How to use the Tesco Clubcard Pay+ debit card to earn points from HMRC

The Tesco Clubcard Pay+ debit card is a product which appears to have no real purpose.

Unless, that is, you collect miles and points and have HMRC tax bills to pay ….

Clubcard Pay+ is a prepaid debit card which you load via bank transfer from an app. It earns 1 Clubcard point for every £8 you spent on it.

It is not hugely exciting for the majority, as it is only useful if you spend money at places where debit cards are accepted, but not credit cards. There aren’t many of those, except for HMRC. All other obvious routes for washing through money, such as paying credit card bills or crediting bank accounts, are blocked.

How does Clubcard Pay+ work?

This is how Clubcard Pay+ works:

• Clubcard Pay+ is a Visa debit card
• Clubcard Pay+ has no application fees or annual fees
• You top it up by loading funds from your current account, which can be with any bank, via the Tesco Bank mobile app
• You can use the card anywhere that debit cards are accepted
• You earn 1 Clubcard point for every £8 you spend outside Tesco
• You do not earn anything when you spend in Tesco, apart from the ‘base’ earning of 1 Clubcard point per £1 spent (Clubcard Pay+ replaces your standard Clubcard)
• You earn nothing if you use Clubcard Pay+ to pay into bank accounts, NSI or other financial institutions (HMRC is OK), share dealing accounts, gambling accounts or if you withdraw money via ATMs
• There is a 2.75% foreign exchange fee, so there is no benefit in using this card when you travel

What rewards will you receive from Clubcard Pay+?

Very little, unfortunately. Based on 1 Clubcard point per £8 spent, you will receive:

• 2.5 Virgin Points per £8 spent
• 3p of Hotels.com voucher per £8 spent

….. and so on.

Clearly this is not very attractive compared to credit card rewards. It is even worse than it looks, because it is based on a ‘per transaction’ basis. A payment of £7.99 earns you no points. A payment of £15.99 only earns you 1 Clubcard point.

Whilst it does work when paying HMRC, a tiny return of 2.5 Virgin Points per £8 arguably isn’t really worth the trouble of loading up the card and then making payments.

In recent weeks, I had also heard of some HfP readers having their Pay+ card forcibly shut down, presumably (it wasn’t stated) for paying HMRC. There are only a small number of these reports, but they do exist.

The only other option for getting some reward paying HMRC is via the £150 annual fee for Curve Metal. Curve Metal allows you to pay HMRC using a Visa or Mastercard credit card for free, up to £10,000 per month, earning credit card rewards on the underlying Visa or Mastercard you link to Curve. The snag here is that many popular Visa and Mastercard products no longer allow you to use Curve for HMRC, treat it as cash withdrawal (adding 3%) or – looking at you, HSBC – refuse to issue points. Our forum has a lot of discussion on Curve if you’re interested.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – March 2023 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Successfully apply for either of the Barclaycard Avios credit cards by 2nd April 2023 and you will be entered into a free draw to win ONE MILLION AVIOS! Full details are on the application forms here (free) and here (paid). This competition is exclusive to Head for Points readers. T&C apply.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

Until 30th March 2023, the sign up bonus on American Express Business Platinum is increased to 120,000 Membership Rewards points – click here. The bonus on American Express Business Gold is increased to 60,000 Membership Rewards points – click here. T&C apply, see the application forms for details.

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.