Tesco has angered shoppers by announcing that it will be reducing the value of its popular Clubcard reward scheme from 14 June.
The UK’s biggest retailer said that after that date, shoppers would be able only to double the value of their Clubcard points – rather than triple them as now – when they spent them with one of its reward partners on a restaurant meal, day trip or cinema outing.
When shoppers collect Clubcard points, they can be converted into Tesco vouchers to use in the supermarket, with each point worth 1p in store – so 500 points are worth £5. However, when points are exchanged for codes to spend with the company’s reward partners, they are worth 3p – so 500 points gets £15.
This will change on 14 June, when they will be be converted to be 2p, or £10 for 500 points. Tesco has more than 100 reward partners at which vouchers can be used, such as Pizza Express, Legoland, Alton Towers, Cineworld and Hotels.com.
A few years ago, the points were worth four times the store value when spent on rewards vouchers.
Tesco said the latest revaluation would allow it to maintain a wide range of Clubcard rewards. When the grocer introduced its Clubcard in 1995, it reported a 28% spending uplift.
Many shoppers expressed their disappointment on social media, with several writing on Twitter that they intended to switch to a different supermarket as a result. One tweeted: “Clubcard just became less of a reason to be loyal to the store, will be moving our shop to an alternative instead. Thanks for the memories Tesco.”
Another wrote: “We were always grateful for the Tesco Clubcard X4 when our kids were younger, it helped out massively on days out, we used our vouchers to buy towards Merlin passes which saved us so much money. We use it now for ourselves and X3 is good, but what an insult X2 is to customers!”
Sainsbury’s and Boots also cut the value of loyalty schemes recently. From May, Boots Advantage card holders will get 25% less for every pound they spend in store, collecting 3p rather than 4p.
Sainsbury’s angered customers in 2015 when it halved the number of points they could collect on their Nectar cards, to one point for every £1 spent at the supermarket. In November, Sainsbury’s Bank slashed the number of Nectar points customers could earn by 75%, from two points for every £1 spent, to one point for every £2.
In an email to customers, the Tesco chief customer officer, Alessandra Bellini, said the move would “make sure we can continue to provide you with a wide range of exciting rewards, while keeping our product prices low”. Tesco claimed it still had the biggest and most generous loyalty scheme in the UK.
