Raw deal on holidays for Tesco Clubcard holders

I am sure this sort of thing happens when you have discount vouchers/codes for hotels.
You are always asked to quote your discount code at the time of your booking before you are actually given the price of your stay.
Haven’t put this to the test but I’m sure someone may have noticed they could have got their stay at a similar price without the discount.
I might be being a bit synical but I’m sure these discounts are just bait.

My experience in July 2012 Tesco are well aware of the differences in prices when using Tesco clubcard vouchers against holidays but what really annoys me is that Tesco do not “prominently” display a link to the brochure that your vouchers will be based against and so when I researched an on-line Cosmos brochure for my holiday this was different to the link to their “adapted” on-line brochure resulting in a cost in excess of £315.

And although I see this as a rip off by Cosmos, Tesco are partly to blame for not highlighting this more prominently.

I don’t expect much to change but I think they should change their rewards site and put the links to the brochures alongside the Cosmos Logo on their reward site so there is no misunderstandings!.

(I should have cashed my vouchers in for Goldsmiths the Jewellers, bought some Jewellery and sold on e-bay and booked the holiday through their “non-Tesco influenced brochure” as I don’t think I would have lost over £300 that way).

In a similar vein, I find that buying car insurance through cash back sites such as Quidco are also inflated – making any savings in cash back negligible or worse than going direct to the insurer, or through a comparison site.

I spotted that Cosmos were hiking the prices for bookings made with clubcard vouchers earlier this year when I was looking to use £120 of vouchers as part payment for a holiday to Egypt. I complained to both Tesco and Cosmos. Tesco responded but the email basically said “tough”. Cosmos didn’t even bother to reply. In the past we’ve had two lovely holidays to the Maldives and two to Kenya with Virgin and Tradewinds, using our Tesco Vouchers to bring the cost down to an affordable level. The benefits of using vouchers to buy reward tokens has been gradually eroded over the years and now you only get 3 x face value, in most cases it takes much longer to build up enough vouchers for a worthwhile discount on a holiday or weekend break. I was so disappointed with Tesco’s response I voted with my feet. I used my remaining vouchers to buy a top of the range Sat Nav from Tesco Direct, closed my clubcard credit card and switched my allegiance to Sainsburys and Nectar card instead. I’m sure I am not the only one to make this choice. I won’t ever book a holiday with Cosmos either!

I tried to book an hotel room using tesco vouchers and ceased the transaction when I saw the same room at almost half the price. I still stayed at the hotel in the lower priced room as the hotel was closest to my function venue. Very disappointed with similar transactions for hotels in the past where rooms for tesco patrons were often of lower quality and usually in annexes rather than main building.

I have been using Tesco Clubcard vouchers for several years on the IRISH FERRIES Pembroke to Rosslare route and have noticed that over the last few years they have been charging extra when using the vouchers. This used to be £10 extra each way , then £15 extra each way and now its £20 extra. Just checked for a trip in March and the two prices are £241 v £301, an increase of over 15%!!

If you use your clubcard vouchers to buy a Warner Holiday you are charged twice the normal price of the holiday which does’nt seem right.

Cosmos have had higher prices for Tesco Clubcard voucher clients for years. This is obvious when you compare brochure price with Tesco price. However, with the triple multiple (sometimes quadruple) you can show a good profit. For example, the maximum voucher payment allowed is around £5/600 so, if you save vouchers for, say, two years (maximum validity of vouchers) to get to this limit, you get a good deal. Doubtful morality by Cosmos but they are not really secretive about the different price structures.

For those who still champion Tesco and/or Cosmos as moral this is an extract from the rewards site “You can now exchange £50 in Clubcard vouchers and receive a 1 x £100 Cosmos token code to put towards a huge selection of worldwide holidays offering the best prices available with Cosmos,
Please note: The maximum value of token codes that can be used on a Cosmos holiday is £100 per passenger aged 2+.” – WHY WOULD YOU!

For those of you who are still championing the Cosmos/Tesco corner, this is an up to extract from the rewards site. “You can now exchange £50 in Clubcard vouchers and receive a 1 x £100 Cosmos token code to put towards a huge selection of worldwide holidays offering the best prices available with Cosmos, The maximum value of token codes that can be used on a Cosmos holiday is £100 per passenger aged 2+.” WHY WOULD YOU!

Have found that when using Tesco vouchers to take our Grand kids on holiday to any Park Resorts caravan sites. We always feel that the caravans are slightly inferior to others and always in one of the worsts locations on the site. At the same time you are still getting something which on the face of it is for FREE!

I noticed something similar with Lufthansa/Star Alliance air miles. Flights from Birmingham to Berlin are available from £50 including taxes and charges. Booking with Lufthansa miles costs £100 in taxes and charges and alone, and these cannot be paid for using miles. Therefore, using miles for booking usually costs more in cash than booking without miles.

HI Last year i used Tesco clubcards far a channel crossing by train. I went over with a car and 22 Foot Caravan . There was four passengers, and it cost me (Nothing).The price of the fair was £300 Return,so i sent 100 clubcard coupons to Tescos and they did everything.We had a lovely touring holiday for two weeks,and i think Tesco Club Cards are great value.They save me a lot every year.
Les Johnson

we used the vouchers for cosmos & when we put cosmos in the website, monarch holidays came up, we found the holidays were a few hundred cheaper for a family of 4 as we are. Monarch is the sister company for Cosmos. We found we could not use the cheaper site with the vouchers. Also when you book, you cannot have any of the online discounts or any other offers when using the clubcard vouchers. What initially looks like a £1200 saving (£300 max per person you can use) instead becomes a £500 saving after you take all the above into account. Our view was it is better to save £500 than not save any money at all, but it gives a false view into what you are gaining. As you need £400 in vouchers to save £1,200 you are really just saving £100 as you could use the £400 off your shopping. If you used the double your vouchers to buy non food goods then you are losing £300 as you could have bought good to the value of 2 x £400 = £800.

Wightlink ferries to the Isle of wight is another example where a premium is paid to use Tesco vouchers when booking a ferry crossing. Two price structures exist for exactly the same service economy and standard, when booking with Tesco vouchers the standard fare is charged at up to 30% more than the economy, same boat, same service, higher price.

We were recently disappointed in similar vein.
In booking a 4 night break at Warner Leisure Hotels recently, we saw the price on-line direct at £404.
We wanted to reduce the outlay by using Tesco vouchers – supposedly at 3 times face-value.
Accordingly we cashed in £110 of vouchers, giving a value of £330 off.
Having received the vouchers, we duly went to book with Warner’s – only to find the cost, using vouchers, was £647!
This left us paying out £317 cash, in addition to the vouchers!
For just another £87 more we could have paid direct for exactly the same holiday, meaning that we were getting NOT 3 times value but LESS THAN FACE VALUE for our vouchers!
We’re already disillusioned with Tesco in many respects – this experience serves only to heighten that feeling.

We used vouchers to buy a hotel stay with Hilton a few years ago. A separate booking phone number directed us to a specialist advisor who gave us the price after using our vouchers. The net price paid was no less than could have been achieved by using other travel sites, including Hilton’s own. In other words, the value for using the vouchers was nil. I think Hilton were using the rack rate as the start point.

Often taking walking breaks in England we tried using clubcard vouchers to book suitable hotels nearby the location we were visiting. We found this a very stressful experience on more than one occasion for the following reasons.

Location – we obviously tried to find hotels near to where the walks are, mainly in rural areas. This proved to be very difficult and took sometime as although there are many “hotels” listed allot did not participate in clubcard voucher stays or did not have any allocations left for clubcard vouchers.

Participation – what a joke! After numerous attempts to book a hotel always being advised they do not participate or have no clubcard allocation left I decided to ring hotels direct that had turned me down to investigate this virtually impossible task! Low and behold they had plenty of rooms available to book if you did not mention clubcard.

Price – all I can say is unbelievable! An example is a hotel who wanted £360.00 in clubcard vouchers for a double for 2 nights. When I rang the hotel direct the same was £160.00. What a rip off!

It’s also very annoying as you have to book your stay through a dedicated number, not the normal hotel booking system. When you do find a place at an inflated price you have to then order the vouchers from Tesco, and as the hotel will not save or hold a booking until you have the voucher numbers you are taking a chance on the clubcard allocation being given to someone else.

Believe me you will need a break after all this just to book a 2 day hotel stay!!!

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

If you use nectar points to buy Easy Jet tickets you end up paying a booking fee. In a recent example I used 4000 points worth £20 to buy tickets, but only saved £10. A waste of points.

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?