Save £100s a year with our ULTIMATE Tesco Clubcard tips… from meal deal tricks to secret codes

MILLIONS of us do our weekly shop at Tesco, but thousands of shoppers are missing out on discounts worth hundreds of pounds every year.

Many of these dynamite offers and fantastic freebies stem from the Clubcard, which celebrates its 30th birthday this week.

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A third of the UK population, around 22 million people, have the famous blue savings card yet each year, up to £18million-worth of points go to waste.  

Shoppers are majorly missing out, according to Britain’s Coupon King Jordon Cox, who’s a regular on This Morning.

Here the bargain-hunting expert shares his ultimate guide Clubcard of tips, tricks and hacks to help Sun readers get the most bang for their buck.

How the Clubcard works

Clubcard Prices

In 2019, Tesco announced its new ‘Clubcard Prices’ in store. Technically they were still the same multi-buy and percentage discount offers on items in store - but you had to have the Clubcard to get them.

As annoying as it may be, if you go shopping in Tesco, you do need the Clubcard to get the cheapest price in-store. Otherwise, you’ll be paying full price for everything.

It’s very simple to get the Tesco Clubcard. You can either have it on your phone, as a physical card or a key fob.

Clubcard Plus

If you spend more than £80 a month shopping at Tesco, you should be a Clubcard Plus member.

Clubcard Plus is Tesco’s subscription service that costs £7.99 a month.

In return for membership, you get two 10 per cent off vouchers a month to use on your big shops. There’s a £200 maximum spend for each voucher, which means at most you’d save £20 a shop.

But if you have a big family, or do at least one big shop over £80 a month, it pays for itself.

As a bonus, you also get 10 per cent off Tesco's F&F clothing at any time - so if that’s your choice of style, you can save money on it.

There’s also a one-month free trial when signing up too, so if you have a big food shop coming up, but don’t want to pay the subscription fee, just sign up for the month and cancel after you’ve got your discounts.

New personalised offers

Tesco has started trialling new personalised Clubcard offers, that only you can claim.

It takes a look at what you normally spend money on, and sends you offers that can be redeemed when scanning your Clubcard at the till - but no one else can get them.

For example, you might get Pringles for £1.25 on the personalised Clubcard offers, whereas for everyone else it’s £2 to buy in-store.

You can view your offers on the Tesco app and most last for a week. You can buy as many items as you like too!

Doubling up your vouchers

For every £1 you spend in-store, you’ll earn one point on your Clubcard. While that only equates to 1p in real money - it quickly adds up if you shop there a lot.

But the best use for your vouchers, which are sent quarterly, is to double them up with one of their retail partners. This can include theme parks, restaurants, hotels or even a Disney+ subscription.

For every 50p you exchange, you’ll get £1 in vouchers, but it’s probably a good idea to weigh up which retailer to exchange them for.

Quite a few including theme parks such as Alton Towers or Thorpe Park, and restaurants such as Pizza Express regularly offer money-saving vouchers elsewhere.

You can get money off theme park entry for buying promotional Kellogg’s packs, for example. So it’s best to use your hard earned Clubcard vouchers on something harder to get a discount on.

Meal deal tricks

Clubcard price DIY meal deal

I still remember when meal deals were £3… but now unfortunately due to inflation, you’ll pay £3.60 with a Clubcard or £4 without.

But if you weren’t set on getting a perfectly packaged sandwich and cold drink - you can actually create your own ‘DIY meal deal’ for cheaper.

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For example - you can pick up a pack of 4 sausage rolls for £1 on a Clubcard price, a huge share bag of crisps for £1 and a can of Tesco branded lemonade for 55p.

That comes to £2.55 - a whole £1 less, and you’ll get considerably more food. The power of Clubcard prices throughout the store means you could find some cheaper alternatives.

Hot drinks included in meal deal

There’s a little secret to the humble meal deal that not many people know about too.

Have you ever seen those Costa hot drinks machines in store next to the meal deal section? That’s because hot drinks are included as a drink in your meal deal.

These Costa hot drinks can cost £3+ on their own, which considering the whole meal deal price is £3.60 with a Clubcard, makes it a very good pick.

You can choose between a Latte, Mocha, Americano, Hot Chocolate or tea. Make sure you don’t add any extra syrups that add cost on top too - as they aren’t covered.

Earning extra points

Coupons in magazine

Not many people are aware, but Tesco has a free in-store magazine, usually found by the tills.

In each monthly issue, there are coupons that can be ripped out of the magazine, and used on your weekly shop.

Sometimes you’ll find money off specific items, while others give you bonus Clubcard points if you pick an item up and scan the coupon.

It’s worth checking the magazine every month to see if there’s anything you can use.

Give family members a fob

If you have a Clubcard, but people who live with you do not, you can order key fobs for free from the Tesco website to distribute to people in your household.

Having two or three people collecting and pooling points into your one account will earn you vouchers even faster than before. Not to mention the Clubcard prices will save them money in store too.

Reclaim points & money if you forget your Clubcard

If you leave your Clubcard at home, or even forget to scan it (we’ve all been there), there’s still a way to recoup your lost points and in-store offers.

Keep hold of your receipt. If you still have it, you can take it to the customer service counter, and ask for the points to be added.

Also - if you’ve missed out on in-store offers with the Clubcard prices, you’ll get a cash refund on those too.

Obviously it’s easier to scan your card in the first place, but as a last resort, it’s a useful option.

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Recycle old ink cartridges

If you’ve got some empty ink cartridges from printers in your house - you can actually earn Clubcard points for them!

Find ‘The Recycling Factory’ Inkjet cartridge recycling envelopes, in store, complete the slip including your Clubcard number, and return it to the recycle box in store near the checkouts. 

You’ll earn up to 125 points per cartridge (worth £1.25), and you can do it up to 100 times a year. So it could be a nice money spinner.

Shopper Thoughts

There’s an interesting way to earn more Clubcard points, by sharing your thoughts.

A website/scheme called ‘Shopper Thoughts’, allows you to complete surveys in exchange for Clubcard points.

There’s a little secret to the humble meal deal that not many people know about too

Jordon Cox, Coupon King

You have to sign up and wait for surveys to be sent to you. They typically take around 15 minutes each and earn you 100 points (£1 in points).

If you have spare time, and don’t mind filling out surveys, it can be an easy way to boost your Clubcard balance.

Clubcard cash-ins

Tricks to crack codes on Clubcard price labels

There’s a trick to find out how long Clubcard offers have left on them while shopping in-store.

If you read the ‘Clubcard prices’ label of any item on sale, you’ll see a six digit number.

This tells you the date of expiry, but in reverse. For example, if the code reads ’250218’, but you read it backwards in blocks of two - you can find the expiry date of 18/02/25.

It’s a handy tip to know when to stock up on an item before the price goes back up.

Check if you have expiring vouchers

Clubcard vouchers are only valid for two years but they can be quite easy to miss.

In the past, Tesco would send vouchers out in the post, whereas now you can view them on the app. The one problem is people might forget them.

So it’s worth checking into your Tesco Clubcard account several times a year to make sure you’ve used up all of your vouchers, and your hard-earned points are spent. 

Trick to extend your vouchers

Clubcard vouchers do expire and if you have a large denomination voucher (such as a £10) getting close to expiry - there’s a trick to keep it active for longer.

With bigger value vouchers like this, you don’t have to spend them all in one go. So if you do have a £10 voucher. You can spend 50p of it on a bonus partner reward of your choice.

If you do this, the remaining £9.50 left on the voucher, resets its expiry date by another two years.

Christmas savers scheme

Christmas can be a very expensive time of year and if you want to save up for it early, Tesco has a feature to let you do that.

You can join Tesco’s Clubcard Christmas Savers scheme, which allows you to save your Clubcard vouchers into a separate pot throughout the year, ready to use in November/December for Christmas.

There’s also a feature to top up this account with your own money - up to a maximum of £200. If you do, you’ll get a bonus £12 in free vouchers to spend.

It’s only a good idea if you know for sure you’ll do your food shopping at Tesco, otherwise you’ve got money locked in.

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