Tesco Bank quietly entered the mortgage market back in 2014. I mentioned it briefly at the time but it turns out that I haven’t written about it for over four years.
(Part of the reason is that there are many factors to consider when taking out a mortgage. Whether or not you will earn Avios or Virgin Flying Club miles via Clubcard points should be very much at the bottom of your list of considerations!)
The Tesco Mortgages home page with all the headline financial and regulatory detail is here. More interesting is the page on Clubcard earning which is here.
It is all very simple:
You earn 1 Tesco Clubcard point for every £4 of your monthly mortgage payment. This applies to both the capital and interest elements.
You earn 1 Tesco Clubcard point for every £4 of any overpayment you make, as long as it does not fully repay your mortgage
As a reminder, one Tesco Clubcard point converts into 2.4 Avios or 2.5 Virgin Flying Club miles. You can occasionally get a 10%-20% bonus on transfers to Virgin Atlantic, although Avios conversion bonuses are very rare.
This return would be pointless if the mortgages were badly priced. Tesco Bank has a good reputation although the need to compare interest rates, the fixed rate period, fees and maximum loan-to-value mean that there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer as to whether it is the best deal. At present it only appears to offer fixed rate mortgages covering two, three or five years.
If you were making monthly payments of £1000 you would be earning 250 Clubcard points. This is worth 600 Avios, so about £5-£6 of value. It is not enough to move the needle on which mortgage provider is cheapest. That said, Tesco does appear to have a competitive product and it is worth taking a look alongside other providers.
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
You earn 1 Tesco Clubcard point for every £4 of any overpayment you make, as long as it does not fully repay your mortgage.
Of course if you were going to be in a position to redeem (almost, but not fully) a large mortgage at the end of the tie in, it would be much more lucrative. 🙂
Excellent, overpay leaving a small balance..😃
As Rob says, Clubcard points weren’t the top of our list of considerations when it came to remortgaging, but Tesco had the best rate at the time (May 2016) so we chose them. The service has been excellent on the rare occasions we’ve called with a query, and the Clubcard points appear like clockwork (which makes for a “free” family trip to the zoo/Legoland etc every 6-12 months)
Ditto, I switched to them after they matched the best rate available and the bonus clubcard points swung it for me – very easy to deal with and they allow up to 20% overpayments without penalty, so I’m happy!
I really recommend the Tesco bank account. 3% interest and double Clubcard points whenever you use the debit card to shop at Tesco. That’s better value than any reward credit card, although it is not really worth using anywhere else.
Tesco current account 3% interest is only guaranteed until April this year and almost certainly going to drop then.
It’s variable anyway. No guarantee. Are you not thinking 1 cc at Tesco / £1 for old card holders?
There is a guarantee in place until April as Jonathan says -as long as you meet the conditions e.g. pay in requirements, DDs etc . The guarantee is for all accounts opened by 19 October 2018.
Interesting. From the terms I saved down from when I opened the account (dated 20 March 17), it notes “variable”. The latest ones also note “variable” so I guess there was a version in between when this was “fixed”.
I had the original account with no pay ins or direct debit requirements but you can find the details of the guarantee here – https://web.archive.org/web/20180309215422/https://www.tescobank.com/current-accounts/
Latest T&C’s have no end date for the 1cc/£1 offer.
I believe the double points offer finishes in May also, it depends when you took the card out.
Both the interest rate and the 1CC per £1 offer are still listed on the Tesco Bank website. Remember reading somewhere (MSE?) that Tesco made both offers open ended.
Sad to hear about the end of the extra point Pay+ offer. App saves me the hassle of having to carry my Tesco debit card around.
Agreed – I also managed to get in early before the DD requirements so have two of them! Also handy for when I’m sent cheques (which some companies/Gov’t depts seem to refuse to give up on!) as you can just post them to a freepost address.
Interesting, didn’t know that. I’ve been clinging on to my Lloyd’s account because you can deposit cheques by taking a photo and uploading through the mobile app.
I’d heard some had started offering that – sadly RBS don’t. You used to be able to pay cheques in at Tesco stores, but they stopped that and switched to this method.
The address is:
FREEPOST
TESCO BANK 4943
Just write your sort code and account number on the back of the cheque, no pay-in slip, etc. reqd.
I am assuming the extra CC point for every £4 spent in Tesco with the Pay+ app has now finished. It was up till 31/12 but I haven’t seen anything saying it has been extended again. I do use Tesco all the time for shopping and fuel using the app linked to my Tesco debit card and we have our 3 mobile phones with them so we managed to collect a few Cc points in 2018.
Yep, I think it’s finished for now. They brought it back before though, so fingers crossed they notice a drop in usage and decide to re-launch the bonus again…
I provided mortgage advice until last Spring, and still had access to the sourcing software when sorting my mortgage a few months ago… we’re with Tesco – rates were decent and, importantly, they could lend us the amount we needed. Affordability calcs didn’t seem to be concerned by some 0% cc debt we have (whereas some lenders reduced affordability by £100-150k) – which gave us more flexibility with deposit etc as the credit cards didn’t need to be repaid sooner than planned.
The CC points are a nice extra, but definitely shouldn’t be a key driver… having said this, we will (probably) be more aggressive with making over-payments before the end of the deal than if there weren’t club card points to be earned!
OT, sorry no bits. Has anyone had problems using Curve to pay the Government Childcare service? I have tried my corporate debit curve and Mrs W’s personal debit Curve. Both come up as invalid card number. Credit cards not accepted either. Gutted if I have to miss out on £12k annual spend on credit cards!
Yep has been mentioned on here (and Curve Community) that it seems to be an issue.
Thanks, I didn’t know about Curve community so I’ve signed up. Revolut it is then!
Any news on Amex and curve? The self assessment deadline is approaching!
Still in beta testing, haven’t heard of a launch yet. 0.65% fee above first £1k per 30 days too with current setup.