'The marketing genius of Tesco double points' blog discussion

mememememe

ElkyElky wrote: »

I absolutely hate Tesco and always dread shopping there. They are, by far, the worst supermarket I've ever shopped in and I've shopped in a fair amount around Europe. The only reason I force myself to shop there is simply because of the clubcard points. They've given me completely free holidays in the past.

I would switch to Asda in a heart beat if they started their own clubcard with the option of collecting airmiles.

I'd love to see the day Tesco is burned down to the ground.

The holidays are most definitely not completely free! The cost of them is included in the price you pay for your goods at the supermarket. If you switched to Asda then I think you would save much more money than the holidays (and whatever else you spend your clubcard points on) cost. If you switch to Asda, then you could put the money you save doing your weekly shop into a special savings account and use this account to pay for 'freebies' instead.

Remember Tesco isn't a charity - it wants your money, it doesn't give you free stuff!

roddydogs

Even if you multiply Clubcard points x 4 for "Deals", that equals 8%.......Right?. The "Suns" shopping baskets reguarly show Tesco to be 8-12% Dearer than ASDA, so how are CC Points "Good Value" ? Also post 26........does £5000 spent at Tesco really get you flights worth £13,500, not doubting just seems rather high.

harz99

mememememe wrote: »

The holidays are most definitely not completely free! The cost of them is included in the price you pay for your goods at the supermarket. If you switched to Asda then I think you would save much more money than the holidays (and whatever else you spend your clubcard points on) cost. If you switch to Asda, then you could put the money you save doing your weekly shop into a special savings account and use this account to pay for 'freebies' instead.

Remember Tesco isn't a charity - it wants your money, it doesn't give you free stuff!

Maybe; but only if the OP has an Asda near them!

My nearest is 30 miles away, so the cost of getting there and back will be more than the possible savings. I have a choice of Tesco/Morrison/Lidl and all have good and bad points, so we use the first two a lot and Lidl occasionally.

mcgsp

Tesco sent me a letter justifying the reduction in the number of Airmiles I could have for £2.50 worth of vouchers. They justified this by showing how I was benefitting from Double Points. On the same day I received my quarterly reward statement and found that I had hardly benefitted from double points as I usually only buy food and petrol in Tescos (and only occasionally as they are expensive in our area for both).

As far as I'm concerned the Double Points excuse for reducing the airmiles is just a way of reducing the "reward" for shopping at Tescos. For me, with my buying pattern, Double Points is a scam to reduce my airmiles!

1961templar

Tesco Clubcard deals are not as good as they appear!

isypeasy

Tesco are actually doubly the genius your article starts to suggest though, Martin.
Since the double point bonanza was introduced you can now get 2 points per £ when you used to get 1.
Those points used to be worth 4 times their values in Clubcard rewards, so with double points you now get 8 times the value of your spend if you use them through the Club card reward route.

You can still do that, of course, however, the tesco marketing juggernaut has launched the new and shiny "Clubcard voucher exchange" which get you twice the value of your points for spend in Tesco Direct, this is exactly half the value you'd get through the clubcard reward route, so if you bite into that, you're back where you started from.
1point = 4p clubcard reward or 2 points = 4p clubcard exchange, same difference!
Scarily cunning!

Miser-ably-enriched

Doubling of points is temporary, but the halving of value is permanent.

Fair play to Tesco for bringing it to my attention on airmiles - they've written and emailed, and a couple of weeks before the changes are due to take place....... I guess I do have a choice to make (Last time Airmiles changed the value of their vouchers, it was hidden away as a done deal in an annual statement).

Given the large number of 2 for 1 vouchers for places like Alton Towers nowadays, club vouchers were never really 4x the value of the actual value - more often just double the face value.

This re-alignment was more or less inevitable with the "fleeting permanence" of double points, but it will upset people when they revert to single points - as they will.

Spend £2500. Get £25 of vouchers - exchange for 500 airmiles. That means they are worth/"cost" 5p each, (or 10p if you have the mindset of "double value for coupons"). Airmiles will sell you up to 500 at 15p each for cash, (and cheaper to buy old style vouchers on eBay). That works out at a 3% reward rate, and if ASDA is really 8-10% cheaper it may be time to consider "which supermarket is best for my needs" rather than misplaced allegiance to an indifferent loyalty card. Doesn't mean you should ignore all the MSE tips for offers and the chance to double / triple dip points - just means you have some sums to do.

withabix

roddydogs wrote: »

Also post 26........does £5000 spent at Tesco really get you flights worth £13,500, not doubting just seems rather high.

£5000 of my own money plus £8-£10,000 of my and my wife's employers' money - I did say that.

This year I have converted 245,000 BA Miles in 8 months. The conversion rate is 600 BA Miles for 250 Clubcard Points (at the moment!! - only until 1st September).

245,000 / 600 * 250 = 102,083 Clubcard Points.

At 2 points per £ (only 1 on fuel though), that's potentially '£50,000-£75,000 spend'.

But I have only spent approx £4000 on shopping (our money) plus £7000 on fuel (not our money).

250,000 BA Miles (which I will reach in a couple of weeks) would get me at least two fully flexible business class return flights to Vancouver (our usual destination) plus one fully flexible Economy one to the same destination.

Equivalent cash price of those flights is about £14500+ (depends on time of year etc), less the taxes and fees at about £900.

BA Miles flights are fully cancellable and changeable without penalty (other than a very small charge) - ie NOT the same as cheap tickets.

If I put some effort in, I could easily double the number of Clubcard points I accrue in a year.

As far as I'm concerned, I at least recover the annual total spend in equivalent flight value every year.

...that's ME winning and not Tesco, is is not???

(I do get BA Miles from other sources, such as Holiday Inn and Hertz, however Tesco accounts for over 90% of them)

joecamo

Asda are always showing their adverts on TV saying their prices are lower than all the other supermarkets. Most people won't notice that they say "branded" products.

Compare prices for the supermarkets "own brands" and you'll see that Asda is not the cheapest.

In this economic crisis, not as many people will be buying all the brand names. There are more and more people that are starting to buy the Supermarkets own brands.

Also, Tesco in my opinion is the best supermarket. They are the only Supermarket with their very own Mobile brand. Tesco Mobile is great, very often you get TRIPLE points as well as TRIPLE credit whenever you top up £15. Thats 45 points everytime you top up, and also £45 mobile credit.

Now if you're like me and don't spend £45 each month on your phone, then this is great because that £45 will last until you've used it all. Meaning you only have to top up every 6-8 weeks! Which is great.

Also, I get very high signal in pubs, clubs and even in Museums. Orange and T-Mobile are rubbish for signal in these kind of places, and they are 2 of the main providers!

It sounds like I'm some sort of advertiser for Tesco haha, I'm not, but Tesco are pretty great. Asda don't offer as much variety as Tesco, and that's why I'm loyal to Tesco, they expand and grow so much quicker than all of the other Supermarkets

worried_jim

GreenGreenGrass-of-home wrote: »

I thought it was well known. Start with Tescopoly by Andrew Simms.

Thanks !- just ordered.