtain the $500 onboard spend voucher, I was told that, such offer would be lost of I were to use my clubcard. I therfore tend to think that all Tesco clubcard “deals” are similarly tainted.

In January I booked a cruise using tesco clubcard points with P&O cruises although the price I was charged for the cruise was the same as if I had not used deals I was not able to have the offer of on board credit and free parking. This made my £555 vouchers only worth £115 as the on board credit would have been £440 not a good deal I wont be shopping in tesco to get points the deals have gone downhill in the last 2 years

My situation involved a Nectar card. I decided to use my Nectar points in exchange for tickets to Chessington World of Adventures. Unlike Tesco Clubcard points, which have to be exchanged for vouchers in advance of a visit to Chessington, you just hand over your Nectar card at the ticket booth and the points are deducted directly from the card. I requested two adult tickets and one senior, but they were only able to deduct points for three adults, meaning I didn’t benefit from the reduced senior price. I felt I had missed out as I hadn’t been able to save points by exchanging less points for the senior ticket. In future I will exchange points for adult tickets, but not for a senior ticket, where you don’t gain anything.

Dear all, it’s not just Cosmos, Virgin charged us hundreds of pounds more than their online and brochure price, we had already swapped the vouchers so couldn’t do anything else, except book the holiday. When I complained, their weak excuse was that their prices were ‘live’. At the least its a rubbish deal, at worst my personal view is its a con. I now shop at Aldi and Lidl and go on holiday with BA.

As with many people above I’ve encountered this issue with Irish Ferries, I was hoping to use my £75 of Tesco Clubcard vouchers on a return Ferry trip to Ireland. I went through the online booking process with out select the Tesco Vouchers option and my fare cost £333, however when I went through the same booking system but this time selected Tesco vouchers sterling the cost of the fare was £373, that’s a £20 admin fee each way. In the terms and conditions that come with the vouchers it states that Irish Ferries charge a £20 admin fee, I don’t understand how the admin costs can increase when using the same booking system for both fares and also how a return fare booking means that admin costs are doubled there is no extra admin required. I thought there was an EU ruling against excessive admin charges when using online booking to come into force in 2014 or does this just apply to the admin fee in relation to credit cards?