Eurotunnel & Tesco Tokens

[starvin marvin]

Just booked our return with the above for £11, both crossings on a Fri at nice sensible times using the online and 'phone line instead of the old postal palarver, its simply brilliant.

 

Whoever sorted that out should pat themselves on the back. They have my seal of approval.

 

[Mel B]

Eurotunnel now have next year's crossings available for booking, however the prices have gone up as you would expect of course for the crossings, but also for the pets.

 

The cost of pets has gone up by 6.7% ... it was £15 per dog each way (£30 return) which I always though is extortionate anyway, it's now gone up to £16 per dog each way (£32 return ), so for 3 dogs, instead of £90 it's £96 ... £6 on the bill. The only saving grace is that as we don't have to post off the vouchers now we've saved £6.22 on RM Special Delivery! :-D

 

I've just made a booking for crossings going out in June returning in July (38 days) for £71 each way (£142 return) at sensible times on a weekday but it has only actually cost an extra £7 'cash' as I've used a Tesco voucher for most of it ... I wish I could do the same for the dogs' costs though! *-)

[starvin marvin]

Mel B - 2013-12-27 9:38 PM

 

Eurotunnel now have next year's crossings available for booking, however the prices have gone up as you would expect of course for the crossings, but also for the pets.

 

The cost of pets has gone up by 6.7% ... it was £15 per dog each way (£30 return) which I always though is extortionate anyway, it's now gone up to £16 per dog each way (£32 return ), so for 3 dogs, instead of £90 it's £96 ... £6 on the bill. The only saving grace is that as we don't have to post off the vouchers now we've saved £6.22 on RM Special Delivery! :-D

 

I've just made a booking for crossings going out in June returning in July (38 days) for £71 each way (£142 return) at sensible times on a weekday but it has only actually cost an extra £7 'cash' as I've used a Tesco voucher for most of it ... I wish I could do the same for the dogs' costs though! *-)

 

Our crossing is more expensive this time but that may be due more to the day and timings than a price increase. We just have the one dog so not much of an increase. Overall the cost last time was £1, so a tenner more.

 

What has impressed is the ease of booking and paying using Tesco tokens. This makes me like the tunnel a little more, we both much prefer the ferry, far more relaxing for us....the dog just sleeps however we travel.

[maggyd]

Ive never used my Tesco vouchers as I never have enough ! we only buy our fuel at this moment I just have £8.50 (lol) is it worth going through the pfaff ? would I have £17 or £25+ off the price and if so how do you do it on the phone? thanks

[Guest Had Enough]

maggyd - 2013-12-29 2:03 PM

 

Ive never used my Tesco vouchers as I never have enough ! we only buy our fuel at this moment I just have £8.50 (lol) is it worth going through the pfaff ? would I have £17 or £25+ off the price and if so how do you do it on the phone? thanks

 

It's very easy to do and whereas you once had to post off your voucher it's now done online.

 

Here's the link http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/product.aspx?R=3223

 

You get three times the value of your Tesco vouchers, so you'd get £25.50 off the normal Eurotunnel price.

 

It's obviously worth doing if you want to use the tunnel. Why spend the £8.50 on groceries when you can triple the value if you're using the tunnel?

 

The question of course is the relative cost of the tunnel against a ferry. We're using the tunnel in a week's time and I had £35 of Tesco vouchers. That provided £105 towards my total fare of £143, so I calculated that the total cost of £73 (£35 of vouchers and £38 paid by credit card) compared nicely with a ferry crossing and we prefer the tunnel to the ferry.

 

In summer however, we didn't have many Tesco vouchers (we'd used them for a trip in May) so instead of paying roughly £140 for the tunnel we went with MyFerryLink for only £68 return. That's with a 6.75 metre motorhome.

 

I calculate the £35 into the cost because, if I don't spend it on the tunnel, I'll spend it on groceries in Tesco, so in effect it's £35 of cash that I don't fork out on my weekly shopping trip.

 

The OP is actually wrong when he says his trip only cost him £11.00. It actually cost him £11 plus the value of his vouchers. If he hadn't spent them on the tunnel he wouldn't have thrown them away, he'd have saved the equivalent amount on his weekly shop.

 

 

 

 

[maggyd]

Thanks H.E we always use the tunnel anyway :-D it saves leaving the two dogs alone in the van, so I will save your link until we know when we can go yes you get nothing for £8.50 so we might as well put them to wards the tunnel.

[Mel B]

Hi Maggy, you can only exchange Tesco vouchers for travel tokens in multiples of £5 at a time, and you can only use one exchange travel token per Eurotunnel booking, so if you had £10 of Tesco vouchers, converted to a travel token you would have £30 to put towards your next Eurotunnel crossing cost. If you are likely to be able to earn more than £10, say £15 or £20 etc, then obviously the more you have to triple up, but you need to balance this with how long you will have to take to do this and if the Eurotunnel prices go up in the interim as the shorter the time between booking and travel, the more expensive they tend to get, although some are still very competitive even a month before you intend to travel!

 

As an aside, you can book with Eurotunnel and have up to a year from the date you make the booking on (not the actual crossing dates) to make the journeys (the return journey has to be within this 12 month period). So, you could book with Eurotunnel now for your 'likely' dates and then if they are not suitable, you could change them at any time with them as you don't pay an 'admin' charge if you do, and can also change them as many times as you like - the only extra charge would be if you changed to more expensive timeslots so you would have to pay the difference in the crossing price(s).

 

I've booked the dates we are planning on going at present, but if we need to tweak them I can do so without a problem. I had to do this 3 times with one booking due to my not leaving work when I originally planned so moved them on a bit! B-)

[Brian Kirby]

Mel B - 2013-12-30 5:10 PM

 

Hi Maggy, you can only exchange Tesco vouchers for travel tokens in multiples of £5 at a time, ...............

Yes - but if my information is right, no! :-)

 

When we were booking our last trip through the tunnel I was told the following. You can use odd vouchers with a face value below £5 to bring the travel token to the desired value, and any "change" will be added back into your account. For example, you could use a £4 voucher plus a £3 voucher, (total £7), from which £5 (x 3) will be put towards the travel token, with the balance of £2 added back as a new £2 voucher with your next batch of vouchers.

 

I haven't yet done this, so am hazy on the details, but it seemed to offer the opportunity to use, for example, some of the odd £1.50, £3 etc vouchers, rather than hanging on to them hoping for future vouchers to round them up to £5 increments. Anyone actually done this?

[Mel B]

Brian Kirby - 2013-12-30 5:50 PM

 

Mel B - 2013-12-30 5:10 PM

 

Hi Maggy, you can only exchange Tesco vouchers for travel tokens in multiples of £5 at a time, ...............

Yes - but if my information is right, no! :-)

 

When we were booking our last trip through the tunnel I was told the following. You can use odd vouchers with a face value below £5 to bring the travel token to the desired value, and any "change" will be added back into your account. For example, you could use a £4 voucher plus a £3 voucher, (total £7), from which £5 (x 3) will be put towards the travel token, with the balance of £2 added back as a new £2 voucher with your next batch of vouchers.

 

I haven't yet done this, so am hazy on the details, but it seemed to offer the opportunity to use, for example, some of the odd £1.50, £3 etc vouchers, rather than hanging on to them hoping for future vouchers to round them up to £5 increments. Anyone actually done this?

 

Brian, we were both saying basically the same thing in a different way! :D You can use vouchers with 'odd amounts' on them, for example the £8.50 one that Maggy already has (assuming it is ONE voucher), but the exchange can only be done in £5 multiples, so yes Maggy could use the £8.50 one but only get 3 times the benefit on £5 of it so £15 ... but if she knew she would be able to get it to £10, that would be 3 x £10 making £30 ... that's what I WAS trying to say ..... :$

 

As for your specific query - yes you can do as you suggest and use several vouchers, we've done it for a long time as it is a good way to 'recycle' your expiring vouchers back into your Tesco account and use them in the future and thereby extending the expiry date. But you do have to be a bit canny about it, for example:

 

Say you have a £5, £4, £3 and £1 to use up as they are about to expire (amounting to £13) and want to do a deal exchange for a travel token (or any other type of deal exchange), you can either:

 

Try to use all of them, £5, £3, £4 and £1 (amounting to £13), but you'll find that only the £5, £4 and £1 ones will be accepted (amounting to £10), the £3 voucher would not be needed for the deal exchange so it wouldn't be accepted and therefore wouldn't be put back in your account, so you'd still need to spend it in some other way.

 

or

 

You just used the £5, £4 and £3 ones anyway (amounting to £12), only £10 would be needed for the exchange, so £2 would go back into your account, you would then only have a £1 voucher to spend in another way.

 

The trick though is to ensure you have as many vouchers as you can before you make the deal exchange as you can now only use ONE TRAVEL VOUCHER PER BOOKING, not several as you used to do.

[maggyd]

(lol) 8-) Oh now you have me totally confused !! they are valued until 2015 so I might just roll them over until next year ;-) I know my Sons will have some (!) would they know as long as the surname is the same if I bought theirs off them??

 

 

No Mel I have 1x£5 1x£2 and 1 x£1.50

[Brian Kirby]

Mel B - 2013-12-30 6:26 PM....................You just used the £5, £4 and £3 ones anyway (amounting to £12), only £10 would be needed for the exchange, so £2 would go back into your account, you would then only have a £1 voucher to spend in another way.

 

The trick though is to ensure you have as many vouchers as you can before you make the deal exchange as you can now only use ONE TRAVEL VOUCHER PER BOOKING, not several as you used to do.

Thanks for the confirmation, Mel. I hadn't realised this until my conversation with Eurotunnel. I'd always assembled them into £5 increments.

 

However, in your first quoted para above, why would there only be a £1 voucher returned, when the balance was £2? Is there a redemption charge of some sort?

[maggyd]

Brian Kirby - 2013-12-30 6:39 PM

 

Mel B - 2013-12-30 6:26 PM....................You just used the £5, £4 and £3 ones anyway (amounting to £12), only £10 would be needed for the exchange, so £2 would go back into your account, you would then only have a £1 voucher to spend in another way.

 

The trick though is to ensure you have as many vouchers as you can before you make the deal exchange as you can now only use ONE TRAVEL VOUCHER PER BOOKING, not several as you used to do.

Thanks for the confirmation, Mel. I hadn't realised this until my conversation with Eurotunnel. I'd always assembled them into £5 increments.

 

However, in your first quoted para above, why would there only be a £1 voucher returned, when the balance was £2? Is there a redemption charge of some sort?

 

 

Brian did you know you can ring them before the end date and get the date changed for another year?

[starvin marvin]

When I tried to make my booking, I was unable to "order"the tokens from my tablet, due to Tesco's website, so I rang and a very helpful woman did it all for me, and then sent an e-mail with an "authorisation code" to quote to Euro tunnel. I simply asked her to use all the oddments and old vouchers, which I assume she did, can't be bothered to check.

 

I still consider that my booking cost £11as I don't count in the value of the vouchers. We don't shop in Tesco, just use their card to pay for stuff, as often as I can. We only use the vouchers to book return crossings, on the infernal tunnel.......but its cheap, so we put up with it.

[Brian Kirby]

maggyd - 2013-12-30 6:47 PM................Brian did you know you can ring them before the end date and get the date changed for another year?

Is that the expiry date of the vouchers, Maggy? If so, no, I didn't realise that either. What a fount of knowledge you girls are! :-D

[derek pringle]

Brian Kirby - 2013-12-31 12:16 AM

 

maggyd - 2013-12-30 6:47 PM................Brian did you know you can ring them before the end date and get the date changed for another year?

Is that the expiry date of the vouchers, Maggy? If so, no, I didn't realise that either. What a fount of knowledge you girls are! :-D

 

Hi Brian,

We actually accumulate enough vouchers for about 3 tunnel crossings [ not only shopping at T esco but also using the Tesco Credit Card to shop elsewhere still accumulating points] and we actually receive e mails from Tesco warning us that the vouchers are about to go out of date and to extend their life.

Excellent system.

cheers

derek

[derek pringle]

Hi All,

The next best thing to using the vouchers for travel is to exchange them for 'eating out'.£20value for £5 vouchers= 4 to 1

There is a large choice of places to eat all over the country and the vouchers when exchanged are valid for up to 6 months, so it is handy to keep some in the van for while away. A nice meal to pay with no bill for food at the end of it.

check it out

cheers

derek

[maggyd]

Brian Kirby - 2013-12-31 12:16 AM

 

maggyd - 2013-12-30 6:47 PM................Brian did you know you can ring them before the end date and get the date changed for another year?

Is that the expiry date of the vouchers, Maggy? If so, no, I didn't realise that either. What a fount of knowledge you girls are! :-D

 

 

Hi Brian :-D aren't we, but I have to admit some-one on here gave us that tip last year. And yes it is the expiry date that you extend.

[Mel B]

Brian Kirby - 2013-12-30 6:39 PM

 

Mel B - 2013-12-30 6:26 PM....................You just used the £5, £4 and £3 ones anyway (amounting to £12), only £10 would be needed for the exchange, so £2 would go back into your account, you would then only have a £1 voucher to spend in another way.

 

The trick though is to ensure you have as many vouchers as you can before you make the deal exchange as you can now only use ONE TRAVEL VOUCHER PER BOOKING, not several as you used to do.

Thanks for the confirmation, Mel. I hadn't realised this until my conversation with Eurotunnel. I'd always assembled them into £5 increments.

 

However, in your first quoted para above, why would there only be a £1 voucher returned, when the balance was £2? Is there a redemption charge of some sort?

Brian, I am surprise at you .... I thought you could follow things easily wot wiv yer big brain an' all!!! :D

 

You just used the £5, £4 and £3 ones anyway (amounting to £12), only £10 would be needed for the exchange, so £2 would go back into your account - this is the excess of £2 left over from the vouchers you USED for your exchange deal, you would then only have a £1 voucher to spend in another way - this is the £1 Tesco voucher that you did NOT use at all

.

 

More simply:

 

You'd use the £5, £4 and £3 (total £12) for the exchange using up £10 of their value, the remaining £2 value would just go back into your Tesco voucher kitty.

 

You wouldn't be ABLE to use the £1 voucher for the exchange so it would still remain 'valid' in your grubbly little hands to spend as you wish, either at face value in store (or doubled up when they do it), or to put towards another voucher exchange in the future.

 

So in total you'd still have the 'value' of £3, but £2 of that would be put back into your Tesco kitty to be sent out to you as part of your next lot of vouchers, but the £1 voucher you had would still be with you.

 

Oh, as for the contacting Tesco to get your vouchers extended ... I'm sure I they have now stopped doing this, I believe the rule was brought in this year, sorry ..... :-|

[Mel B]

Ah yes, here we go, this is the 'new' rule regarding vouchers that are due to expire:

 

33. Clubcard vouchers are valid for two years from date of issue and are accompanied by an expiry date,beyond which they cannot be used or reissued. Vouchers that are lost or mislaid may be reissued with the original expiry date, providing they have not previously been redeemed. Additional terms and conditions may be found on the back of the vouchers.

http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/help/terms-and-conditions/#updated_vouchers

[Mel B]

maggyd - 2013-12-30 6:38 PM

 

(lol) 8-) Oh now you have me totally confused !! they are valued until 2015 so I might just roll them over until next year ;-) I know my Sons will have some (!) would they know as long as the surname is the same if I bought theirs off them??

 

Maggy, this is relevant to you using your son's vouchers, unless he's registered for his account at your address it would appear that they would refuse them.

 

3. Only valid Clubcard vouchers (those printed with the name of the Clubcard member making the booking received, and which are in Clubcard Statement mailings and entitled ‘voucher') can be exchanged for a Boost token online. Bookings can only be made by the Clubcard member. Vouchers may be pooled but only by members with accounts registered with Clubcard at the same postal address. Vouchers must be in date and not sold, damaged, defaced, copied, altered or redeemed.

 

http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/help/terms-and-conditions/#clubcard_vouchers

[Brian Kirby]

Mel B - 2014-01-01 1:05 AM..................You wouldn't be ABLE to use the £1 voucher for the exchange so it would still remain 'valid' in your grubbly little hands to spend as you wish, either at face value in store (or doubled up when they do it), or to put towards another voucher exchange in the future.................

OK Mel, gottit! Thanks.

 

I'd completely discounted that odd £1 voucher - because it wasn't being used for the transaction - so couldn't understand why a £2 refund equated only to a £1 voucher! Funny things, other peoples' minds! :-)