Tesco vouchers and ferries

CubicleDweller

Is it worth trying to collect Tesco vouchers for use when taking a motorhome to France or Britain? I've searched and there are lots of threads about this in the past, but it seems that none of them are recent and the scheme seems to have changed a few times.

If the deals available now are good value I might get a Tesco credit card - you can earn points when using it to pay for stuff elsewhere, not just while shopping in Tesco (which I seldom do).

Are only a small number of spaces allocated for people using the vouchers? I notice that when searching on Irish Ferries Website there is a checkbox "with Tesco tokens". Since they ask that question before the search - rather than later when you go to pay - it suggests that the search results depend on whether you check that box?

I'm interested to hear what people think of this scheme, be it good or bad.

Thanks!

crabbypaddy

Tesco vouchers are equivalent to a 1% discount (1 point per euro spent) on your shopping, club card deals make that the equivalent of 4% discount on your shopping. If you want to save money on the ferry go to aldi/lidl and get 20-50% off tesco prices and put the difference towards your ferry ticket.

"If you choose to pay in part or in full with your Boost tokens you will be charged an additional €20 processing fee per leg, which can be paid for in cash or with Boost tokens."

€40 is the equivalent of spending €1000 in tesco.

CubicleDweller

Thanks, Crabbypaddy.

Yes, you can save money by shopping in Aldi or Lidl instead of in Tesco. And I do.

But those stores allow you to pay by credit card - so you can use the Tesco credit card to pay for your groceries in Aldi or Lidl, and you get Tesco points. It's at a lower rate - 1 point per 2 euro spent - but it's not costing anything extra except the annual stamp duty on the card. And you also get points if you use the card to shop online (not just at Tesco!), pay for insurance premiums, etc. See where I'm going here? Use the card for as much as possible, clear the account on time every month so there are no interest charges, and in theory you can get 2% of your card expenditure back in Boost tokens (0.5% in points, 4x that when converted to tokens). At that rate, you might get enough tokens to make it worthwhile.

I had read about the extra 20 euro fee - wasn't sure if it still applied. It would suggest that you need to use a lot of tokens in one transaction to get the best return. So I guess it would be best to use all of your tokens say once a year, rather than trying to save a little on each of several trips. But then, do the tokens have an expiry date? An answer to that and lots of other questions can probably be found in an FAQ somewhere online - and I'll find them.

But what I was really hoping to find out on this forum was answers to questions like:

Has anyone any experience of actually using this scheme? Did they discover any pitfalls or catches that were not apparent from what they had read online? Did they think it was worthwhile? Can the token only be used for sailings in the depth of winter, or on Tuesdays, or something like that?

We've recently bought our first motorhome and are keen to take it abroad, but I'm also keen to avoid paying any more for ferry fares than I have to!

Again, thanks!

B.I.O.Y.H.

If you join their Christmas Club all your Tesco Tokens are sent out at the end of the year. You can also top up throughout the year by paying cash into account. So in effect you don't need to shop in Tesco, but can still benefit from the four for one on Irish Ferries (i.e. €50 Tesco Tokens is worth €200 against the cost of the ferry)

CubicleDweller

Thanks, BIOYH! I didn't know about the Christmas Club or the cash top-ups. Both could definitely help with getting the best ferry deal possible, so it's good to know.

Benbecul97

Is all the effort worth the saving?
How much are you looking at saving on say a €1000 fare (for easy maths!) in July?

CubicleDweller

Well it seems like, in theory, you could get the whole fare for free. You spend the same money you'd be spending anyway, just using a particular credit card to do it. So for zero cost you collect points. Those points get turned into vouchers, and the vouchers get turned into tokens, and with enough tokens you could pay the whole fare.

Of course, the question is how many points you can collect in a reasonable timeframe, and how many tokens you therefore can end up with. I'd very much doubt that I could collect enough points between now and July to make a major dent in a 1000 euro fare. The credit limit on the card probably wouldn't let me buy a Ferrari.

(To answer your question properly: I don't know - how much could I put through a credit card in six months, if I use it for all my shopping, utility bills, diesel, etc? For every thousand euro put on the card, I could potentially save 20 euro on the fare.)

If you collect the points/vouchers/tokens over a longer period you might get to bigger numbers - but vouchers have expiry dates and I imagine tokens do, too. According to what BIOYH says, it seems that you can buy the points anyway, and then turn the resulting vouchers into tokens. So it seems that without even spending time collecting any points, it might be possible to save 75% of the fare - by buying 250 euro worth of points for cash, and turning that into 1000 euro worth of tokens.

That seems too good to be true of course, so it probably is. There is probably a limit on how many points you can buy, or something like that.

I understand where you're coming from, though; sometimes a scheme to save money just isn't worth the hassle that's involved in achieving the saving. In this case it seems like the hassle may be fairly minimal - just use one credit card instead of another, then do a couple of online transactions - and the savings may actually be significant.

I'll probably get the Tesco card anyway, and just see how it goes. The worst outcome is just that I pay the tax for an extra card and see nothing in return. Worth a punt...

Greentree_uk

B.I.O.Y.H. wrote: »

If you join their Christmas Club all your Tesco Tokens are sent out at the end of the year. You can also top up throughout the year by paying cash into account. So in effect you don't need to shop in Tesco, but can still benefit from the four for one on Irish Ferries (i.e. €50 Tesco Tokens is worth €200 against the cost of the ferry)

How do you pay cash into your account?

dmcdermo

The main problem with paying for the ferry in tesco tokens is that the price goes up substantially as you dont get the "cash discount" Irish ferries give to people paying with cards etc. Effectivly a €1,000 crossing becomes a €1,300 crossing meaning your 3 or 4 hundred euro in Tesco tokens isnt worth as much as you think. This is why they ask if you are using them at the start of the process.

Greentree_uk

Thought as much,

dmcdermo wrote: »

The main problem with paying for the ferry in tesco tokens is that the price goes up substantially as you dont get the "cash discount" Irish ferries give to people paying with cards etc. Effectivly a €1,000 crossing becomes a €1,300 crossing meaning your 3 or 4 hundred euro in Tesco tokens isnt worth as much as you think. This is why they ask if you are using them at the start of the process.

unfit2006

dmcdermo wrote: »

The main problem with paying for the ferry in tesco tokens is that the price goes up substantially as you dont get the "cash discount" Irish ferries give to people paying with cards etc. Effectivly a €1,000 crossing becomes a €1,300 crossing meaning your 3 or 4 hundred euro in Tesco tokens isnt worth as much as you think. This is why they ask if you are using them at the start of the process.

Exactly as above. This scam has been going on for years.

Jolly Red Giant

I don't shop at Tesco but I use a Tesco credit card and Tesco points accumulate on anything I use the credit card for.

I use Tesco vouchers for all my ferry travel (Irish Ferries because Stena limit the amount of vouchers you can use). Yes they bump up the price when you use the vouchers - but it is still a significant saving.

I have just booked a ferry to Britain in July - cost was €330 return which was €82.50 in vouchers.

The price without vouchers was €290 - so I got a €290 trip for €82.50 (and I added in a cabin both ways for €20 of vouchers)

Seems to be a huge discount on Irish ferries if you book from an Android. I was just checking the price a few days back and was offered 25% off with an automatic promo code.
Maybe it's all mobile devices.

insullation

It can be hard to get a tesco credit card also. Turn down people with perfect credit and good income for no apparent reason. Also no online acces to account. They are also likely to reduce points as in uk they recently introduced that you get one point for every 8 pounds you spent on the credit card. It's due to reduced charged introduced by the EU on credit card transactions

boyoh

Yes is the short answer. We have collected and used them for many years, on both Stena and Irish ferries and found them to be a great saving. The most we've paid for return is a little over €100. They are easy to convert and use on line and you can do everything on the Tesco web site. Good Luck....................boyoh:cool: