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

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• Tilly71 says:

  15 Jul15 July 12:42

  These terms are BS, think stores make up their own rules as they go along. I purchased a largish batch a few days ago with no restrictions and CS involved.
  Ask the to rescan the problem card again, this usually resolves the problem I have found or go to CS where they never seem to fail for some reas on in my experience. Just wip the receipt away as quickly as poss to prevent any unwanted attention to your cc balance .

• Nick says:

  15 Jul15 July 13:00

  My local Tesco (regular, but smallish) store has about 60 cards……so I started with 4 and plan to clean them out 🙂

• James67 says:

  15 Jul15 July 13:36

  I haven’t done any cards since the 3V days. Can I still use my old 3V account to activate the new pay cards or do I need to start all over? Thanks.

  • Fenny says:

    15 Jul15 July 13:41

    Yes, the old account still works.

    • James67 says:

      15 Jul15 July 15:39

      Thanks, now I just have to figure whether 6000 avios is worth the pain of processing 40 cards. I had a whole carrier bag full of them when NS&I was the game but not sure I can take the tedium anymore.

      • Jason says:

        15 Jul15 July 17:31

        James67

        Would it be easier if you got 7200 Avios for those 40 cards?

        • James67 says:

          15 Jul15 July 18:16

          72,000 might 🙂 Despite the benefits, I got so sick of the sight of them last time but will probably use the odd card here and there when it is both simple and sensible to do so.

      • dee jay says:

        21 Jul21 July 00:41

        If you have a barcode scanner less than 1 hour and you should have 40 done and spent

• Wally1976 says:

  15 Jul15 July 15:26

  If it’s any use to anyone, I have successfully used these cards online with Tesco Mobile and Extra Energy.

  • Mucky says:

    15 Jul15 July 17:53

    Wally if there is credit on your account did extra energy return the money to the 3V cards or to your bank account?

    • Wally1976 says:

      16 Jul16 July 08:47

      This is yet to be seen Mucky. I switched my supply away from them just over a month ago and am currently chasing the refund (they haven’t even issued a bill yet and I don’t just mean the final bill but ANY bill and I joined them last September!).

• Froggitt says:

  15 Jul15 July 15:47

  The problem when cards are not authorised is that the error message says something like “pay.com is down – please try later”. Which is totally untrue, they just haven’t waited for the authorisation before going on to the next card.

• Mark says:

  15 Jul15 July 16:02

  Whilst I am an AVID reader of HfP and have actively used many of the articles here to benefit from great deals I feel the need, like others, to point out the glaringly obvious:

  Just as with Martin Lewis and MSE any article of this kind that appears on HfP signals the death knell for any viable CC point earning opportunity; particularly those that work out at sub 1p per CC point. It’s great to read about and about others making it work, but I’m sure we’d all rather be able to make it work for ourselves and gives the likes of Mr. T a bit more detective work rather than handing it all over on a silver platter.

  Just something to think about in a time when collecting CC points in the way that “we” do is becoming increasingly difficult…

  • Polly says:

    15 Jul15 July 17:20

    I agree Mark. In a way. I am glad they closed off the financial institution loophole last year, as it was getting out of hand. Let’s not kill off the golden goose just yet. It’s fine if we find some of our utilities accept them and hmrc. Let’s just run with those that do take them, as opposed to seeking out ways to burn them. If the unis don’t accept them, then just pay with your credit cards instead of the direct debit. I called up to pay before each term started. I did feed in 60 cards James 67! To pay my service charge. Just did 10 every day, but they questioned it. They may stop me next time. The TV licence is a good one also. It’s just luck if you can use them. But let’s try to be moderate in their use. I always think of them as bonus avios. Sweet that they are back though! Also best to stick to 4 at each till though.

    • bob says:

      15 Jul15 July 17:49

      love you Polly

      but anybody who wants to do as many as they like should just do exactly that

      no need to hold back

    • bob says:

      15 Jul15 July 22:26

      what’s the problem with fielding a call from their fraud team?

      they’re doing their job

      you’re doing nothing illegal

      just explain what you’re doing re collecting points

      they quickly get it in my experience and let you carry on inputting different £25 card numbers

  • bob says:

    15 Jul15 July 18:12

    do not agree – you seem to advocate secrecy

  • James67 says:

    15 Jul15 July 18:23

    To some extent yes, and I have a feeling the spire elite via virgin will go soon. Not that I’m blaming Rob, I would like to do it myself and would not have known had he not posted it. I’m not in a position to do it until next clubcard statement so hopefully it’ll last a few weeks yet. I have my doubts thought, Juhn posted on loyaltylobby today that the dining upgrade route has been scrapped so it seems IHG are on the warpath.

  • TheTraveller says:

    18 Jul18 July 22:16

    Call me a cynic – but you could argue its in Robs interest to get routes to ‘easy’ Avios like this closed down.

    The harder it is to earn points, the more traffic will come Robs way – hence he has more weight with advertisers and is able to generate more revenue from this site.

    Can’t argue with his logic!

    • Rob says:

      19 Jul19 July 11:40

      It is in my self interest to promote the collection of cheap Avios in any way possible! No collectors means no site!

    • dee jay says:

      21 Jul21 July 00:43

      A happy avios collector will be a happy reader

• Michael says:

  15 Jul15 July 16:12

  British Airways holidays – I had a £4000 holiday which I very tediously paid with V3 cards, it took me 2 weeks going through a few each night …but I managed to rack up 28,000 airmiles plus another 6,000 using my BA Amex card to purchase them.

  You can only pay £24 from each £25 voucher. BA hold the other £1 then refund it back to the card. I then transferred each pound to Amazon.

  Very long winded but 34,000 versus 12,000 just using the BA card on its own.

  I also pay Scottish Power

• debs says:

  15 Jul15 July 21:31

  everytime I try and use one it fails
  is the cardolder name the name I entered into the pay.com website?
  confused

  • bob says:

    15 Jul15 July 22:23

    yes

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