Tesco have a longstanding Clubcard promotion with branded gift cards, earn 150 Clubcard points when you spend £50 in one transaction on selected gift cards. The branded gift cards are for a wide variety of retailers, such as Debenhams, House of Fraser, Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge, iTunes, etc. Most of these places accept American Express so the 150 Clubcard points (360 Avios) are very nice but involved knowing you would spend a certain amount in these places and planning far enough in advance to be able to purchase the gift cards. This is far too much hassle for most people.
A development has occurred recently that changes everything!
Tesco now offer 150 Clubcard points (360 Avios) for VISA branded gift cards. If you look on the above website the disclaimer at the bottom says that VISA cards are excluded but in the VISA FAQ section it clearly states,
“If you’re a Clubcard customer, you’ll earn 150 Clubcard points for every £50 you spend in a single transaction on Branded Gift Cards (including the Visa branded Cards) at the time of purchase.”
I have personally tested this and can confirm the bonus Clubcard points do appear on your receipt.
This opens an amazing array of opportunities. There are many, many places that do not accept American Express but do accept VISA branded cards. Now, before you even think about it, no, you unfortunately are not able to pay credit card bills. The credit card companies do not accept that card BIN of a VISA prepaid gift card for bill payments. However, you are able to pay other bills, such as council tax, HMRC tax bills, SKY, water, gas, electric, mobile phone, etc. You can see why I am calling this a game changer!
There are two types of VISA prepaid gift cards.
First, the standard VISA debit gift card.
These come in £25 and £50 denominations. Remember, to earn the 150 Clubcard points, you must purchase in multiplies of £50. So, a purchase of £50 (2 x £25 gift cards) will earn 150 points and a purchase of £100 (or 4 x £25 gift cards) will earn 300 points.
The VISA debit gift card can be used as a normal debit card in shops, online, any retailer that accepts VISA cards, but cannot be used to withdraw cash from an ATM, gambling, or what VISA calls ”adult entertainment”.
You cannot load additional funds to the card, purchase more than 5 gift cards at a time, or hold gift cards will total available balance of more than £250 at any one time, though I’m not sure how they will track that.
Gift cards can be used for 24 months from the date they are purchased then they will expire. There is a £3 annual debited from the card in the 11th and 23rd month after the date of purchase but only to cards that still have funds remaining on them at that time. So, always use your gift card in full before the 11th month.
To purchase the £25 card there is a fee of £2.95 with the £50 card carrying a fee of £3.95.
So, here is the maths.
A £50 card would cost £53.95 in total and earn 203 Clubcard points (53 for the purchase plus 150 bonus) and 203 Clubcard points is worth 487 Avios. You could also use the American Express Preferred Reward Gold will double points for supermarket spend in the first year to make the purchase earning a further 100 American Express membership reward points, which in turn, can be converted to 100 Avios, making a grand total of 587 Avios for a £3.95 fee (the £50 you will spend on essential items that would have cost you anyway, such as your council tax bill).
That means 1 Avios equals 0.67 pence. This is tremendous value.
There is an added bonus for those needing to generate spend to meet a spending requirement to earn a sign up bonus. If you were unsure you would be able to meet the £3,000 spending requirement of the British Airways Premium Plus or American Express Platinum then this should make things much easier, especially if you have a large tax bill due.
The second type of VISA prepaid card is even more exciting, the VISA 3V card.
The VISA 3V card seems to only come in £25 denominations and can be used for internet transactions only. You activate the card online through the VISA 3V website and are provided with a card number, expiry date and CVV (card verification value). You can then purchase you item online like a normal VISA card. The exciting part is there is no fee for a 3V card. To purchase a £25 card will cost £25. The best use is a bill that can be paid in parts, such as council tax, HMRC tax bill, etc. This means you are earning free Avios (or Avios you would not previously have earned) for items you would have paid for anyway. This is a complete game changer. If you are paying £500 a month in bills that can be paid online with a VISA card in part payments then you could use 3V cards and earn 2,000 Clubcard points (or 4,800 Avios) plus the Avios you earn for paying with an American Express card, say 1,000 Avios if you use the American Express Preferred Reward Gold with double supermarket spend in the first year. This mean an extra 5,800 Avios every month, or a staggering 69,600 Avios a year, with no extra spend required. Simply Amazing!
You can merge different 3V card together for a fee of £1.75 if you have a larger purchase planned and are unable to split the payment. You can also withdraw money for a fee of £3.50 by transferring the balance to your bank account. You can hold a maximum £1,000 on a card. So, you could transfer 40 card together at a cost of £70 then transfer the money to your bank account for £3.50. You would earn 3,000 clubcard points (or 7,200 Avios) for a cost of £73.50 meaning 1 Avios equals 1.02 pence, slightly above my valuation of an Avios. Now, you could factor in the extra Avios earned through purchasing on an American Express Preferred Reward Gold pushing the total Avios earned to 9,200 bringing the cost per Avios to a more attractive 0.80 pence. However, this is an ideal world scenario and from all accounts there are not many 3V cards around and you may be prevented from purchasing more than 5 at a time.
If you have any experiences using the VISA prepaid gift cards then please comment below or email me at email@georgethetravelmonkey.com
VISA PrePaid Changes The Whole Avios Game!
