The Tesco Clubcard Butlins voucher con

da644

Hi All,

I'm absolutely fuming and wanted to vent!!!

I transfer £152.50 of Tesco vouchers into £610 of Butlins vouchers, all good so far. I looked on the website and got a quote for £682.20, excellent I thought a week holiday for the family for £72.20. I phone to book as is required, gave my reference from the website and was told that if using Tesco vouchers that NON of the discounts apply and you have to pay the full brochure price. I asked how much this was, think it might be an hundred or so and was told the full price was £1240.20, leaving a balance of £630.20 to paid... hmm a slight different to £72!!!!

This basically made the vouchers worth £52, a third of the value they would have been worth on shopping in Tesco, not 4 times (3x since Dec 10) the amount as the Clubcard website leads you to believe.

Therefore I conclude that the Tesco Clubcard Butlins vouchers are a complete CON and should be avoided at all costs.

Also the so called "brochure" prices from Butlins appear to be simply made up and don't reflect the price in the actual brochure either. From what I can calculate the "brochure" price (from the actually 2011 brochure) would be £911.20 not £1240.20. I call back and queried this with the sales consultant and he was unable to explain the different and suggest I had made a calculation error. I have been back over the prices from the brochure 3 times since and I can't get anything other than £911.20.

As you can tell I am very disappointed in both Tesco and Butlins. Tesco for agreeing such stupid terms with Butlins and Butlins for operating such an obvious con!!!

Vent over... you have been warned

Thanks.

Andrew.

NoSatisfaction

Sorry that you feel that way but the Tesco club card website and brochure makes it clear that "Holiday Tokens cannot be combined with any other offer." on the main page and on the more info page it states "Tokens are valid against full brochure price and cannot be used in conjunction with any other Butlins discounts, offers or promotions. Please calculate the value of your Butlins break on the full Butlins brochure price (please refer to current brochure or the full prices stated on butlins.com).".

Sorry to be blunt and we all make mistakes, but you should have made sure that you had the latest brochure before getting the vouchers.

It may also be worth trying to speak to a manager at Butlins to see if they can help with the pricing in anyway, given the differences. A tv programme recently ran a similar article re Cosmos and they backed down.

da644

Hi NoSatisfaction,

Sorry, but I would have to disagree with you. It does state as you say in they second to last point that it doesn't apply to any other offer, but when you search on the Butlins website and find a price, the price you are given doesn't state any kind of discount, it just gives you a "current price" so how are you meant to know that is not the price!!! Also I have the latest brochure, as you suggest, and I still can't get to the same price. No matter how you put it this is highly misleading and people should be warned. I thought it seemed to good to be true when I first looked at it and it really is. Why would I exchange £152 of voucher of what becomes worth £52? That would just be pointless.

I spoke with two people on Butlins sales number, one claiming to be a manager (you never really know if they are, if you know what I mean) and they both told me the same thing and said there is nothing they could do, it was the full so called "brochure price" or nothing. They did tell me that Tesco would exchange the voucher back for me, so I have contacted them to see if I can get this done. Neither of them seemed particularly surprised and I got the impression from both that they have had the same conversion hundreds of times, probably with every single person how phones up with CC voucher to use.

I will update this thread when I hear back from Tesco with what they say about it.

Kind regards,

Andrew.

flea72

could the difference in price between brochure and quote, be due to the change in VAT?

the butlins website does show reductions

it gives you the 'current price £xxx'
and then below that in red writing 'was £xxx'

F

da644

Hi Flea72,

I agree it does say "Current Price £xxx" and then in red and small text below "was £xxx" but it doesn't said "Special Offer Price" or "Price with discounts" or "Online special price" or anything like that. I think the wording is very misleading, "current price" to me suggests that is the price it currently is. If it is an "offer" price it should clearly state this and what the offer discount is. Which ever way you slice it, it is extremely misleading is seemingly deliberately so. Like I said the staff I spoke to seemed very familiar with the issue.

Kind regards

Andrew

kitkat

That is so annoying.
You could just ask Tesco to convert them back to points & you will receive them in the next voucher mail out plus they will be vaild for a further 2 yrs.
I haven't ever used mine for holidays as it is a con when you have to pay the full brochure price, I tend to use them for days out or meals.
Hope you get it sorted one way or another.

flea72

da644 wrote: »

I think the wording is very misleading, "current price" to me suggests that is the price it currently is. If it is an "offer" price it should clearly state this and what the offer discount is. Like I said the staff I spoke to seemed very familiar with the issue

i think to most people 'was' clearly shows that a discount has been applied to the current price

in a shop if you see a sign saying 'now £5, was £10' - you know that they are showing you the sale price - not at all misleading

on the first page of the booking process, it shows the offers that will be applied to your break, ie free child places and the per person discounts, so its a good indicator that the final price will be lower than full brochure price

staff are only familiar with the issue, because people dont look at the brochure prices. they just go online, see the low figure, and like you, just assume brochure price, will be only a few £s extra, when in reality is more like double - you yourself say you cant get brochure price under £900, however they do need to explain the breakdown, if they are making it £1200

F

caz2703

To me, an offer would mean something like a free child but more like a discount code or voucher than you are taking advantage of i.e. an offer. If the company decide to discount the price themselves in such a way that anyone who has vouchers will never be able to use them against the advertised price is very misleading.

I recall a company I worked for had negotiated a 10% staff discount for a well known local independant electrical chain. We went in, found the TV we wanted, asked their best price (no haggling done, just an upfront question) then informed them we had staff discount. We were swiftly told that the discount couldn't be used on anything except the advertised price in which case the discount was worthless as their best price was cheaper.

Morty_007

da644 wrote: »

Hi All,

I'm absolutely fuming and wanted to vent!!!

I transfer £152.50 of Tesco vouchers into £610 of Butlins vouchers, all good so far. Andrew.

I may be missing something here but 3 x £152.50 is £457.50...how do you get to £610? (or did you convert them before the change?)

And it's not a con...Tesco clearly advertise that you can only use them off full price holidays and it's been well moaned about on these boards. Whilst I understand your frustration at having made such a costly mistake, Tesco is not conning anyone.

sarahg1969

More of a con is the fact that is costs £1240 or even £900 to go to Butlins!

johncas1

I convert mine to Airmiles I have had to Holidays out of it one last year and one booked to this year (2011) june and as you can use Airmiles to pay for hotels to then Airmiles was a better deal than actually using vouchers for a holiday from another company