Free Avios or Flying Club miles via the 3V Virtual Visa Card and Tesco – our findings

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Dan says:

  1 May1 May 07:42

  I don’t think buying Premium Bonds online would work as the minimum purchase is £100 and each card is £25 (without paying a premium to merge card balances). I’m not sure if the £100 rule applies on the phone.

  There were 5 left in my local Tesco last night, and I’m going to try 2 more Tescos ths morning to try and stock up for my July tax bill if there’s no free way to withdraw the cash.

  • Daleroxxu says:

    1 May1 May 09:27

    The £100 rule applies over the phone too. The only way to buy less is by paying with Standing Order, then it’s £50.

    But I wonder if paying over the phone you could get them to accept 4 x £25 transactions on separate cards to buy £100 of Premium Bonds. (Saving 3 x £ 1.75 merge fees on the 3V cards).

• Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

  1 May1 May 08:10

  I’ve been using 3V cards to pay council tax since the 150 club card bonus started. The steps to increase the redemption limit are quite onerous though – you have to post a certified copy of your passport or driving licence and two utility bills or bank statements. This was what led me to stop.

  • John says:

    1 May1 May 13:49

    Well you don’t have to use your real name and address…

• Chris says:

  1 May1 May 08:44

  A few things to bare in mind. The balance on these cards expires 12 months after activation. There are monthly fees, but these are only charged in the 10,11,12th months, and is taken from any remaining balance on the cards (ie no balance no fee). This is the only source of income I can see that 3V has from these cards, so they are clearly banking on people not spending the full balance within the first 9 months. These cards probably won’t last much longer given the surge in creative new spending patterns they are probably going to be seeing. Get them while you can.

  • Mr Bridge says:

    1 May1 May 08:46

    what about using them for currency?

    • Ben E says:

      1 May1 May 09:30

      I think using them for currency is a good shout… the currency houses offering the best exchange rates I’ve seen (on moneysavingexpert.com) only accept debit cards. Getting cash this way would ensure you get a good exchange rate and points at the same time

• Steve says:

  1 May1 May 08:57

  I’m awake now so have read the Tesco site properly now.
  From what it says, you are able to use the Visa Debit version in store. I collect 2 points for £1 with my Virgin Amex, so:
  100 Virgin points for the £50 spend on the card
  150 Tesco points for buying the card
  50 Tesco points for spending the card instore

  Average monthly spend at Tesco would be nearly £500 inc fuel, so now I should get 18,000 miles per quarter.

  *I won’t be keeping any card longer than a week as I’ll use it straight away
  *Not sure what fees will be involved in getting the card if I use it straight away

  Please, please correct me if I am wrong 🙂

  • Rob says:

    1 May1 May 09:32

    Your maths is correct, but don’t forget the £3.95 per £50 card fee on the physical Visa debit card.

    You also cannot really include the miles earned when buying the card either, as you would use that card anyway in Tesco so the miles are not additional.

    To do what you suggest, it is simply a matter of whether you value 375 Flying Club miles at more than £3.95.

    • Steve says:

      1 May1 May 09:55

      “You also cannot really include the miles earned when buying the card either, as you would use that card anyway in Tesco so the miles are not additional.”

      I meant you would get the normal 1 clubcard point per £1 spend instore – unless I’ve got this bit wrong.

      Again, happy to be corrected.

      • Rob says:

        1 May1 May 10:04

        No, not on gift cards. They do not earn points at all, apart from the bonus.

        • Steve says:

          1 May1 May 10:16

          Aah ok, thanks

        • Steve says:

          1 May1 May 10:32

          Just 1 more question (sorry)

          The £3.95 fee – do you pay that when you buy the card, ie you hand over £53.95 or is it taken off the balance of the card, ie you pay £50 for a card with £46.05 to spend.

          Thanks

        • Rob says:

          1 May1 May 12:13

          With the card, you pay £53.95 at the till

    • Trevor says:

      1 May1 May 10:49

      Alternatively, if you buy the 3V cards and do an online shop, then you save the fee and the points are all free. Of course you may have to pay extra for delivery etc, but maybe you would have been paying that anyway. Alternatively, if you do a Tesco Online shop and collect instore, then it’s free anyway and you’ve been able to use the 3V cards.

  • Mr Bridge says:

    1 May1 May 09:35

    you are sort of right, if your talking about the debit card and not the vitual card.
    The debit card cost £3.95 for £50 (7.90%).
    so you would spend £53.95 on the card , getting you 106 virgin miles.
    for £100 you would get
    207 miles
    300 ccp (750)
    100ccp (250)

    1207 miles per £7.90 fee(£100 on card) which is 0.654p per mile

    • Steve says:

      1 May1 May 09:58

      1207 miles per £7.90 is extremely good, cos I’d be spending that £100 in Tesco anyway.

• Graeme Taylor says:

  1 May1 May 09:36

  Just to clarify, do you receive 150 points for every £50 spent on cards, or 150 points for a shopping trip that includes at least £50 worth of cards? In other words, if I find somewhere with a stash of the visa cards, do I need to break up in to separate transactions?

  Also, as the 150 points count as regular rather than bonus points, would a point-doubling voucher work?

  • Dan says:

    1 May1 May 09:38

    You get 150 points for every £50 spent on cards. I bought another £200 (8 cards) this morning in one transaction and got 600 points. They are listed as bonus on the receipt, so I doubt that a point-doubling voucher would have any extra benefit.

  • Rob says:

    1 May1 May 10:02

    You don’t need to do separate transactions.

    (EDIT: Deleted rest of comment as appears to be based on incorrect information!)

    • Sinizterguy says:

      1 May1 May 13:36

      Are you absolutely sure about this Raffles ?
      I routinely buy £20×5 and have got the 300 points for them each time.

      • Rob says:

        1 May1 May 13:44

        Well, clearly not, if you’ve been getting the points 🙂

        I was told this by someone else a few months ago who had only got 150 points for a £100 spend. Perhaps Tesco has now fixed the system, or the person who told me had tried to buy an ineligible card.

        • jonny says:

          1 May1 May 15:25

          I believe this was because the cards were mixed companies, i.e. not totalling £50 for the same retailer, suggests that if you buy £100 for next for example then you would get the 2 bonuses, but if you by £20 for 5 different companies you might not.

        • Mr Bridge says:

          1 May1 May 16:00

          no you can mix and match cards as long, and you get the points for each £50 spent

• Mr Bridge says:

  1 May1 May 10:46

  i have a question about using these cards online, supposing i spend £78 online, get to the checkout, and input the first card, will the card decline as there is only £25 credit on it, or will the system let me input another card.Then can once i have used 3*£25 can i pay the £3.
  Also how does the linking to paypal work.( and are paypal behind these cards)

  • Chris says:

    1 May1 May 10:52

    The first. It will decline as there is only £25 credit. You should use it only for purchases of £25 or less (therefore the best way is where you can specify the amount you want to spend – ie utility bill, council tax, hrmc etc)

    • richard says:

      1 May1 May 11:20

      This is not 100% accurate. some websites will let you pay using numerous cards. hotels.com do and also hayes and jarvis . some others do aswel i think a few flight companys do. they email you a form and you pay your total bill in 2 amounts. i know this as me and the gf always pay50/50 on holidays/flights hotels etc.

      • Chris says:

        1 May1 May 11:40

        I think in the context the OP presented it is accurate. Most Online payment screens only give you the chance to input one payment card – and in those cases trying to pay £78 with a card that has a balance of £25 should cause it to be declined. What you are suggesting is another way to pay (which is offline), and that is another options for sites that allow that.

  • Rob says:

    1 May1 May 12:16

    Depends on the retailer but very few let you split payment. Your only options for a £78 payment would be a) pay by phone, when you often can split payment, b) if you can, use the £25 to order an e-gift voucher for the same shop, as they usually CAN be used with part payment, c) buy multiple 3V cards and pay £1.75 to merge the balances.

    Paypal has nothing to do with 3V but 3V has specific rules about what you can and cannot do with Paypal, as outlined on their website.

• Joule says:

  1 May1 May 11:17

  A thought on how to dispose of the money on the virtual visa debit card: how about topping up your ISA online? I’ve not tested it yet (still trying to find a Tesco in London with these cards!) but my ISA provider (HL) lets me top-up my ISA with a debit card, seemingly with no minimum amount. Or you could pay the money into a regular share dealing account and then withdraw it direct your bank account.

  As soon as I can get my hands on these cards, I’ll test and post back!

  • Mr Bridge says:

    1 May1 May 11:34

    I too have thought about this, and not tested it, i use selftrade. I know that they require a match on postcode for a debit card, i will get 1 card and give it a go.

    • Rob says:

      1 May1 May 12:21

      Postcode match is not an issue. When you register with 3V they take these details and they are used if the retailer attempts a postcode match.

  • jonny says:

    1 May1 May 12:13

    just looked at my Halifax account, they require a bank account number that matches the card, so I guess that is a no go for me.

  • Rob says:

    1 May1 May 12:18

    There seems to be a block against using the cards with a retailer which is coded, in the Visa / MasterCard system, as Financial Services.

    We had the same issue with the Paypal Prepaid Card a few years ago.

    HMRC is obviously coded differently which is why it goes through. I assume all deposits with banks will decline, but HL may be OK.

    • Nick Burch says:

      1 May1 May 14:16

      Hargreaves and Landsdown topup of £25 from a 3v card just worked fine for me!

      • Simon says:

        1 May1 May 20:29

        What did you topup Nick? I just had a look at the Hargreaves and Landsdown website and most of the products they listed seemed to have minimum topups of more than £25.

        • Nick Burch says:

          1 May1 May 23:10

          Minimum on most funds is £500 in a lump sum, or £50 per month. However, if you already have a direct debit setup for a monthly investment, you can add cash online, then ring them up and ask that they invest the cash along with your monthly investment to avoid the higher one-off minimum. For this month, you need to ring them by midday on the 7th to arrange for any cash on account to tag along with your monthly regular payment.

          That probably all means it works much better for existing H&L customers with savings plans setup looking to add a bit more, rather than one-off new people. However, it has been suggested that you could top up your Vantage Fund & Share Account with the cash, wait a few days, then do the free withdrawl via BACS. Not sure if that really works, nor how long that’d last though…

• Roger says:

  1 May1 May 11:18

  As I’ve already paid my tax bill, I can’t believe that I’d actually want to pay some more!

  Mrs Roger has a tax bill to pay that she would normally pay by bank debit card earning no miles. I foresee a difficult task to persuade her of this alternative. Perhaps if I tell her that she would earn 5x RFS’s that would help (including the Avios from the BAPP). Nah, she wouldn’t believe that, so I’ll have to volunteer.

  Now just to find the 51 3V cards she needs …

  OT: how can I sign up to receive individual new COMMENTS as opposed to new topics? If I understand correctly, I can ask to be notified of follow-up comments on a topic I have contributed to but not otherwise. Thanks.

  • Rob says:

    1 May1 May 12:19

    You would need to make a dummy comment in order to be offered the option to receive further comments on the topic by email (I think).

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.