Tesco vouchers - Disneyland Paris , NOT

troubled_buyer

Has anybody any experience of using Tesco Clubcard vouchers for a trip to Disneyland?

I have just tried to get a deal this weekend and after getting it priced through Cresta at £1200 for 4 nights it shot up to over £1600 when I tried to use Tesco vouchers. Apparently conditions apply and we could only travel from major airports which led to major travel operators such as Air France from Newcastle.

Then we tried to get car retental from Avis whilst in France but were told the Tesco deal was for 7 days only. They would not accept the car back early as it would cause a refund situation wihich could not be done on the voucher leaving it void and us having to pay in full.

The holiday is now all booked by Visa and the vouchers will be ebay'ed but has anybody else had problems or any tips/help in using the vouchers.

abijanzo

Thats pants!
We are collecting clubcard points for that very purpose - but to be honest I did expect that the price would be hiked up when paying with deal time vouchers. That's why I always bear in mind that £10 dealtime vouchers is more like £6 - £8 cash when redeeming for a holiday.
Ah well - hope you manage to get a good price on ebay and enjoy your hols anyway :beer:

Clowance

Last week I booked (using vouchers) 5 nights at the explorers hotel from April 2nd going by car. 2 adults 2 kids, extra bunk room as well. Tis came to about £1300, I had all but £100 in tesco vouchers. It was EXACTLY the brochure price , after I had realised that if I went 5 days later there was a surcharge because it was close to Easter
I havent seen the Cresta brochure, but the above seemed good value. Its a themed hotel just off the park, great pool, shuttle bus, 2 rooms at a reasonable rate (sleeps 6) , passes for the parks every day, continental breakfast.
It was a LOT cheaper to drive than to go by Eurostar.
Hope this helps.

freccle

troubled_buyer wrote:

The holiday is now all booked by Visa and the vouchers will be ebay'ed but has anybody else had problems or any tips/help in using the vouchers.

Yep - I had a look on the goldsmiths site and saw a few things that would be ok as Christmas pressies for my partner. When I got the vouchers, they were only for use in store - where 75% of stuff on the site isn't available, and not valid for any reduced items or any designer items - i.e. Beetling, Cartier etc. As goldsmiths is twice the price of anywhere else anyway., I've returned them to Tesco and in future I'll just use them for money off my shop

abijanzo

Clowance wrote:

Last week I booked (using vouchers) 5 nights at the explorers hotel from April 2nd going by car. 2 adults 2 kids, extra bunk room as well. Tis came to about £1300, I had all but £100 in tesco vouchers. It was EXACTLY the brochure price , after I had realised that if I went 5 days later there was a surcharge because it was close to Easter
I havent seen the Cresta brochure, but the above seemed good value. Its a themed hotel just off the park, great pool, shuttle bus, 2 rooms at a reasonable rate (sleeps 6) , passes for the parks every day, continental breakfast.
It was a LOT cheaper to drive than to go by Eurostar.
Hope this helps.

Ooh thats encouraging! Thats a good price too. We are going to pay with deal vouchers even if it does work out more expensive cos at the end of the day it's still free! We try to never do anything to get clubcard points that we wouldnt do any way, never buy anything for points unless it's something we'd use etc, this way it really is a freebie for us - I know people who spend cash for deals on points for things they wouldnt use so I know it must be frustrating then to find youre not getting the value you thought you were going too.

frisbee

I stayed at the travellers explorer in february this year. It was gorgeous. Have a fantastic holiday.

I'm saving my points for Disney land also, I was planning on going through Leger as this is who we went with first time around(before i discovered tesco club card), does any body have any experience using points with this company.

kscour

This probably isn't alot of help but when we booked to go about 3 years ago it was much cheaper to book direct and use the tesco vouchers for something else. And if you do go the more expensive hotels don't give you much more than the cheapest as we learnt to our cost!

averagepunter

Booked with Cresta for our trip last May and paid 3/4 of total cost in clubcard vouchers - I can also confirm that the total cost quoted was as stated in the brochure. No surcharge for using the vouchers.

However, from time to time they do run special non-brochured deals which are not eligible for voucher use. Any deals which are in the brochure e.g. 4 nights for cost 3 etc should be OK as thats what we did.

Pooky

A friend of mine tried to use tesco vouchers to book her disney hol, she'd bought some vouchers via ebay and friends and they refused to accept them as they weren't all in her name - they said they were no long taking them for one booking unless they were all in the same name....

jellyhead

i've seen threads on here about holiday vouchers being named now. i'm saving mine for disneyland paris, we've paid by credit card when we've been before, it's much cheaper to book with disney and there's no surcharge for using your credit card. we've got a new tesco now though so it's worth shopping there, and as has been said if you don't buy anything you wouldn't use then the deals vouchers really are a freebie.

we will be paying the extra to stay in an on-site disney hotel though. last time we went it was mid-season prices so we didn't think it would be too busy but it was also the french school holidays and queue times were rivalling alton towers! we waited more than 90 minutes for the studio tour, thunder mountain and it's a small world. we didn't go on the dumbo ride but the queue time was more than 2 hours - luckily my boy was too old to want to go on it but could you imagine a 2 hour queue with a toddler? fastpass isn't much faster, they allocate lots of them and you'll wait for half an hour in the fastpass queue.

if you're staying in the on-site hotels (i don't think this applies to the explorer etc. please correct me if i'm wrong!) you can have a fantasyland breakfast in the park. it doesn't cost anything and it can be booked at the time of booking, it can also be arranged at hotel reception if there are still tickets available. you get the same breakfast you'd get in your hotel but you go into the park for it an hour before the park opens. they have security staff to let you in. most of the rides open early for the breakfast customers. you can eat and then get in a couple of rides with no queue before the crowds are allowed in. one day we had 4 rides and then went to eat five minutes before the park opened, so we were eating while everyone else was dashing in. that way we got as many rides as possible before breakfast. they only do it in one restaurant so there aren't too many customers in the park at the same time as you. there will not be a wait on any of the rides. you can even meet the characters and get photos with them without any crowds pushing. we got tigger in a great photo with my boy, the day beforehand we'd queued for about an hour and given up because the crowds were awful, people are very rude and just elbow your children out of the way.

getting an extra hour or even half hour in the park before they let everyone else in is worth a whole extra day i reckon, if it's a busy time when queues are bad. it's especially handy if you have a child who doesn't queue well. it costs a bit extra to stay in the disney hotels but you don't need as many days/nights there :-) we've stayed in the newport bay and the sequoia lodge. they have meet and greet with characters in the hotels too so you don't have to queue for ages to see them in the park.

fifi29

Hi there,
We booked through Bridge, and went during a quiet time, although it was still their Xmas celebration. We paid all but about £70 with our vouchers, and got a character breakfast and Castle class on Eurostar included. We had a fab time and I REALLY want to go again!
We always make sure we get the travel company to check a price for where and when we want to go so that there are no hidden extras! However carefully you check the t&c they always seem to find something!
As for being cheaper to book direct, maybe it is, but we would never have gone unless we had used our Tescos vouchers. We also got a week in Holland a couple of years ago for free through Tescos vouchers so I have no complaints!
Fiona