Tesco promises shoppers savings of over £400 a year but you’ll have to pay £7.99 a month. Is it for real?
Tesco launched Clubcard Plus – a premium version of the popular Clubcard loyalty scheme – back in 2019. As a member you’ll potentially save up to £384 a year on your groceries – as well as take advantage of other features.
The idea, much like Amazon’s Prime, is to bundle in lots of services together and build brand loyalty. I’ve taken a look at what it offers to help you decide whether it’s worth paying out for.
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How much does Tesco Clubcard Plus cost?
You can upgrade to Tesco Clubcard Plus for £7.99 a month. You’ll be able to cancel it for months you don’t use it as there’s no longer-term commitment when you sign up.
There’s also a free trial for your first month (more on this in a bit), which means if you do keep it you’re looking at £87.89 in year one, then £95.88 in subsequent full years.
What do you get with Clubcard Plus?
- 10% off two big shops in-store each month. Max £200 per shop. Exclusions include:
- petrol
- lottery
- gift vouchers
- tobacco
- baby formula
- prescriptions
- magazines
- stamps
- wine that is in the 25% off when you buy six bottles promotion
- 10% off Tesco brands on every shop including
- F&F clothing
- Tesco Pet
- Fred & Flo
- Go Cook
- Go Play
- Fox and Ivy
- Double data from Tesco Mobile for one mobile registered at your address
- Fee-free overseas spending with Tesco Bank credit card
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Are the supermarket savings any good?
To cover the £7.99 a month you’ll need to spend £79.90 on groceries in Tesco across two transactions. That could be across one £80 shop, or two lots of £40 (or any other combinations). If that’s your regular supermarket spend that’s going to be easy to reach, possibly with just one visit.
Ideally though you’ll want to spend more to take full advantage of the 10% discount. There’s a £20 cap per shop, or £40 per month. This means if you spend £200 on two occasions in a month, it’s possible to knock £40 off at the till every month.
Once you factor in the fee you’ll really be saving at most £32.01 each month, potentially adding up to around £380 a year.
More realistically you’ll likely spend – and save – smaller amounts, though saving some regular big purchases for when you use your discount will help.
Fortunately you do get to choose which shops you use the discount for. You’ll need to go into the Clubcard app and download a code to scan at the till. However, it is in-store only and not online.
So if you do your main shop at Tesco then this is a must, as long as you are going to spend at least £80 across two transactions.
Should you swap to Tesco for the discount?
If you have a Tesco near you, then I think Clubcard Plus could be a good reason to swap over – at least for a couple of trips each month.
Though it’s not usually the cheapest supermarket out there, it’s often not much more than others, and the 10% back could make enough of a difference to be worthwhile.
Double your discounts hack
You should also be able to sign up more than once per household. Yes, you’ll have to pay two lots of £7.99 every month, but if you are spending enough at Tesco it could be worth it as you’d get the discount on four shops rather than two.
Remember, as long as there is at least £79.90 spent each month on each card you are covering the fees. But only do this is you are likely to max out the two lots of £200 on the main Clubcard Plus account in your family.
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Are the other features worth paying for?
If you don’t shop at Tesco then I don’t think the other features warrant the £7.99 fee on their own. But if you are already getting the fee back (and more) from Tesco groceries then it’s worth checking out what you could get.
The 10% off Tesco brands such as Tesco pets could save you a decent amount, but work out whether you can get these items for less elsewhere first.
The fee-free spending abroad credit card is a bit pointless when better alternatives exist, such as Chase Bank and Starling’s debit cards.
The double data offer on Tesco Mobile sounds good, but since it only offers 2GB or 12GB as entry-level SIM-only deals, you’re either getting too little or too much data, even with the extra thrown in. It’s better to shop around and find a SIM elsewhere.
How to sign up for Tesco Clubcard Plus
You can apply online or via the Clubcard app. You won’t get a new Clubcard – instead you’ll operate the extra savings from the Tesco app on your phone.
Tesco Clubcard Plus free trial
If you’ve not used Clubcard Plus before or haven’t had it in the last six months and not had membership for six continuous months, then there’s currently a month free trial.
You get all the same discounts, so it could be worth up to £40 off in the first month.
You can cancel at any time during the first month and you’ll continue to get all the discounts until the next month.
Can you cancel Tesco Clubcard Plus?
Yep, it’s easy to cancel, and there’s no commitment past each 30 days. So remember to stop it when you’re not using it (such as when you go on holiday). You can reactivate your membership when you want to get the benefits again.
More Clubcard savings
You can of course continue to earn Clubcard points on your Tesco shopping. Here’s my pick of the best ways to boost these and get more for your points.
I take my daughter shopping each week so we both have Clubcard Plus. One week we shop on her card, the next mine. This way we get 10% off nearly every shop. Easily pays for the subscription costs. On;y extra hassle is having to split the bill after.
I have contacted club card plus twice now for a refund of £7.99 for the months of June and July as they took £7.99 twice in both months and I’m still waiting for a refund??? Any body there that can help me???
Very helpful information i signed up 2 weeks ago its worth it if you spend £200 each time you use the 10% off,
Thanks for sharing
This is a con I never signed up for this and I noticed they have been charging me £7.99 for the subscription I shall be contacting my credit company to challenge them absolutely ridiculous !
My husband and I are looking to join Tesco mobile, can we both get a clubcard plus account to double data on each phone, and then get 4 discounted ships per month
Hi Jacqui, I don’t see why not – as long as they are separate accounts for the phones too.
Can I still shop every week as long as the groceries amount to over £200 per fortnight
You only get 2 vouchers per month so if you shop weekly you could only use it on 2 of those shops x
I’ve just signed up to Clubcard Plus to see if this will work for me.
My husband and I both have Tesco Mobile so we have downgraded our packages from £9.00 to £7.50 per month each so also saved there and bagged the extra data on just one phone.
I actually pay for delivery saver as I very rarely actually go into store so have just done my first in store ‘big’ shop. I did save £14.00 so it’s already paid for itself BUT the whole reason I usually have it delivered is to take away the stress of carrying heavy items from shop to car and then from car to house. The jury is therefore still out as to whether I really want to do this even once a month but we’ll see – the numbers work but the logistics don’t!
If only online shopping were included in this – big sigh!
Now in to our third month with Clubcard Plus and working very well – No complaints and seemed to have saved significantly while also gaining large amounts of clubcard points which will be worth triple when we come to utilize the vouchers.
Prices using Clubcard Plus are now actually cheaper than ALDI & Costco when compared like for like (we use our own spreadsheet for the products we buy) but it has taken a major change to our shopping habits but overall well worth it – More details are available from us if required.
Really interesting to hear this Lee. Keep us updated!
Do you still get your club card points as normal.
Yep, though you’ll need to scan your card still
No good for people who shop daily IE. Pensioners and people on tight budgets. What’s wrong with building up over each week. Unfair scheme.
Great article and it’s an interesting idea from Tesco. Not quite Costco in that entry requires membership (just an incentive) but I think we could see more of this going forward. I expect other retailers will be paying close attention to the outcome.
As for whether it makes sense to join or not, it seems as though everyone will have to do their own calculations. Winning or losing will depend on a few factors. Proximity to a Tesco store, current supermarket spending, efficiency of your Tesco Clubcard point redemptions, etc.
Yes absolutely. I guess they hope it’ll bring a few people back or make people stick.
An impossible way to register tried all ways cannot do it .. Telephone to Tesco no use. Cannot register. ???? what is going on