Who wouldn’t want a free flight to the sun or a city break on the back of their grocery shopping? Earlier this month, Tesco announced Aer Lingus as its new Clubcard rewards partner, promising cheaper flights for shoppers.
But is the new scheme any good? And how much will you actually have to spend in Tesco before you would be entitled to a free flight?
In the war of the supermarkets, Dunnes Stores has deployed its €5 or €10 vouchers – plus reward vouchers, which have a cash value – while Tesco has stuck with its Clubcard rewards vouchers scheme.
This means that every time you use your Clubcard (often, probably, given the pricing differential for Clubcard users versus other shoppers) you get points. Purchases of food, fuel – including home heating oil with Certa – Tesco Mobile and clothes all accrue points, though you won’t get points on tobacco-related products, infant formula or alcohol.
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For every €1 you spend in store, you’ll get one point. You also get one point for every €2 spent on fuel, or two points for every €1 on Tesco Mobile. You’ll need a minimum of 150 points to get vouchers. You can also access these vouchers as they arise on the Tesco app, and you can check your entitlement via your MyCard account.
How to spend them
The vouchers have a cash value so you can opt to put them against your weekly grocery shop bill, or save them all to use in the run-up to Christmas, for example.
Alternatively, you can allocate them to one of Tesco’s reward partners. These currently include days out – such as Beyond the Trees in Avondale and Airfield estate in Dundrum – eating out in restaurants such as Milano and holidays.
Often, you’ll find the service provider Tesco includes in the scheme offers a further incentive. With Milano, for example, for every €1 in vouchers, it will give you €3 to use.
The rewards scheme used to offer very attractive tickets to Dublin Zoo but this partnership came to an end last month after 10 years. Dublin Zoo says that if you do have codes already for the zoo, they will remain valid for six months from the date of issue.
But what about Aer Lingus?
The new partnership doesn’t have a cash value so you won’t be able to transfer your vouchers straight into a monetary sum to be spent with the airline. Instead, you’ll get Avios points, the airline’s loyalty scheme. For every €2.50 in Tesco vouchers, you’ll get 600 points.
If someone spends €200 a week on their shopping for 45 weeks of the year, that will be a total of 9,000 Clubcard points, which is about €90 in Tesco vouchers.
Under the Aer Lingus scheme, this will translate to 21,600 Avios points – but what can you do with that?
Avios points
First, you can use your points to help reduce the cost of a flight you’re booking, inclusive of taxes, fees and charges, by opting for the “Pay with Avios” option. This will give you a discount on your flight; it might even cover the full cost.
Or you can book a reward flight. The points for these are fixed, which gives you some certainty as to how much they will cost, as shown in our table. A business class flight from Dublin to Cancún in Mexico, for example, will cost 75,000 points one way, while you can get to Paris from Dublin or Cork for 4,000 points, off peak.
Our aforementioned family of Tesco shoppers could book a romantic spring trip for a couple to Paris and just pay the taxes on a return trip, or they could almost cover the cost of a one-way trip to Malaga this summer (7,500 points peak) for a family of three.
It is likely best to check how much a flight would cost through Aer Lingus’s regular booking page before booking a reward flight – as you might do better.
For example, you could fly to Toronto from Dublin (one way) on Monday, January 19th for €391 cash. But if you used €33 worth of Tesco vouchers, it would only cost you €145.07 in taxes and charges.
Upgrading your current booking is another option. If you want to upgrade to business class to the east coast/centre of America, it will cost you 37,000 points off peak (so €154 in Tesco vouchers). Going to the west coast will cost 46,250 points for an upgrade.
You won’t be under pressure to spend your Avios points. According to a spokeswoman for Aer Lingus, your points won’t expire as long as your account is active – which means either collecting or spending Avios at least once every 36 months.
Earning Avios points with Tesco is not the only option. Every time you buy a flight with Aer Lingus – or its partners, American, British Airways and United – you will earn points. Your points will be added to your account once your flight has flown.
For every €1 you spend, you will get three Avios points. So a €500 flight to New York will give you 1,500 points.
If you book with a partner airline, points are based on distance flown and fare class. So a business class trip to South Africa with British Airways could give you more than 15,500 in points, as there is a 250 per cent uplift for business class.
You could also consider buying or gifting Avios points, earning up to 47 Avios points per €1 spent this way. A gift of €59, for example, will give the recipient 2,000 points, €189 will give them 8,000 points.
And you can also earn points with Aer Lingus’ reward partners. With Booking.com, for example, you can earn six Avios for every €1 spent. So a €1,000 hotel booking will give you a further 6,000 points. With Marks & Spencer, you can earn 12 points for every €1 spent, eight points per €1 with Brown Thomas, and 10 points per euro with B&Q. Uber, Aircoach and Avis are also Avios partners.
Tesco partners: Other options
If you decide the return with Aer Lingus isn’t worth the use of your vouchers, there are plenty of other options with Tesco.
Using them to reduce the cost of your shop is always a good use. But you might find you can do better with another reward partner, some of which offer as much as three times the value of your voucher.
Travel partners other than Aer Lingus include Irish Ferries, which triples the value of your voucher in multiples of €5 – so €5 then is worth €15 with the company. Stena Line and Royal Caribbean offer a similar return, as does hotels.com. So, €50 in vouchers could turn into a €150 discount with these operators.
Or how about a dinner out? In addition to Milano, which has branches around the State, Early Table has just signed up to the platform. You can double your voucher here with €5 in vouchers giving you five credits. Early Table promises it works with more than 200 restaurants, offering discounts of as much as 50 per cent off your food bill.
To book, you will need to use one credit per diner. For example, on Saturday, December 6th, you can save 30 per cent on food and drinks dining at 8pm at Old Fashioned Sam’s on Harcourt Street, 30 per cent off Lobstar in Dún Laoghaire at 5.30pm and 25 per cent off The Guinea Pig in Dalkey.
Eating midweek gives greater choices. For example you can get 30 per cent off One Ballsbridge at 6pm on Tuesday December 9th.
Or at Odeon cinema, you can use €3.50 in Clubcard vouchers to get a kid’s ticket, or €5 vouchers for an adult.
