Tesco is a major partner with BA, and offers one of the easiest non-flying ways for UK BAEC members to earn lots of miles. Details of how the Tesco scheme works can be found in “The Ultimate BA Guide” sticky. In summary, you can convert your Tesco Clubcard points to BA Miles in the ratio 1 Clubcard point = 2.4 BA Miles.
As with the BA Amex, you can only convert points to BAEC accounts that are UK domiciled. Bear this in mind if you are considering moving your account to Europe to benefit from the lower tier point thresholds. However, Clubcard vouchers are valid for 2 years so you can save them up until a suitable time for you to move your account back to the UK.
The paper form to mail in clubcard vouchers for conversion can be found here:
https://www.britishairways.com/execclub/tesco/form.html or you can do it online at
http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/product.aspx?R=237 by inputting the code number on the voucher - points hit your BAEC account in 24 hours.
Special Promotions – December 2007
1. Tesco Grocery (expires as noted) £5 Quidco cashback also available on first order on any clubcard
750 extra points on a £50 order with XX-XKV6, valid to 30/12/07 (valid only on an account with no previous grocery orders)
200 extra points on ANY order with XX-CNLK, valid to 20/01/08
2. Tesco Direct (expires 30th December)
100 points on any order with code TDXR-NVRRW. Expires 30/12.
3. Tesco Flowers (expires 11th January)
200 extra Clubcard Points when you spend over £25 on fresh flowers and plants with code TFXR-TYEM44. Expires 11 January.
4. Tesco Books (expires 30th December) 7% Quidco cashback also available
250 points when you spend £15 on Books with XX117BKS, expiry date 30/12. Remember that you need to spend £20 for free delivery. If the '£15 for free delivery' special offer is running, you cannot have free delivery AND the bonus points unless your order is £20+.
5. Tesco Wine (expire 30th December) 3% Quidco cashback also available
1,000 points for £50 spend with XX-V15C
1,000 points for £99 spend with XX-J9Y7
1,000 points for £50 spend with XX-R72Z
6. Tesco Insurance (expires 8th January)
1,200 points when you purchase Tesco Health Insurance (points awarded at 300 per quarter for 1 year)
1,200 points when you purchase Tesco Dental Insurance. The rules here are vague - you get 600 after your first payment and a further 600 'will appear on your next statement'. Its not clear how many months more you need to pay.
2,000 points when you purchase Tesco Life Insurance online (points awarded at 500 per quarter for 1 year)
7. Tesco DVD Rental (expires 31st December)
1,000 points when you join Tesco DVD rental using promo code TDRCTCC. Expires 31st December 2007. In order to qualify for your 1000 Tesco Clubcard points, you must validly register for the free trial with the correct promotion code and make your third DVD Rental monthly payment. This excludes any discounted packages, e.g. gift voucher purchases and prepay. This offer may not be redeemed in conjunction with any other offer and is limited to one per household.
8. Tesco Breakdown Cover
None at present. You may want to REDEEM your clubcard points for breakdown cover instead - see
http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/product.aspx?R=200
9. Recycling (offer on-going)
Tesco offer points for recycling old mobile phones (500 points if they turn on, 100 points otherwise - these are the new rates from 15 Feb 2007) and inkjet cartridges (100 points). You need to pick up a green plastic postage-paid envelope from the leaflet rack in-store. You can send in a maximum of five phones per clubcard per year - although, if you find a bulk supply, there is nothing to stop you picking up extra clubcards in store and later merging them into your main account.
10. Tesco Internet Phone (expires 30th December)
1,000 bonus points when you register your internet phone for either of the two new Anytime call plans (£5 per month or £8.50 per month). You must register online at
www.tescointernetphone.com quoting NNF778. Subject to a three month contract, points will be awarded in May statement.
11. Tesco clubs
The best of receiving regular 'bonus points' coupons is to sign up for the various Tesco clubs. If you join the Tesco World of Wine, Food Club, Baby & Toddler Club or Healthy Living Club (see
www.tesco.com/clubcard/clubcard/clubs/ to join), you will receive regular mailings with bonus points offers. The Wine Club is especially generous with each mailing usually containing 200 - 400 points of offers.
12. The Tesco Clubcard Credit Card
The Tesco Clubcard Credit Card earns 1 point for every £4 spent (rounded down on a per transaction, not per statement, basis - so a £7.99 purchase is treated as £4). Points post as soon as the charge hits your account, not at month end. It works out at 0.6 BA Miles per £1, which is far worse than the BA Premium Plus Amex rate of 1.5 BA Miles per £1, but there are two reasons for getting the card:
a) some places do not take Amex, especially independent retailers
b) if you about to trigger the '2 for 1' voucher on your Amex but would rather defer it for a few months, you can switch to your Tesco Mastercard
You should remember, though, that BMI issues a free Mastercard earning 1.5 miles per £1 with a 20,000 mile sign-up bonus, so you may consider this a better deal than the Tesco card (see flybmi.com - although, as at 1 August, new applications are currently not being accepted for reasons unknown). Note that your Tesco Mastercard also acts as a clubcard, so you don't need to carry your blue clubcard around anymore. In a Tesco store you can, if you want, have your credit card swiped for use as a clubcard and then pay using your BA Amex for maximum miles!
Those of us who applied for a card before April 2006 earn miles at twice the rate of the current card - 2 points for every £4 spent. You may therefore see discussions in this thread which relate to the old cards, as many of us still have that.
(Totally OT, as this has nothing to do with Tesco but I don't think this is in any other sticky: you can also get 2,000 BA Miles by applying for the free Priority Club visa card at
http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc/...pe/ukvisa.html. You get 10,000 points for signing up, and these can be transferred into 2,000 BA Miles. The same deal currently applies to the Marriott Visa card - you get 10,000 points for joining which can be turned into 2,000 BA Miles. Marriott also gives you Silver status for as long as you hold the card. See
https://www.marriott.com/Channels/gl....mi?country=UK for details.)
Other offers worth knowing about:
3% cash-back (exc VAT and delivery) on purchases from Tesco Wine, 7% on Tesco Entertainment and Tesco Jersey and 3% on other non-grocery Tesco sites (eg Tesco Direct, exc finance and insurance) can be earned by signing up for an account at
www.quidco.com. It also gives £5 cashback on your first Grocery spend on any specific clubcard.
If you were planning to book flights or hotels through
lastminute.com, it is better to book them through the tesco.com link, under the ‘Holidays & Flights’ tab, to lastminute. You earn 1 Clubcard point for every £1 you spend, on top of your usual credit card bonuses.
It is possible to earn Clubcard points from Marriott hotel stays, and then transfer them to BA. However, you are better off taking BA Miles directly (2 per $1, so roughly 4 per £1) than Tesco points (1 per £1, so 2.4 BA per £1). You can no longer transfer Marriott Rewards points into Tesco Clubcard points.
Other cashback deals:
Whilst not related to Tesco, it is worth remembering that you can also get cashback on most of your travel bookings through quidco.com. The current rates for the major chains are: Hilton 6%, Eurostar 4%, Intercontinental Group 5%, Travelodge 3.6%, Ramada Jarvis 8%, Sheraton 2%, Macdonald 5%, Jurys Doyle 5%, Accor to 7%. Expedia and most of the portals also offer cashback through Quidco. Airlines offering cashback include Virgin Atlantic, FlyBE, KLM, Air France, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Austrian and Eos (a generous 4%). Hertz, National and Thrify offer cashback on car rental. If you are booking at an InterContinental, Holiday Inn, HI Express or Crowne Plaza, you get £20 per booking cashback via pigsback.com. These cashback offers do not affect your ability to collect points or miles for your trip.
If you discover any new offers, post them here and I will update this first post as we go along.