Caitríona Redmond: Free flights for my shopping points? I don’t believe it!

Does every little really help? Not always

Aer Lingus cabin crew member Lorraine Cullen pictured at Dublin Airport as they celebrate a new partnership between Aer Lingus and Tesco Ireland offering AerClub and Clubcard members an opportunity to turn their Tesco Clubcard vouchers into Avios.

This week I’m channelling my inner Victor Meldrew as I cast a very jaundiced eye over a new special offer.

You know how I love a loyalty scheme? I’ve come across one portion of a very popular scheme that may not be worth it. 

Last week, Tesco and Aer Lingus announced a strategic partnership that will allow Tesco Clubcard members exchange their Clubcard tokens for Avios points, which can be used to buy flights.

Typically, a Tesco customer earns one Clubcard token for every €1 spent. 

There are ways of boosting those tokens by buying groceries on special offer, signing up to newsletters, buying fuel at certain filling stations, and having a Tesco mobile phone. Even then, the conversion to tokens is still along the same lines.

Avios members would need 8,000 credits for a return flight to Amsterdam. Every €2.50 of Tesco Clubcard tokens translates to 600 credits, so that single return flight would cost €35 worth of Tesco Clubcard tokens plus taxes and charges (more for luggage). 

This sounds like a bargain, is there a catch?

Firstly, you may have overlooked what’s involved in earning those Clubcard tokens in the first place.

If you have a Tesco Clubcard account and you want to your accumulated tokens to spend on Avios credits towards that flight to Amsterdam, you’d need to have spent €3,500 in-store to earn €35 worth of tokens. 

Spread over a year, that’s just over €67 per week of groceries bought in a single supermarket chain. For a return flight for one adult, before taxes and charges.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Using the Aer Lingus website, I can see that the cheapest return flights to Amsterdam midweek in December including taxes and charges for one adult cost €95.33.

These are saver prices — meaning there is no actual flight charge, and the booker only plays taxes and destination charges.

Speaking to those in the travel business, this can happen when airlines have ‘slots’ to preserve in either airport and are travelling there and back regardless.

That would surely mean that a customer could use up those hard-earned points on the same flight and still have to pay €95.33.

They could potentially be sitting on the plane beside someone who got the flights at the same price. Curiouser and curiouser.

As my father would say, “the thick plottened” when I read the small print. It turns out that Avios seats are limited to a maximum of 12 per flight.

It’s not all bad news. There are some decent special offers for Tesco Clubcard customers. For example, €5 worth of points can be turned into €15 off a Tesco mobile bill, or €15 can be swapped into a standard three-month Disney+ subscription.

Many people swear by converting the tokens into vouchers for ferry trips and saving money on the family holiday.

In fairness to Tesco, it seems like they are genuinely trying to provide additional value for their Clubcard members. 

It’s just a huge pity that the Avios system is so opaque and difficult to navigate, that it may not offer value for money for those who choose to convert their points.

So, before you convert loyalty points you’ve accumulated in the past year, take a long hard look at the benefits.

For my own part, I’ve simply saved those points up and while I haven’t spent a whopping €3,500 in Tesco, I have a small voucher on the way to put towards my Christmas shop. Every little helps, or so they say!

On the wing

SPEAKING of Christmas, news of a bird flu outbreak in a flock of turkeys in Carlow may have consumers worried about one of the most important items on the dinner table.

Trust me, at the moment it’s more stressful for farmers than it is for consumers.

Up until now, mandatory housing orders were implemented in smaller areas such as Fota Island and now Carlow.

The exclusion zones have been less than 5km and the area around these zones were subject to greater monitoring.

Now the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has introduced a nationwide compulsory housing order for poultry and captive birds to halt the spread of bird flu.

The order is in place from today, November 10.

A similar measure came into effect for Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK last Thursday.

It’s not the first time this has occurred, and the flocks will be kept in secure, enclosed areas that prevents them from interacting with other wild birds and their droppings.

If you buy free range or organic poultry products, including eggs, there is a 16-week exception whereby the labelling will remain the same. 

The poultry will continue to be kept indoors until the housing order is lifted. If poultry is still enclosed after 16 weeks, packaging will then have an extra label.

They say there is no risk to public health providing any poultry bought is cooked thoroughly.

In even better news, so far there is not expected to be supply or increased cost issues associated with Christmas turkeys, either.

Thank goodness for that!

Redmond Recommends

Now is the time to dig into your bank statements or shopping receipts for last year and figure out how much you spent on the Christmas season. 

I’m fond of over-simplifying Christmas and setting too low a budget. That’s a pain when I’ve blown through my bottom line before Christmas week, and I’m scrabbling to find funds for everything we want to do.

Also, can you remember if you had much food waste last year?

Before you pay a deposit for your ham and turkey, food waste is a sign that you’ve literally poured your funds into the compost bin. If you had too much food waste last year, you could consider a smaller offering this year and use the money for something else.