My eyes need a re-test & was wondering who to use. Specsavers, Boots, Vision Express etc etc. In the past I’ve used an independent here in town but the prices of glasses there are crazy! Typically of me I felt ‘guilty’ of him testing my eyes then taking my prescription to Lentoid in Otley (40 mile round trip X2) to get cheaper specs.
There’s a Specsavers 7 miles away in Ripon for instance.
I know a few off here have reccomended an online supplier where you send the prescription off but I’d rather try stuff on in a shop, but which one?

Yours truly, Blind Pugh. 8)

Tesco.

boots are pretty good nowadays, with photographic records kept of your eyes.

The whole online thing is a bit of a minefield, only really worth risking if you have a pretty standard prescription. If you need varis or a strong prescription, thats where you want an optician on hand.

I wasted time with glasses direct, having to chase them at every step, I ended up using rxsport, who seemed to do a good job.

If you want to save money, get a free eye test at Tesco, then visit as many opticians until you find a pair of glasses you like – make a note of the make and model number (on the inside of the arm), then buy them online for about half price.

Quite a few online retailers send you frames so you can try them out if you don’t want to take the piss out of an optician you have no intent of buying from.

Should clarify I didn’t mean the independent opticians, just Specsavers, Vision Express and the like. If that makes it any better..

Specsavers are franchises, so they vary. Mine is excellent though – can’t fault their service at all.

I don’t use corrective glasses myself but can’t recommend Boots from wife’s experience with them. They had missed an enlarged optical nerve when checking her eyesight and were more interested in changing her prescription and trying to sell her bi-focals.
As she felt pressured with the sales she went elsewhere to buy the glasses with the new prescription who after checking her eyes again noticed the enlarged nerve and notified the NHS for investigation of Glaucoma, which has come back as negative and now just been monitored. The eye sight test also confirmed her prescription as the same as it previously was, with no change.

I use Vision Express. 2 years ago they cocked up my prescription slightly but their service was faultless, they reglazed my glasses for free (even though I’d had them reglazed online using their prescription).

Although they’re no longer “express” as all the work is done centrally now and like most chains they send off the frames to be glazed rather than doing it in store….

Vision Express are expensive compared to others plus as footflaps says the express bit is no longer relevant. Last lot of glasses I had from them took 5 weeks for the usual ones and 7 weeks for sunglasses.

I need a new test and once I have the prescription I’m just going to get my current frames re-glazed from an online place, probably ciliaryblue.

Use vision express for contacts, they said I was due a £50 voucher for being on a direct debit scheme.

Priced up some new specs with them, Carbon Fibre Ray Bans with stupidly thinned high prescription lenses, so I expected silly money. £510

I asked if they would price match anywhere else, they said they would… but not online… seemed suspect… it was, got them from smartbuyglasses.co.uk

£200.95

So didn’t end up using that £50 off voucher!

Had a poor experience with boots a fee years ago misdiagnosed with glaucoma. I got quite uptight and stressed while waiting to be seen at hospital only to told “why are you here? nothing wrong with your eyes” other than a bit short sighted”

As a GP, I end up fielding a lot of letters from opticians. Specsavers branches locally are very variable – one is excellent, one is medium, one is pisspoor.

The glaucoma thing is an example, really the optician should have done proper visual fields. looked at the discs, and if they are decent opticians, proper contact tonometry, not just the air-puff thing. But lots do just the air-puff and send them on to us with no fields. Just embarassing. But even if this is all pointing in the direction of glaucoma – sometimes you need corneal pachymetry to tell if the pressure rise measured is significant/accurate, and OCT scans to see if it is important. Probably 50% we send up as ? Glaucoma don’t have it.

But there are some excellent independents, and Tescos seem better than Boots these days… YMMV and Ts and Cs apply…

For glasses only – if you know your prescription and are not going varifocal ( where you need accurate fitting and interpupillary distances etc etc) I’d consider going online. Glasses Direct have been good for me, and Money Saving Expert often has a section dedicated to voucher deals…

I still get my prescription done at the same independent, then off to ASDA for the specs, they don’t charge any extra for varifocal, and include them in 2 for 1 type offers too. Very impressed with the quality too. I can’t see any difference between my frameless varifocals at £80100 (Edit:paid extra to get 1.74 thinnest lenses, 1.68 included in base price) to the ones our independent was quoting £500 for. (Edit: and if I wasn’t a delusional vain tart I could have done without the “designer” badge and had some perfectly good varifocals for £45.)

Thanks for the replies! However….my prescription has definately changed, I definately need varifocals, & both Tesco & Asda are definately miles away! (actually there’s an Asda in Harrogate & Tesco in Thirsk so one of those maybe)

Vision Express are expensive compared to others plus as footflaps says the express bit is no longer relevant. Last lot of glasses I had from them took 5 weeks for the usual ones and 7 weeks for sunglasses.

My specs took three weeks at Vision Express. The local independent I used last year took 3 days…

Lesson learned!

Been using the local Specsavers and they’re very good, I use them for both contacts and glasses.