WARNING: Tesco Clubcard vouchers / NOW TV 'credit' deal

hybernia

Moneysavers with Clubcard accounts who may also be customers of Sky's NOW TV should tread carefully when it comes to a current Tesco Clubcard NOW TV deal.

It could unexpectedly cost them a lot  of money that they can't afford right now.

The deal allows Clubcard holders to exchange vouchers for credit to be added to their NOW TV account. A £1 Clubcard voucher equals £3 NOW TV credit.

The deal is online here: https://secure.tesco.com/clubcard/now-tv/UK-009896.prd

Tesco explains it as follows:

Converted Clubcard vouchers will be displayed as credit in your NOW TV account which you can use to purchase any NOW TV products on nowtv.com (excluding NOW Broadband).

Tesco also  points out:

We’re aware that a small number of customers are having trouble converting their Clubcard vouchers to NOW TV credit.. . Please bear with us while we iron out these issues. In the meantime, our NOW TV advisors are on hand to help if you have a problem, who you can contact through Live Chat on nowtv.com.

Neither of the above statements is true.

NOW TV shut down all its online customer support facilities on March 27th last, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason. The company is still trading though, its online web page processing automatically charging credit and debit cards linked to customers' accounts when a new viewing pass is purchased or the customer forgets to cancel an existing one). That NOW TV is continuing to engage in financial transactions whilst deliberately isolating itself from its customers might seem to be anything but Best Practice as far as the regulator is concerned.

As to the promise that you can use your credit to "purchase any NOW TV product on nowtv.com", the fact is that NOW TV has a particular online process for charging the cost of products (i.e., passes) to the credit in a customer's account, a process which kicks in the moment your clubcard vouchers are converted into credit. You're invited to go online to your account, log in, and pick one or other of the standard full price NOW TV passes, using the credit you've just amassed.

But there's no guarantee -- at all -- that this same automatic process applies to the purchase of the discounted 6 month and 12 month 'Entertainment' and Sky Movies passes. These passes are excellent value compared to the standard price, and currently available at up to 50% off. 

NOW TV will invite you to select one or more of them but -- and it's a big 'BUT' -- if you click on the purchase option, NOW TV shows every sign of defaulting to its normal position of regarding your purchase as a cash buy -- and bill the credit or debit card attached to your account as usual. months from now, you may be able to argue the toss with NOW TV as to what it did or didn't do, but for now, you're not so much buying blind as buying deaf: there's no-one at NOW TV to hear your concerns or deal with them.

At a time such as this, incurring unexpected  costs in excess of £100 is the last thing hard-pressed families will want to happen -- yet there is no way you can talk to anyone at NOW TV until the pandemic is over.

Whether the Tesco Clubcard NOW TV deal is worthwhile will, as usual, be a matter of individual choice.

However, seeing as how you're cashing in your hard-earned Clubcard vouchers merely to pay the full-price of standard monthly passes when you could have saved those vouchers for something else and paid cash instead for a heavily discounted NOW TV pass is  worth thinking about -- it's the same situation that applies in the case of the various restaurant chains which partner Tesco Clubcard: they'll take your vouchers, but only against full priced menu items . . . yet you could've made considerable financial savings anyway by not using your Clubcard vouchers at all and choosing a meal from the restaurant's daily Specials menu instead. We long since stopped using our vouches against Cafe Rouge and Pizza Express purchases: it was a more or less complete waste of the vouchers.

I've raised with Tesco the issue of the non-existent NOW TV Live Help as well as the fact that no, you cannot use your credit to buy any product you like on the NOW TV website -- at least, not with any certainty that NOW TV won't take money off you that you never intended to spend. Tesco says it will investigate forthwith.

In my case, the £44 in Tesco Clubcard vouchers which I converted to NOW TV credit so as to purchase the discounted £69.99 12-month Sky Cinema deal and discounted £59.99  Entertainment deal are in abeyance because I've asked Tesco to retrieve them / refund them on the basis that I was misinformed as to the nature of the Clubcard deal. Having the darned things in suspension is a nuisance but at least it's better than NOW TV taking £129.98 from my debit card, money that I'd rather not spend at this of all times. 

BarGin

Does anyone have any update on this? I was looking forward to using my Clubcard points to buy a football season pass assuming they are offered again at the start of next season.

SAABDude

Looks like Tesco are now ceasing the ClubCard relationship with Now TV:

We’re writing to let you know that the partnership between NOW TV and Clubcard is ending on 31 January 2021. So after that date, you’ll no longer be able to use your Clubcard vouchers towards a NOW TV pass. We’re sorry if you’re disappointed by this change. If you have any questions, please visit our FAQs page

badmemory

Surely this is the whole point of the Tesco clubcard agreements.  They get a deal to provide you with a deal.  The whole idea of the deal is to get you fixed using the deal, then when the deal ends you decide to continue the deal or non-deal!  Basically if you really like it you will continue to pay at OUR price or you won't, so go away.  Tescos & NOW are businesses not charities, someone has to pay for their services, one way or another.