Free Avios with 3V Virtual Visa – our updated list of places where you can use the card

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

• Benge says:

  22 May22 May 13:56

  Is there any way to redeem the value of stamps? Postal orders etc?

  • Trevor says:

    22 May22 May 15:12

    Not sure how else to redeem other than use, or sell. And considering in 2011 the 1st class stamp price went up by 12%, in 2012 it went up by 30%, you could do far worse than an “investment” in stamps at a 6.7% discount price. If you seldom use stamps, then you’d be using them way into the future when they’d be valued at even more, so your ROI would be greatest, though if you kept and sold them in a few years, you’d get a better ROI than any other standard investment, and it couldn’t be more safe.

• Rocky says:

  22 May22 May 17:52

  Picked up £300 worth from the tesco store in clapham south london they had over 30 in stock (yes i counted them all) but they did not know how to scan it, total nightmare i had to explain to them what to do. Cause it was taking a long time to process the check out team leader (what it said on his badge) said he would give me only four, i then said to him let me speak to the store manager the team leader then smiled at me and said ‘on this occasion you can have them all’……………i won’t be going back there.

• Alan says:

  22 May22 May 20:10

  Another data point – 3V accepted without a problem by the DVLA for renewing a tax disc. Handy as they charge £2.50 for using a credit card! Off to spend the remaining £5 of this card on an Amazon voucher 😉

• Toddy says:

  23 May23 May 17:27

  I went to FIVE Tesco Extras today and couldn’t find a single 3V card. Stores visited were Stockport, Northwich, Swindon, Gloucester and Cirencester.

  A productive day at work :p

• Brendan says:

  24 May24 May 00:42

  I picked up 4 in Belfast last night. Got a packet of sausage rolls on offer for £1 so that my £7 off £70 coupon for this week might work….and it did!

  £100 credit + sausage rolls =£94 + 301 Clubcard points + 188 Amex points + 10p per litre off petrol

  Not bad!

  • Toddy says:

    24 May24 May 13:41

    Brendan, did Belfast have many in stock?
    Thanks

  • Rob says:

    26 May26 May 12:00

    The T&C’s actually mean to say ‘can’t be used for Tesco Gift Cards’ – and if you try that, the till automatically blocks it.

    I have never had a problem using a conditional spend coupon for other gift cards and I’ve probably done 6-7 purchases this year with them.

• ME2 says:

  24 May24 May 18:04

  Hi

  Please advise if anybody has found these in N London in past few days ? None at Colney Hatch and a sad lonely one at Tesco Brent Cross !

  I know that earlier they were spotted at Brent Park Wembley and I can make a trip there tomorrow if that is still the case

  thank you

  Mark

• takke says:

  24 May24 May 19:03

  Just thought that I’d let you know a couple of things I found out today:

  The physical Visa Prepaid cards (i.e. not the 3V ones) can be used in Tesco to pay for other gift cards. I tried this using Cineworld and Pizza Express gift cards but I presume that you could use them to pay for the Visa cards as well. Of course, this is not a very cost-effective way of getting Avios…I only happened to try it out with one £50 card as the first store I was in didn’t have any 3V ones.

  Secondly, and this could be more useful to people: I applied for an NS&I ‘Direct Saver’ using one of my 3V cards. This accepted my payment, which has come out on my 3V online statement. You can only use one card to set up the account, but more funds can be added from a card later. The account will take a few days to set up for ID checks before I can add the extra money, but according to the website, money can be withdrawn from the account to a UK bank account free of charge. I’ll keep you updated on how this goes but it could be a way of getting the cash out without 3V’s bank transfer fees.

  • Ed E says:

    30 May30 May 14:43

    Hi Takke,
    This is the same as I have been doing and have got a fair whack on my ISA (which I will leave with them as hadn’t started on this year) and a contingency in the Direct Saver account in case I actually need any ready money in the near future and don’t want to have to withdraw from my ISA allowance.
    Someone mentioned Premium Bonds at the very start and that got me thinking about my NS&I accounts and as soon as they paperwork was done, they have been going through.
    Are yours now showing as withdrawable? Only £24 of my initial £25 deposit is showing as withdrawable, the remainder is showing on the balance, just not cleared.

• Sinizter says:

  25 May25 May 22:44

  When I can get the cards, I use the Kinoni Barcode Reader app on my mac and iphone to get the card number read quickly. Cut and paste the relevant digits from the card reader.

  If you leave the relevant digits selected, and scan another card, the same digits on the new card will remain highlighted making it even quicker to copy.

  Once set up, I find this a lot quicker than reading the number off the card and typing it in.

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