Is it time to change your credit card?

I used to swear by Tesco - It had everything you needed all under one roof.  It always had good special offers, the quality wasn't bad and the added bonus was their clubcard points which you could double up and collect almost anywhere with their credit card.  Points mean prizes and in this case each voucher was worth 4x their face value and could be redeemed against a wide selection of products ranging from Goldsmiths, Eurotunnel, Pizza Express to name a few. 

Wow, too good to be true!!!  Having a house in France for a while meant that we benefited from free trips across the English Channel courtesy of Eurotunnel.  Then back in December 2010 Tesco changed the value of their vouchers and dropped them from 4x their face value to 3x.

For a while I have started to feel that Tesco has gone downhill.  Their quality has dropped , their online shopping is shockingly bad compared to some of the other supermarkets and if you check out My Supermarket Tesco quite regularly comes out as one of the more expensive, more often than not other supermarkets have better deals on their special offers and their trolley's are habitually filthy (something you need to consider when you have a toddler sitting in the trolley).

Since selling the house in France we have still be accruing the points each quarter but they are not worth as much and there is nothing we really want to trade them against.  So it got me thinking.

After checking out Money Saving Expert.com which has a good link explaining the value of each stores points system.  I decided that we would swap our credit card from Tesco to the John Lewis Partnership card (when I looked on their website I noticed that they have got the Which Credit Card Recommended provider March 2011).  Under this system for every £1 spent either in John Lewis, Ocado or Waitrose you get 1 point and else where you get 1 point per £2.  500 points = £5 voucher (which can be spent in store).   Points are sent out quarterly.  Based on the assumption that last year I did most of my Christmas shopping online at John Lewis I am intending on saving any vouchers I collect between now and then for that purpose.

Obviously this only works out financially to your benefit if you use it for all purchases and then pay off the full amount each month.