Alicante’s Shopping Voucher scheme restarts on Tuesday, 3 November after an international cybersecurity alert forced the campaign to be postponed. Residents aged over 65 are first in the revised timetable; younger adults can buy later in the week, while general online sales will not open until 10 November.
The scheme lets one person obtain vouchers worth up to €400 for a payment of €200, with public funding covering the other half. The dates published in October are no longer valid. They were withdrawn when Alicante City Council and the Chamber of Commerce took the platform offline as a precaution, and have now been replaced by a campaign running until 5 December.
In-person sales open the campaign
The Senior Voucher will be available from 3 to 9 November, between 8.30am and 2.30pm, at the CERCA Municipal Consumer Centre on the ground floor of Alicante Central Market. Three social centres will also provide the service for one day each: Playas on Tuesday 3, Isla de Cuba on Wednesday 4 and Felicidad Sánchez on Thursday 5.
This allocation has €300,000 reserved for it. The revised dates matter particularly to residents who had planned to attend in late October, when sales were suspended before they began. The venues remain, but both the dates and the order of the neighbourhood locations have changed.
People under 30 can buy the Youth Voucher online on 5, 6 and 9 November from 3.30pm. This part of the scheme has €200,000 available and sales will stop when each day’s allocation is exhausted. The address to use is bonocomercioalicante.es. The platform was disabled during the security review and is the official reference for the relaunched process.
General sales move to 10 November
Adults registered as Alicante residents who do not use the Senior or Youth allocations can buy the General Voucher online from 10 to 16 November. It starts with a budget of €1,489,076, which may be increased with any money left over from the other two groups.
Vouchers worth a combined €300,000 will be released each day, split between morning and afternoon sessions. The individual limit remains €400 in vouchers for a payment of €200. Available denominations are €20, €50, €100 and €200.
Every voucher is issued to a named individual and linked to their identity document. It must be redeemed in full in one transaction: any unused difference is not carried forward. Online purchases require a bank card, and participants must be over 18 and officially registered as residents of Alicante.
A new deadline for more than 600 participating shops
Vouchers can be spent at the more than 600 participating businesses listed on the campaign website. That list may grow because shops can still join until the programme ends. Buyers should identify a participating retailer and choose a denomination that fits a planned purchase, as a voucher cannot be split.
The expiry date has also moved. Vouchers are valid until 5 December, replacing the original 26 November deadline. Public funding totals €1,989,076 and, if fully used, will support €3,978,152 in spending with local retailers.
The council linked the 23 October postponement to two critical PHP vulnerabilities affecting websites internationally and described the shutdown as precautionary. It did not report an attack or exposure of data on Alicante’s platform. A relaunch with confirmed dates is the first verifiable change to supersede that suspension.
Availability during online sessions will depend on the remaining budget. The decisive check is the official website on the day of purchase: if a daily allocation sells out or an operational problem arises, that notice will take precedence over the general timetable.