Unfortunately, if you are not a regular customer (or even if you are, but youâve not tried to make an advance reservation before), you will be unaware that your slot lapses if you do not check out within a given time.
I appreciate itâs too late for this advice now, but what I tend to do, if I want to reserve a future slot, but not necessarily complete the order now, is to fill the basket with as few items as necessary to constitute a valid order (I think thereâs a minimum spend of ÂŁ30 or ÂŁ40, so make that up of stuff you ALWAYS need).
Then check out, regardless whether youâve finished or not. This action secures the slot.
You can usually amend the order up to about 11:30 at night, the day before itâs due (donât know if that differs at all for Christmas). So it doesnât matter that youâre not really finished. As irrational as it is to check out before youâve finished, do it anyway!
Sometimes I donât feel up to doing it all at once (even though itâs all online), so continue to amend the order over the course of several days - still retaining the slot all the time.
Only a few things to watch - you MUST remember that you placed an order without finishing it, and you need to go back and complete it, otherwise all that will turn up is the few bits you ordered to meet the minimum spend. You also MUST check out again, every time you edit it, otherwise you WILL lose the slot - as happened to you. I agree itâs all a bit of a faff, but I suppose itâs the only way they can prevent people hogging slots they then donât use - leaving them unavailable to customers who would use them. You have to order SOMETHING, before your slot is properly reserved. You canât speculatively grab one, which you may or may not use.
I personally think they make it pretty clear on the website that your slot is only held for you for a couple of hours, and if you havenât checked out by then, itâs released.
Thatâs not to say I donât sympathise with you that you didnât realise, for whatever reason. Iâm really not sure what Tesco could have done about it at this stage. Iâm not surprised they didnât have any available slots for tomorrow or what remains of today.
Iâll be very surprised if anyone has any delivery slots for tomorrow, that werenât booked up weeks ago. Iâve recently found it hard to get slots for the ânormalâ shopping and that was well before Christmas week. Iâm wondering if you could actually hire someone to shop for you - a professional, or maybe a neighbour or their teenage offspring, keen to make a bit of extra money for Christmas?
Obviously, youâd have to give them a list, and choose somebody quite responsible, whoâs going to pick reasonable substitutes, if they canât get your first choice.
Tina