PizzaExpress Club

mpeel68

Hi,

I'm currently a member of the PizzaExpress Club and have been since February this year:

http://www.pizzaexpressclub.com/

Firstly I wanted to let you all know about it in case you didn't already: it's not hugely publicised. Secondly I was interested in your opinions as to whether it is worthwhile!



It costs £45.00/year and for that you get:

• Five "Main course and drink" vouchers per year (one every quarter as long as you fill out a survey, and one on your birthday by default).
• A card where you collect stamps (one per main course ordered for a club member) - so after 10 meals you get another "Main course and drink" voucher
• A free bottle of wine if four or more people are dining
• Free dessert with any main course between 3PM and 5PM
• A load of other worthless benefits, newsletters, wall calendars, jazz club deals etc.

This SOUNDS like great value - a pizza + wine could cost £20, so it sounds like you're getting £100 out of the membership - £55 "profit" - plus the extra vouchers every 10 meals. In practise, it's quite a bit less, since if you use any free main course + drink vouchers, you can't take advantage of any other offers (such as the regular 25% or even 40% discounts available on the web site, Tesco Clubcard vouchres, or the two-for-one Taste card deal if you have one of them).

I haven't done the hard maths to work out if this is worth the money or if I'm losing out here... nobody pays full price at pizza express anyway so it's a bit disingenous to suggest the profits/savings are against the full prices!

Anyone else a member and care to share their experiences? What do you all think?

Thanks!

Altarf

Taking the benefits -

* Free dessert with any main course between 3PM and 5PM

Who eats between 3pm and 5pm? Worthless.

*A free bottle of wine if four or more people are dining

Can't be used with any other offer. Worthless (and in fact likely to cost you money).

*A card where you collect stamps so after 10 meals you get another "Main course and drink" voucher

Pizza Express is OK occasionally but 10 times a year? Unlikely so worthless.

*Five "Main course and drink" vouchers per year

If you bought a main course and drink you would pay around £14, so about £70 for the five vouchers. So cheaper if you eat on your own.

However if you were dining as a couple, it would mean that you couldn't take advantage of the BOGOF offers, so five main meals with a drink for two would cost £115 (including the club membership), but using BOGOF vouchers it would only be £90, so the membership is worthless.

Even if you both had membership, at £45 it would still work out at the same price for the 5 meals, so worthless.

The only circumstances I can see that it is a good deal, is if you eat out with a group of friends at Pizza Express, don't use vouchers, and don't chip in to pay the bill, but instead pay your share using your club voucher (and claiming the bottle of wine). Obviously by doing this you make all your friends pay more, which is pretty unlikely would happen twice, so again worthless.

If you regularly eat in Pizza Express and can't be bothered with paper vouchers, get a Taste Card, which gives you BOGOF on every course, not just mains. You can often get a free card through offers for it on this site, but can be bought for £29.99 and gives you discounts elsewhere.

saintetienne

I agree and thought it was good value ( been a member for 5 years) - we have a local Pizza Express which we ate in quite a lot as well- but sadly they have now stopped the Club - due to member's feedback - not quite sure who said they did not want it - but there you go , probably it was not fincially lucrative enough

jmarko

Sadly, this deal is now ending but, just to annoy you , I will let you know why it was not worthless!

We paid £80 for two of us (£40 per person) and we *each* received:

5 x pizza plus drink vouchers (worth on average £15 each to us) - these are the four quarterly vouchers plus the birthday one.
4 x pizza plus drink vouchers (worth as above) - these were one per quarter for filling out a questionnaire that took under two (literal) minutes.
2 x 'loyalty' vouchers (worth as above) - these are for filling the 'stamp card'
A bottle of wine
Numerous deserts

Ignoring the other bits, for our £40 each, we were getting 11 vouchers per year = £165. And it doesn't matter how you cut it, that was a great deal.

Shame it's gone really!

jmarko