Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

NonGeographicalMan

Something still isn't at all clear to me about the Tesco Clubcard voucher 400 bonus Avios promotion's terms and conditions:-

At http://www.avios.com/collect/tesco/tesco-clubcard?from=collectNav it says:-

The February bonus offer is open to all Tesco Clubcard holders and is valid when you exchange Clubcard vouchers for Avios between 26/01/12 and 31/03/12.

Bonus Avios will be awarded in a separate transaction within 28 days of Avios being awarded. Standard Avios take up to 28 days to be awarded.

400 bonus Avios will be awarded for every whole 250 Clubcard points or £2.50 in Clubcard vouchers exchanged.

*By joining to automatically exchange Clubcard vouchers between 16 November and 20 January 2012, you’ll also collect 400 bonus Avios as part of our February offer. That’s an extra 400 Avios for every £2.50 in exchanged Clubcard vouchers.

So does that mean that if I had opted in to auto conversion of my Clubcard vouchers by 20th January I would then have got a conversion rate of 1400 Avios for each £2.50 voucher or does it mean I would just have got one bonus of 400 Avios for only the first £2.50 voucher that I converted on top of the 600 + 400 = 1000 Avios rate on all of the vouchers converted? It really is incredibly badly worded. Or do they just mean that if your vouchers are auto converted by opting in to auto conversion by January 20th that you will get precisely the same 1000 Avios rate as if you manually convert them between 26th January and 31st March? I had originally thought they just meant the auto conversion deal was the same as doing it manually but now it seems possible that I have missed out on an extra 400 Avios per voucher converted for auto conversion.

To complicate matters yet further I am also having Tesco reissue 27 months of vouchers (around £43 worth) as the oldest was subject to the 24 month expiry rule and this means none of them have been available to convert online until Tesco start their voucher mailing period as they have deleted the old vouchers from my online Tesco Clubcard account in order to reissue them.

At the page at http://www.avios.com/collect/tesco/tesco-clubcard?from=collectNav at the top it also says:-

We're topping up your Avios all February 2012 – giving you hundreds of extra Avios free when you exchange*

1. Exchange your Clubcard vouchers for Avios during February 2012
2. For every £2.50 in Clubcard vouchers, get 400 bonus Avios
3. That's on top of the standard 600 Avios you usually collect

And you can do it as many times as you like.

Yet this is surely highly misleading in relation to the much longer conversion period of over two months from late January to the end of March detailed in the terms and conditions at the bottom of the Avios page.

Unbelievably the Tesco Clubcard Reward site still just currently shows the conversion rate of a £2.50 voucher to Avios as currently being 600 Avios and there is no mention at all of the 400 Avios bonus. Tesco Clubcard Reward customer service staff have not been given any information at all about the existence of the bonus Avios scheme. They are surely making a rod for their own backs as I would imagine loads of people will now ring Tesco up to query why the bonus higher rate is not being shown on their Clubcard Rewards site. To say that Avios is providing the extra 400 Avios bonus nand Tesco are providing the 600 Avios (as Tesco Clubcards staff do) is a nonsense as in relaity Avios provides all the Avios points and what has happened is that the conversion rate of a £2.50 voucher (the money Tesco gives Avios will presumably be the same even if it isn't actually £2.50 per voucher they hand over to Avios) has been temporarily increased. Having said that two years ago I had to chase Air Miles several times to add the double bonus miles as only the single rate conversion intially appeared on my account.

As usual Mr Andrew Swaffield's lot are a lot better at aggressively pushing marketing promotions than they are at fulfilling them.:(:eek::mad::mad::mad:

EDIT:- I decided I couldn't stand not knowing the answer so I called Avios (on the geographic 01925 848693 number they themselves list for calling from overseas but does work in the UK too if you select Option 2 when you get through) and spoke to a very long serving staff member who was very clear that there was only one bonus 400 Avios per voucher additional rate whether you auto converted them or manually converted them and there is neither a one off further bonus of 400 Avios or a bonus of 400 Avios per £2.50 voucher that is in addition to the normal 400 Avios bonus rate. So in summary their own terms and conditions for the promotion are just poorly worded as they are distinctly ambiguous on this issue to put it mildly.

rachelandgromit

OK, I'm a bit confused. On 1st Feb I exchanged around £46.50 of vouchers to Avios, on the understanding that you'd get 1000 Avios per £2.50 (an extra 400 on top of the normal 600 they give) so thinking I'd get around 18,600 Avios. On the old Airmiles scheme I use to get 80 Airmiles per £2.50 but I thought they may have scrapped that. However today I check my account and see the following:

03/02/2012 88375529 TESCO AVIOS AWARD AT 800 AVIOS RATE 14,880

So it seems that when I use to be on the old 80 airmiles per £2.50 they have honoured that but can I presume that the additional 400 they owe me (7,440) will be added on later? If so, I actually would end up with 22,320 Avios rather than 18,600 I initially thought.

When do you think the additional 400 Avios per £2.50 would be added on?

jackieblack

rachelandgromit wrote: »

OK, I'm a bit confused. On 1st Feb I exchanged around £46.50 of vouchers to Avios, on the understanding that you'd get 1000 Avios per £2.50 (an extra 400 on top of the normal 600 they give) so thinking I'd get around 18,600 Avios. On the old Airmiles scheme I use to get 80 Airmiles per £2.50 but I thought they may have scrapped that. However today I check my account and see the following:

03/02/2012 88375529 TESCO AVIOS AWARD AT 800 AVIOS RATE 14,880

So it seems that when I use to be on the old 80 airmiles per £2.50 they have honoured that but can I presume that the additional 400 they owe me (7,440) will be added on later? If so, I actually would end up with 22,320 Avios rather than 18,600 I initially thought.

When do you think the additional 400 Avios per £2.50 would be added on?

On Avios website it says that bonus Avios points will be added up to 28 days after the base points.

NonGeographicalMan

jackieblack wrote: »

On Avios website it says that bonus Avios points will be added up to 28 days after the base points.

Two years ago in the previous double rate voucher conversion at 120 Air Miles (1200 Avios) per £2.50 voucher I was credited the normal rate of 60 Air Miles per voucher automatically online within 24 hours but my double rate further 60 Air Miles per voucher still hadn't been added after 28 days so I had to chase up Air Miles to add them.:eek::mad:

Its pretty bizarre that the Tesco Clubcard site still shows the conversion rate as being 600 Avios during the conversion period when all of the Avios are being provided by Avios and Tesco are just handing over the same £2.50 per voucher as usual. In fact I would say it is actively misleading for the 600 Avios rate to still be shown by Tesco during the promotion period but it seems to be beyond the wit of Tesco's IT department and/or marketing people to alter it to the higher rate during the promotion period.

Anyhow check your statements to make sure you do get the 400 Avios per voucher bonus as I wouldn't trust Avios to give it to you automatically without being chased up.

jackieblack

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Two years ago in the previous double rate voucher conversion at 120 Air Miles (1200 Avios) per £2.50 voucher I was credited the normal rate of 60 Air Miles per voucher automatically online within 24 hours but my double rate further 60 Air Miles per voucher still hadn't been added after 28 days so I had to chase up Air Miles to add them.:eek::mad:


Anyhow check your statements to make sure you don't get the 400 Avios per voucher bonus as I wouldn't trust Avios to give it to you automatically without being chased up.

Maybe you were just unlucky, my double rate points arrived with no problems two years ago, but I'll keep an eye out anyway as I never believe these thing are going to actually happen until I have proof it has .

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

Its pretty bizarre that the Tesco Clubcard site still shows the conversion rate as being 600 Avios during the conversion period when all of the Avios are being provided by Avios and Tesco are just handing over the same £2.50 per voucher as usual. In fact I would say it is actively misleading for the 600 Avios rate to still be shown by Tesco during the promotion period but it seems to be beyond the wit of Tesco's IT department and/or marketing people to alter it to the higher rate during the promotion period.

I agree, this is poor on Tesco's part, but the Avios website has had all the info prominently displayed on rheir website and the call centre people I've spoken to have all seemed to know all about it.

NonGeographicalMan

jackieblack wrote: »

I agree, this is poor on Tesco's part, but the Avios website has had all the info prominently displayed on rheir website and the call centre people I've spoken to have all seemed to know all about it.

Yes I agree that the Avios staff do all seem to know about the bonus deal on the phone. The lady I spoke to was very clear there was only one 400 per voucher bonus whether you converted the Clubcard points automatically by opting in to auto conversion before the date quoted or if you instead converted them manually yourself on the Tesco Clubcard website.

On the other hand I have to say that not all of the Avios staff are behaving very well in relation to the massive amount of additional taxes that long haul Economy passengers are now being expected to pay with no corresponding significant offset to make up for this to that which Club passengers have been given. They just make statements like "its down to individual choice" and so on and seem highly unsympathetic about any complaint about the alterations in the scheme's terms and conditions when we actually have no choice at all about these changes being imposed and it is totally unacceptable that there was only 3 months rather than 12 months to make a booking on the old Air Miles basis for those who wanted to do so.

Those collecting to travel by Club were given a huge offset for having to pay the taxes and charges by the number of Avios required to travel Club being altered back to only 2 x the Economy rate instead of 3x (World Traveller rate was also cut from 2x to 1.5x the standard rate) but those saving to travel long haul in Economy are being asked to pay far too much taxes in relation to the benefit of taking the flight. If Avios can afford a £27 saver for Europe then allowing for the extra length of the flights to the US and the extra taxes they should have been able to offer a flat rate £125 Saver to the rest of the world. The taxes they are currently asking people to pay in Economy long haul effectively render's using Air Miles pointless unless you are travelling in peak season or booking less than a week before departure (when Economy fares are much higher than the cheapest low season rates).

Dr_Roberto

I am likin Avios now at first I was like oh that crap , but am loving 1 pouint per pound on credit card , that can add up fast

NonGeographicalMan

Dr_Roberto wrote: »

I am likin Avios now at first I was like oh that crap , but am loving 1 pouint per pound on credit card , that can add up fast

Before £10 spent on Amex = 1 Air Mile. Now £10 spent on Amex = 10 Avios. The conversion rate from Air Miles to Avios was x10. Most flight prices have been increased around 10 fold plus massive taxes added on long haul routes.

So please tell me why you think you are better off than before when you now have to pay huge taxes and fees when you redeem for a long haul Economy ticket that you didn't have to pay before.:think:

I'm still trying to work out how you could have got your huge Thanked score in relation to the modest number of posts you have made in the forum. Especially if all your other posts were of the same low quality as the one above!

jackieblack

I changed some Tesco Clubcard vouchers just after the promotion started on 27th Jan. The initial 600 points per £2.50 went on on 31st Jan and the bonus 400 points per £2.50 went on today:T
(The t&c said each of these could take up to 28 days so up to 8 weeks in total.)

So we have used £142.50 in Tesco vouchers to save £456 on our hotel in New York :j(flights booked using Airmiles before the changeover, also travel ins and car hire for the other 11 days of our trip) also meant we have been able to book a nicer hotel than we would have if paying full price

ali_r_2

does it make any difference if you book flights through avios or through BA Exec Club? OR do they both charge the same amount of avios for the flights you book? thanks in advance