Tesco and BA - 2011 master thread
Jan 3, 2011, 7:31 am
#1
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: London
Programs: BA, VS, HH, IHG, MB, MR
Posts: 26,871
Tesco and BA - 2011 master thread
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 Avios in the ratio 1 Clubcard point = 2.4 Avios. You will earn 1 point for every £1 spent in a Tesco store and for non-food purchases online. However, the real source of bumper Tesco points are the generous promotions that are occasionally run. There is no need to move your food spend to Tesco to collect lots of Avios - you simply need to jump in when a particularly generous bonus points promotion appears, and then sell the goods on ebay! You will make a small loss in most cases but the thousands of miles will more than offset this.
As with the BA Amex, you can only convert Tesco points to BAEC accounts that are UK domiciled. However, nothing stops you opening a separate Avios account at avios.com, converting into that account (there is no address restriction if moving to an avios.com account) and then transferring them across to your BAEC account.
The online form for clubcard vouchers for conversion can be found here: http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/product.aspx?R=237, you input the code number on the voucher - points hit your BAEC account in 24 hours.
Remember that Clubcard vouchers are valid for 2 years. If you do not need the Avios instantly, it makes sense to keep the vouchers in your drawer and wait to see if a conversion promo bonus comes along.
Historically, I have listed ongoing promotions in this initial post. However, as Tesco has released very few of these recently - preferring to focus on targetted bonus point codes which can only be used by the original recipient - I have removed it and left this post as more of a Tesco introduction.
Bonus points currently available on various in-store grocery products are usually highlighted at http://www.supermarketspecialoffers....intOffers.aspx. I do not generally list such product promos (eg 50 points for buying a £3 box of teabags) separately unless they offer exceptional value for money.
The various Tesco clubs (Wine and Food) have been scrapped - this is a shame as they were an excellent source of bonus point coupons. If you have a small child, it is worth joining the Baby & Toddler Club (see www.tesco.com/clubcard/clubcard/clubs/) as you will receive regular mailings with bonus points offers.
For a far more detailed focus on Tesco clubcard deals and extra points opportunities, you should sign up to the forums at www.paidtoshop.co.uk, run by occasional FT'er Gizmos
The Tesco credit card and other credit cards that indirectly earn Avios:
a) Tesco
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 0.5 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:
i) some places do not take Amex, especially independent retailers
ii) 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
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.
You can apply via this link http://www.tescofinance.com/personal...ards/index.jsp but personally I would wait as there are regular promotions offering bonus clubcard points for taking out the card.
b) Priority Club
There are two Priority Club credit cards. The basic card offers 10,000 PC points which can be turned into 2,000 Avios: https://www.online-card.co.uk/ihg/pa...ginCode=PW0104. The premium card offers a 20,000 miles sign up bonus (4,000 Avios) but comes with a £99 fee. This is best avoided unless there is a fee-free promo going on.
c) American Express Platinum Card
Amex charge cards which earn Membership Rewards points can be converted to Avios at a 1:1 ratio. Some Corporate cards now earn 2 MR points per £1 which is attractive if you are a sole trader. The '42,000 points for a Platinum sign-up' promo is still going at the time of writing, as is '22,000 points for a Gold card' - see the special FT threads on this.
Historically, Amex has never offered a bonus for converting Membership Rewards points into Avios. However, in 2011, it ran two promotions - first, a 40% bonus, and then a whopping 100% bonus. There is obviously no guarantee that these will be repeated, and they may be targetted if they are, but it is worth bearing in mind - your points could be worth twice as much as you think.
d) Amex Preferred Rewards Gold charge card
There is a separate FT thread on this at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...-relaunch.html which offers 20,000 Amex Membership Rewards for signing up. The fee is £120 with £60 cashback if you apply via Quidco. You earn 1 MR point per £1, with 2 per £1 on foreign spend, travel spend and (year 1 only) grocery spend. This makes it the most generous BA card earning opportunity available if you a heavy travel and foreign spender, even better than the BA Amex. The Quidco link is here http://www.quidco.com/american-expre...ards-gold-card
e) Amex SPG credit card
Offers 10,000 Starwood SPG points for signing up, worth 10k Avios. Earnings rate is 1 point for £1. If you can get to 20k SPG points, either via the card or with SPG hotel spend, you get a 5k transfer bonus so 25k BA for 20k SPG. Quidco cashback is sometimes available, but not at the time of writing - however the £75 fee is sometimes waived during promotional periods, and the opening bonus has been raised to 15,000 and 20,000 points at times. See the Amex website for any current deal.
It is also worth stressing, for newcomers to FT, the wonder that is the BMI Amex credit card. You get 20,000 BMI miles for the free card and 24,000 miles for the paid card, and BMI miles go a lot further than BA Miles. See the BMI forum for more details.
Other Tesco offers worth knowing about:
Cash-back (exc VAT and delivery) on purchases from Tesco Wine, Tesco Entertainment, Tesco Jersey and 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.
Whilst not related to Tesco, it is worth remembering that you can also get cashback on most of your travel bookings through www.quidco.com. Chains featured include Hilton, Marriott, Accor, Premier Inn, Best Western, Intercontinental Group (often 10%), Ramada Jarvis, Sheraton, Thistle, Travelodge, Barcelo, Le Meridien, Millennium, Scandic, Guoman, Westin and Jurys Doyle. Expedia and most of the portals also offer cashback through Quidco - Expedia and hotels.com occasionally pay up to 10% on hotel bookings. Airlines offering cashback include Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Swiss, FlyBE, KLM, Air France, Air SouthWest, SAS, Etihad, Aer Lingus, Brussels Airways, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Iceland Express, Singapore Airlines, Jet2, bmi, Qantas, Emirates and Austrian. Hertz, Avis, Alamo and Budget offer cashback on car rental. These cashback offers do not affect your ability to collect points or miles for your trip. It is also worth a look at www.topcashback.com for similar offers.
If you discover any new Tesco offers, post them here.
In summary, you can convert your Tesco Clubcard points to Avios in the ratio 1 Clubcard point = 2.4 Avios. You will earn 1 point for every £1 spent in a Tesco store and for non-food purchases online. However, the real source of bumper Tesco points are the generous promotions that are occasionally run. There is no need to move your food spend to Tesco to collect lots of Avios - you simply need to jump in when a particularly generous bonus points promotion appears, and then sell the goods on ebay! You will make a small loss in most cases but the thousands of miles will more than offset this.
As with the BA Amex, you can only convert Tesco points to BAEC accounts that are UK domiciled. However, nothing stops you opening a separate Avios account at avios.com, converting into that account (there is no address restriction if moving to an avios.com account) and then transferring them across to your BAEC account.
The online form for clubcard vouchers for conversion can be found here: http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/product.aspx?R=237, you input the code number on the voucher - points hit your BAEC account in 24 hours.
Remember that Clubcard vouchers are valid for 2 years. If you do not need the Avios instantly, it makes sense to keep the vouchers in your drawer and wait to see if a conversion promo bonus comes along.
Historically, I have listed ongoing promotions in this initial post. However, as Tesco has released very few of these recently - preferring to focus on targetted bonus point codes which can only be used by the original recipient - I have removed it and left this post as more of a Tesco introduction.
Bonus points currently available on various in-store grocery products are usually highlighted at http://www.supermarketspecialoffers....intOffers.aspx. I do not generally list such product promos (eg 50 points for buying a £3 box of teabags) separately unless they offer exceptional value for money.
The various Tesco clubs (Wine and Food) have been scrapped - this is a shame as they were an excellent source of bonus point coupons. If you have a small child, it is worth joining the Baby & Toddler Club (see www.tesco.com/clubcard/clubcard/clubs/) as you will receive regular mailings with bonus points offers.
For a far more detailed focus on Tesco clubcard deals and extra points opportunities, you should sign up to the forums at www.paidtoshop.co.uk, run by occasional FT'er Gizmos
The Tesco credit card and other credit cards that indirectly earn Avios:
a) Tesco
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 0.5 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:
i) some places do not take Amex, especially independent retailers
ii) 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
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.
You can apply via this link http://www.tescofinance.com/personal...ards/index.jsp but personally I would wait as there are regular promotions offering bonus clubcard points for taking out the card.
b) Priority Club
There are two Priority Club credit cards. The basic card offers 10,000 PC points which can be turned into 2,000 Avios: https://www.online-card.co.uk/ihg/pa...ginCode=PW0104. The premium card offers a 20,000 miles sign up bonus (4,000 Avios) but comes with a £99 fee. This is best avoided unless there is a fee-free promo going on.
c) American Express Platinum Card
Amex charge cards which earn Membership Rewards points can be converted to Avios at a 1:1 ratio. Some Corporate cards now earn 2 MR points per £1 which is attractive if you are a sole trader. The '42,000 points for a Platinum sign-up' promo is still going at the time of writing, as is '22,000 points for a Gold card' - see the special FT threads on this.
Historically, Amex has never offered a bonus for converting Membership Rewards points into Avios. However, in 2011, it ran two promotions - first, a 40% bonus, and then a whopping 100% bonus. There is obviously no guarantee that these will be repeated, and they may be targetted if they are, but it is worth bearing in mind - your points could be worth twice as much as you think.
d) Amex Preferred Rewards Gold charge card
There is a separate FT thread on this at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...-relaunch.html which offers 20,000 Amex Membership Rewards for signing up. The fee is £120 with £60 cashback if you apply via Quidco. You earn 1 MR point per £1, with 2 per £1 on foreign spend, travel spend and (year 1 only) grocery spend. This makes it the most generous BA card earning opportunity available if you a heavy travel and foreign spender, even better than the BA Amex. The Quidco link is here http://www.quidco.com/american-expre...ards-gold-card
e) Amex SPG credit card
Offers 10,000 Starwood SPG points for signing up, worth 10k Avios. Earnings rate is 1 point for £1. If you can get to 20k SPG points, either via the card or with SPG hotel spend, you get a 5k transfer bonus so 25k BA for 20k SPG. Quidco cashback is sometimes available, but not at the time of writing - however the £75 fee is sometimes waived during promotional periods, and the opening bonus has been raised to 15,000 and 20,000 points at times. See the Amex website for any current deal.
It is also worth stressing, for newcomers to FT, the wonder that is the BMI Amex credit card. You get 20,000 BMI miles for the free card and 24,000 miles for the paid card, and BMI miles go a lot further than BA Miles. See the BMI forum for more details.
Other Tesco offers worth knowing about:
Cash-back (exc VAT and delivery) on purchases from Tesco Wine, Tesco Entertainment, Tesco Jersey and 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.
Whilst not related to Tesco, it is worth remembering that you can also get cashback on most of your travel bookings through www.quidco.com. Chains featured include Hilton, Marriott, Accor, Premier Inn, Best Western, Intercontinental Group (often 10%), Ramada Jarvis, Sheraton, Thistle, Travelodge, Barcelo, Le Meridien, Millennium, Scandic, Guoman, Westin and Jurys Doyle. Expedia and most of the portals also offer cashback through Quidco - Expedia and hotels.com occasionally pay up to 10% on hotel bookings. Airlines offering cashback include Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Swiss, FlyBE, KLM, Air France, Air SouthWest, SAS, Etihad, Aer Lingus, Brussels Airways, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Iceland Express, Singapore Airlines, Jet2, bmi, Qantas, Emirates and Austrian. Hertz, Avis, Alamo and Budget offer cashback on car rental. These cashback offers do not affect your ability to collect points or miles for your trip. It is also worth a look at www.topcashback.com for similar offers.
If you discover any new Tesco offers, post them here.
Last edited by Raffles; Jan 2, 2012 at 7:43 am
Jan 3, 2011, 7:34 am
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: London
Programs: BA, VS, HH, IHG, MB, MR
Posts: 26,871
This is the new 2011 Tesco thread. The first post has been cut down a bit due to the lack of specific, non-targetted promotions currently available, but will be expanded again if the situation changes.
Mods - you can close the 2010 thread and change the dashboard link to this thread. Ta!
Mods - you can close the 2010 thread and change the dashboard link to this thread. Ta!
Last edited by Raffles; Jan 3, 2011 at 7:49 am
Jan 3, 2011, 7:51 am
#3
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: UK-Berkshire
Programs: BAEC Blue
Posts: 633
Thanks Raffles^
Jan 4, 2011, 2:19 am
#4
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London
Programs: BA CCR/GGL, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 3,483
Thanks Raffles, but please note that not all points deals are reported on the www.supermarketspecialoffers.com site (for example the current printer cartridge offer "BUY 2 TESCO BRAND INKS GET 200 EXTRA CCP - The items below are only available for deliveries on or before Sunday 29th May 2011". I think this is due to Tesco not recording them under the "Extra Points" section of Special Offers.....
Jan 4, 2011, 5:36 am
#5
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: London
Programs: Le Creuset 26cm square grillit club, laithwaites red club
Posts: 530
The Tesco Clubcard credit card also increases the amount of points you get for petrol from 1 point per £2 spent to 1 point per £1 spent even if you don't pay with it. You can use the card in Tesco petrol stations as a Clubcard and then pay with Amex.
Jan 5, 2011, 4:10 am
#7
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: London
Programs: BA, VS, HH, IHG, MB, MR
Posts: 26,871
Tesco Diets - 1,000 points for signing up (min £30 / 8 weeks, so not really worth it just for the miles):
http://www.tescodiets.com/index.cfm?...r=1000clubcard
http://www.tescodiets.com/index.cfm?...r=1000clubcard
Jan 5, 2011, 1:39 pm
#8
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Herts, UK
Programs: BAEC, Prioriy club, Virgin atlantic, Airmiles
Posts: 81
Thanks Raffles. I did manage to get 25000 priority club points by following your link last year. This was done automatically and are all now converted to BA miles.
Siva
Siva
Jan 5, 2011, 3:21 pm
#9
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London
Programs: BA CCR/GGL, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 3,483
1,500 points for joining Tesco Wine Select
This offer was kicking around before Christmas, but still seems to be on now. 750 Clubcard points on your first subscription delivery plus 250 Clubcard points on each of your next three subscription deliveries.
http://www.tesco.com/wine/wineselect...e/default.aspx
http://www.tesco.com/wine/wineselect...e/default.aspx
Jan 5, 2011, 3:39 pm
#10
Join Date: May 2009
Location: UK
Posts: 3,951
Thanks Raffles. Interesting to see how point g) develops
Jan 6, 2011, 3:32 am
#11
Join Date: Jan 2005
Programs: BA Gold, AA Lifetime Gold 1.8mm, IC Spire Ambassador, Hilton Diamond, SPG Gold et al
Posts: 4,350
Good to know - thanks!
Jan 6, 2011, 7:08 am
#12
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Here today, gone tomorrow
Programs: Nothing shiny :-(
Posts: 2,493
Tesco is more or less non-existent round my way, no stores of any size. I'm trying to use my BMI Amex for the bonus Clubcard points when you spend £40 and not doing very well. Not helped by the local Tesco filling station (at least Tesco according to Tesco's website) refusing to take my Clubcard because they sell Esso petrol (not that you can tell without looking very closely).
There are other Tesco filling stations (again according to Tesco's website) if I take a slight detour home but how can I tell whether they actually are Tesco ones or if Tesco's website is fibbing?
There are other Tesco filling stations (again according to Tesco's website) if I take a slight detour home but how can I tell whether they actually are Tesco ones or if Tesco's website is fibbing?
Jan 6, 2011, 7:28 am
#13
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Surrey, UK
Programs: BA Gold....er now Silver...er now Bronze....er now Blue
Posts: 3,507
Tesco is more or less non-existent round my way, no stores of any size. I'm trying to use my BMI Amex for the bonus Clubcard points when you spend £40 and not doing very well. Not helped by the local Tesco filling station (at least Tesco according to Tesco's website) refusing to take my Clubcard because they sell Esso petrol (not that you can tell without looking very closely).
There are other Tesco filling stations (again according to Tesco's website) if I take a slight detour home but how can I tell whether they actually are Tesco ones or if Tesco's website is fibbing?
There are other Tesco filling stations (again according to Tesco's website) if I take a slight detour home but how can I tell whether they actually are Tesco ones or if Tesco's website is fibbing?
Jan 6, 2011, 7:57 am
#14
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Here today, gone tomorrow
Programs: Nothing shiny :-(
Posts: 2,493
Does anyone know whether the Gatwick Extra or Crawley Hazelwick Extra petrol stations are actually Tesco ones?
Jan 6, 2011, 8:35 am
#15
Ambassador: World of Hyatt
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: UK - the nearest airport is named after a motorway !
Posts: 4,234
Gatwick Extra is deffo Tesco - have used it repeatedly and got cc points.