The Great Join Up And Save Hunt

katchambers

TESCO CLUBS

If you have a tesco clubcard I suggest you join all 4 tesco clubs here:

http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/clubcard/clubs/

There is the Food club, healthy living club, baby & toddler club and wine club.

Even if you don't like wine or don't have a baby or toddler you can swap the vouchers here for ones you do want:

https://www.paidtoshop.co.uk

Or you can sell them on ebay, surprisingly they actually sell for several pounds each!

The vouchers are usually something like 50 extra points when you buy margarine or something like that. It is one of the best ways to increase your tesco points, and remember use your points on deals and you will get 4 times as much.

By joining these clubs you will get a mailing from each one every quarter and it will have a little magazine and about 8 different points vouchers for different products. You usually get around 300-500 points per mailing, which conservatively is 1200 points per club per annum and 4800 on all 4 clubs per annum, which is £48 in vouchers and £192 in deals. Even if you don't use them all it is totally worth it and it costs nothing to join, it is FREE.

Kat

superteach38

Youth Hostel Association is really good - family membership is only about £25 / year and accommodation in a family room is pretty cheap, depending on where you stay obviously. You can now pay for membership and accommodation with Tesco Deals Tokens, meaning you could have a break every school holiday without using real money!! Millets, Blacks and several other outdoors-y type shops give 10% discount to YHA members as well as days out places such as Tussauds.

Not sure where the price of £54ish for NT membership comes from, ours was close to £70 for family membership this year - we cancelled it as our kids are beyond the NT days out really, now.

mopsy

I bit the bullet years ago in my 20s and have never regretted it - my life membership gets me and one other in free and I use it a lot. However children are a consideration as once they get to five years they pay an admission fee. My two are now 8 and 4 and if Dad comes out with us as well we end up having to pay for my son and after March 2007 will have to pay for his sister too. So I'm seriously considering investing in a life membership for one of the children. Though possibly I may be able to upgrade the membership...

mopsy

PS Worth considering English Heritage life membership - which I also have. Biggest advantage is that children are free so my life membership gets me and one other in and any number of children. And English Heritage have more ruins, castles etc which my kids prefer. And usually the coffee's better too! Also entitles you to get into Scottish Heritage places and discounts on privately owned places like the Brighton Pavilion etc.

KleptisV

Just wanted to say thanks for the 'Scottish equivalent' tips (YHA & NT)- this info is what the MSE boards are all about!

xadoc

Thanks for all the suggestions. :T

I had considered English Heritage. It's a bit cheaper than the NT life membership for a couple @ £980, but doesn't seem to have as many international reciprocal benefits, and I'm less excited by ruins, although castles are good... and there's always the 'heritage open days' in September which offer free entry to lots of locations.

Same goes for NT for Scotland @ £1,110.00 which doesn't seem to mention reciprocal benefits abroad... only in Britain. I think we'd be highly likely to use NT benefits abroad so it'd be worth the extra money.

Sorry about the mistake regarding the NT annual family membership... I misread the NT site. The price of £54.75 included the direct debit discount (which you only get for the first year), the price is indeed normally £73.

Which means we'd recoup the cost of life membership after only 14yrs (age 43). :cool:

purplemoon

You can also buy this (and English YHA) with Tesco deals, at the regular four times their value (200 points for the £8 SYHA membership).

Sarahsaver

http://www.self-builder.org.uk/discounts.htm

self build association, discounts on building materials, energy saving lamps and so on...

Sui_Generis

purplemoon wrote:

You can also buy this (and English YHA) with Tesco deals, at the regular four times their value (200 points for the £8 SYHA membership).

Amazing OK that clinches it for me! How do you pay with Tesco points?

purplemoon

Seem to have found a bit of a problem with it actually... The minimum for holiday vouchers is £2.50, then you can add in increments of £1.25... And you won't get change. If you were buying for 2 and paid a pound extra you could use £3.75 in points (or if you were booking at a SYHA you could use for accomodation); or if you were using holiday vouchers for something else you could find out what denominations they came in. If you do go ahead this is how you buy with clubcard points if you haven't before....

You need a bit of time, so its not the way I went cos I needed the membership immediately. 1st you'll have your points vouchers from Tesco with the codes on them. Go to clubcard section on Tesco site and search for SYHA in 'deals' section. Add £amount worth of vouchers to basket (it'll tell you its worth 4 x amount). If you have only a higher voucher, it'll give you change in your next clubcard statement. When you receive the vouchers you can order through SYHA (but not online) posting or quoting the numbers on vouchers.