For my 30th birthday a few years ago (and a few more years on top of that), we spent a night in a fabulous upmarket hotel in Mayfair. It was appropriately expensive for a birthday celebration and just minutes from Selfridges – my favourite shop in the entire world.
A bottle of water at the hotel may have been £7 per bottle and we couldn’t afford to eat in the restaurant, but I liked the fact I’d been lavished with an expensive weekend away in London with the whole family.
And as always happens when you leave your home town and travel to a completely different part of the country – you randomly bump into people you know, from your home town. So we ended up bumping into some friends who were also staying in the area.
So that was the week I signed up to Tesco’s clubcard. We still haven’t accumulated enough points to stay in a posh hotel but we have had many meals out at Pizza Express and Santa bought lots of his Christmas presents last year using Tesco vouchers.
Of course it allows Tesco to accumulate a lot of marketing intelligence about their customers and Tesco probably know more about my weekly shopping habits than I do, but the occasional treats we receive in return for signing up to the Clubcard make it worthwhile for me.
I also have a 40th birthday coming up and a glance at the Tesco Clubcard Deals reveals that points can be converted to flying club miles with Virgin Atlantic.
Already I’m thinking New York.
A little info about the Tesco Clubcard
You can collect points on almost everything you buy in-store at Tesco.com, as well as when you fill up your car, buy your items from Tesco direct or use your Clubcard credit card. Once you've collected 150 points these are converted them into a Clubcard voucher worth £1.50, which is sent out with your Clubcard statement. The more points you collect, the more vouchers you'll get back. Your statement also contains money-off and extra points coupons for products and services that Tesco think you like.
