Yesterday, in a predictable turn of events I found myself needing to book a ferry from Cairnryan over to Northern Ireland for the North West 200 motorcycle road race in 5 days’ time. The route certainly isn’t cheap so I looked for a few ways to make it more palatable. That’s where Tesco Clubcard comes in. The offer is simple and a pretty good one at that for every £5 worth of Tesco Clubcard Vouchers you can exchange with a 3X for £15 worth of P&O Ferries vouchers.
Making The Switch
Making the switch is simple, type in how much you would like the exchange press “add to basket”. After that click check out and the job is a good one. You’ll receive the above email to confirm your order.
After another 15 minutes or so, you’ll receive another email like the above with your voucher numbers, this is where the rails start to come off.
The Issues
Unlike pretty much any voucher ever, you can’t use it online. You have to call a specific number to redeem the vouchers, this presents 2 problems. 1, there’s nothing to say that the prices you find on their website are fixed so when you call the prices might go up. 2, You have to call a company which is cancelling sailings daily so naturally the call centres are rammed.
The maximum amount of vouchers you can redeem is £105 for a single crossing or £210 for a return. This sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t cover the full price of even the cheapest tickets.
You can only use vouchers for Saver Single or Saver Long Stays (5 day+) crossing on the Dover-Calais and Cairnryan-Larne routes. This is a massive issue;
- First, there’s no Liverpool-Dublin or Hull-Rotterdam included in this which are popular costly routes.
- Secondly, you can’t do a weekend away somewhere or if you do you have to pay a premium for buying 2 singles.
- You have to buy the Saver option which means if your plans change you’re going to be paying a lot of money as you are charged heavily for the changes along with the difference in fair.
- Probably a none issue for most, but you cant use the vouchers as a foot passenger, nor can you use them if you have a campervan.
- You can’t stack the vouchers with any offers that may be on, again this is probably a none issue given you have to call up to book.
- Oh, once you’ve called up and given your voucher numbers, you also have to email them the voucher numbers, for what reason I don’t know.
Finally and most applicable to me was the fact you have to book more than 7 days in advance, If it wasn’t for the fact that Monday was a bank holiday, the vouchers would have been useless.
TLDR
Basically, if you’re wanting to trade up your Tesco Clubcard Vouchers P&O Ferries is a good option, just make sure you’re booking more than 7 days in advance and only on the Cairnryan-Larne and Dover-Calais route.