Earning free Avios points with pay.com virtual Visa gift cards (Part 2)

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• Dave G says:

  15 Jul15 July 09:35

  Great that they can again be used to pay HMRC (and I assume anywhere that uses Worldpay)! Does this only apply to income tax though? What about VAT?

  • Froggitt says:

    15 Jul15 July 10:00

    Yup.

    Payment confirmation

    Your transaction has been processed by WorldPay, on behalf of HMRC.
    Payment details:
    Amount: GBP 25.00
    Description: VAT – Payment to HMRC

    Payment reference: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Date: 13/Jul/2015 xxxxxxxxxxxxx

  • Rob says:

    15 Jul15 July 10:24

    You’d need to play around on the HMRC website and try to find a link from VAT pages.

• Froggitt says:

  15 Jul15 July 10:02

  Bit bored of all the cutting/pasting/scratching though. You would think that some third world country would have a 3V sweatshop that would do it all for you.

  • Peter Taysum says:

    18 Jul18 July 09:50

    Theoretically you could do this. In “The Four Hour Work Week” Tim Ferris States using virtual assistants in India will do virtually anything for a (often very reasonable fee). You may still have to scratch off yourself, then take photos, and send through for them to activate and pay (setting limits for price/time – so that if one fails they don’t charge you for two hours work trying to sort it out…)

    Slightly OT The Four Hour Work Week is an interesting read.

    Available on Amazon buying 3v card with Amex at Tesco to put on your Amazon account, obviously 🙂

• Froggitt says:

  15 Jul15 July 10:03

  Will be trotting out later to get another 3V fix as my current stash will run out later this morning.

• Liz says:

  15 Jul15 July 10:59

  I am going to try a test payment for my daughter’s rent which needs to be paid this week – is the card classed a credit card or a visa debit card?

  • Blenz101 says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:03

    Visa Debit

• Mucky says:

  15 Jul15 July 11:17

  Rob, 3V says that you cannot redeem more than £650 in a year:

  “There are some limits to Visa Numbers that you should be aware of.

  The balance on any Visa Number can never exceed £1000.
  You cannot activate Visa Numbers with a total value greater than £1625 in any 365-day period without providing sufficient evidence of your ID and home address.

  You cannot redeem more than £650 from your Visa Numbers in any 365-day period without providing sufficient evidence of your ID and home address.”

  How do people get round these limits or do you confirm your address?

  • mark2 says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:21

    You can use more than one email to set up multiple accounts.
    I took the easy option and confirmed my address.

    • TheTraveller says:

      18 Jul18 July 22:11

      There is still a cumulative limit of £25k worth of activations over a 12 month period – so its probably actually easier to create multiple accounts.

      • mark2 says:

        18 Jul18 July 22:26

        If you can find that many cards and need to spend that much on purchases where you can use them

  • Blenz101 says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:25

    What is it you are looking to do? The amounts and limits referenced are in relation to emptying the 3V cards directly into your bank account or combining multiple 3V cards. Both these activities attract fees way beyond what you will earn from clubcard/credit card points on the initial spend.

    The maximum number of cards you can activate under a single account is £1625 (in theory) and your account will then need to be verified. You can either open a new account or follow the procedure to have your address verified.

    • Mucky says:

      15 Jul15 July 12:26

      I think i will just register myself via the post office and save the hassle 🙂

      • TheTraveller says:

        18 Jul18 July 22:11

        There is still a cumulative activation limit of £25k over 12 months when you are verified…

  • CV3V says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:28

    Just get your ID confirmed, the Post Office offer a service to do this.

• Nick says:

  15 Jul15 July 11:20

  Completely off-topic, but does anybody know if I can earn points with IHG for incidental spend when my room was booked with a third party?

  • Blenz101 says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:26

    Yes you should.

  • Rob says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:33

    Not any longer – https://headforpoints.com/2015/01/01/ihg-rewards-club-points-earning-expedia/

    • Nick says:

      15 Jul15 July 11:42

      Thanks. That’s a pity!

      • Blenz101 says:

        15 Jul15 July 12:14

        Crowne Plaza Leeds paid them on my room service meal on a Hotels.com booking around 3 weeks ago for me, I added the card at check in so it may well be worth doing this even if the rules state you aren’t entitled? Nothing was awarded for the room itself, perhaps not all systems are updated.

        If you were eating in the restaurant and just paid by credit card and presented your membership card would this attract points or do you have to be a resident?

        • Nick says:

          15 Jul15 July 13:07

          I’ll send IHG a scan of my incidentals bill and see what they do – I can but ask. In the past, Accor have refused to credit me points for incidental expenditure (when room booked via 3rd party) but then did award me some goodwill points for asking, and the goodwill points were worth more than I’d have got anyway.

          What is annoying is that the incidental expenditure in this case was more than 50% of the room cost. Had I anticipated that, I’d have definitely booked direct rather than through hotels.com

        • Rob says:

          15 Jul15 July 13:32

          That’s what they want you to do …..!

• Liz says:

  15 Jul15 July 11:20

  OK so I just tried to pay rent to Grant Property and it says it has failed as it needs 3D authentication? Does anyone know what that is? Is it the additional security you pay on a normal debit/credit card?

  • Nick says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:28

    I’ve been scuppered a few times by additional layers of security. 3V basically said that they couldn’t help.

    So their advertising should say that the cards can be used anywhere that accepts Visa, as long as the vendor is happy to process the transaction based on the CVV number. Anywhere that uses a secondary layer of security (which is increasingly common) is closed to 3v/Pay.com shoppers.

    • RIccati says:

      15 Jul15 July 21:47

      On “increasingly common”, I understand that banks/MBNA/Lloyds now move on from the 3D authentication and do not require that extra registration/password for online transactions. Barclaycard does.

      It became a pain of paying online to companies in Asia (to airlines, etc.), because their payment processing companies require 3D authorisation (without that you get redirected a couple times and transaction not going through).

      Payment over the phone is different though, as they are able to process it just with credit card information (no billing address, etc). The same is likely to apply to 3V transactions — they have more chances of go through over the phone.

  • Blenz101 says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:29

    This is the “verified by Visa” type verification step which the 3V cards do not support.

    You could try calling up and making the payment ovet the phone reading them the generated card number. This works for Yorkshire Water as an example so payments don’t have to be online exclusively.

    If not you are out of luck.

  • CV3V says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:31

    Was this online? If you do via the phone and the other end keys it into a card terminal then 3D secure isn’t needed. My OH pays factors fees this way (over the phone).

    • Liz says:

      15 Jul15 July 11:35

      Yes it was online. That would be asking them to process 14 cards each month for a £350 monthly rent bill – not sure they will want to do that !

      • Polly says:

        16 Jul16 July 14:45

        Call them and ask if you can pay I’m two sessions , 7 cards each time. My alarm company allow me to pay that way, and it feels great to,get some avios for that bill. Worth a try!

  • Froggitt says:

    15 Jul15 July 11:51

    pay.com do not ask for 3D secure validation. It should not be asked for if that is the case. So the issue is with the merchant who look like they are asking for 3D secure validation erroneously.

    • RIccati says:

      15 Jul15 July 21:49

      A lot do, especially abroad.

      UK credit card issuers are moving away from 3D validation (except for Barclaycard/Santander).

• Mucky says:

  15 Jul15 July 12:25

  I just tried to purchase 4 x 3v in store and one of them declined. The manager came over and said that he had a message from Tesco security that due to people purchasing a large number of 3V’s fraudulently they will only take cash for the purchase and not a credit card. Is there any truth to what the manager was saying?

  • Froggitt says:

    15 Jul15 July 12:31

    If the twirly puts them through too quickly and doesn’t press subtotal after each card, they often don’t authorise. Never heard about the cash thing though. Ask him if you were buying £100 of groceries with the same card would they accept it?

    • Mucky says:

      15 Jul15 July 12:51

      He would not have any of it, i am going back tomorrow to see the Store manager and find out what is going on…..

      • Liz says:

        15 Jul15 July 12:57

        I’m just back from Tesco – bought £100 shopping and £100 3V – all 4 cards rejected at the till but they sent me to the customer services desk and they went through ok on my Amex card. Said it was a problem with their line. I bought 8 cards yesterday and they all rejected – we then did them in 2 transactions and they worked ok.

  • CV3V says:

    15 Jul15 July 13:01

    None, this is one of the scenarios where the local Tesco staff start inventing their own rules to deal with a situation. My local store has in the past told me that the reason for one of the card failures was due to a limit of 3 per transaction! You should search for the old HfP article on when Tesco called the cops on someone!

    • CV3V says:

      15 Jul15 July 13:04

      time to reminisce on the good old days of 3v!……

      https://headforpoints.com/2013/12/15/what-happens-when-buying-3v-cards-goes-horribly-wrong/

  • Fenny says:

    15 Jul15 July 13:37

    I’ve never been challenged for buying multiples of 4, or any large collection of assorted gift cards. But if I was, I would probably say they were presents for the Adorable Nieces or raffle prizes. 3V are a good way of limiting online expenditure liability and I’ve suggested them to several parents whose kids have racked up huge in-app purchases via phone or tablet.

  • Nick says:

    15 Jul15 July 13:50

    I last loaded up on 3V when the cake coupons were out.

    I bought 20 vouchers across 5 transactions – I told the checkout girl why I was doing this, she was fine with it. Bizarrely, the last lot did not work yet she still managed to take £100 of payment. I have no idea how this is possible – normally when the gift cards don’t work, they are removed from the total.

    Anyway, we called the store manager for a refund. I told him what I was doing and why. He seemed fine with it, took the cards off me and said he’d sort out a refund. I explained that I really wanted teh cc points (in particular as I’d used four or five of those hard-to-find cake coupons. I did my shopping and went back to customer services where the manager authorised the refund, apologised for the error and credited me with all of the points I would have earned had the transaction worked. Total result!

    Just goes to show that not all store managers think we are criminals….

  • dee jay says:

    21 Jul21 July 00:37

    I think its more than likely that the manager heard a rumour that some people were buying gift cards that ended up being from a fraudulent card, rather than 3v cards specifically, I doubt any people working at tesco are going to be as clued up as us hfp readers 🙂

    Best to stick to 4 max per time and check the receipts if there are any that don’t go through to make sure you have the correct numbers on the activation slips.

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