3V cards | master thread
 

For those who don't know what a 3V card is see the BA Tesco thread or Raffles blog: http://www.headforpoints.com/2013/08...-surprisingly/

I'm finding it difficult to find 3V cards now and when I do the store gets cleared out very quickly of them presumably by other FT/HFP readers.

3V cards are virtual Visa cards, there's no fee to purchase them, but you don't get a physical Visa card, just a number and the security details are emailed to you when you register.

Tesco also does another type of Visa gift card which is more plentiful in supply. These include a physical Visa card in the packaging but there's also a fee attached to them. The £25 card costs £2.95 (on top of face value) and the £50 card costs £3.95.

Now as Tesco is giving out 'Helping Hand' coupons for £5 off when you spend £50 or more you can use these coupons to wipe out the fee. You get 150 Clubcard points (360 Avios) per £50 of gift cards, plus points on whatever you spend on your credit card.

As you need to buy in multiples of £50 I think the £50 cards are decent value with a £3.95 fee, but not the £25 cards as buying two of them would cost £5.90 in fees.

Even if you have no helping hand coupons these cards still may be worth it (if there's no 3V available, they'll always be better) depending how much you value an Avios.

£50 card = £53.95 incl fees. 150 Clubcard Points = 360 Avios.

e.g. bmi Plus Amex cardholders (2.5 miles per pound, convertible 1:1 for Avios):
132.5 miles earned on card spend (MBNA seems to allow fractions of miles to be carried forward)

Total: 492.5 Avios

BA Amex PP (2 Avios per pound):
106 miles earned on card spend.

Total: 466 Avios

PS I think it's always a good idea to buy something in the store when going for gift cards even if it's just something small like a packet of Jaffa Cakes, if their analysis shows that people who buy gift cards also buy other items they're more likely to keep promotions like this running. Also when I've transferred 3V to NS&I savings accounts I keep the money in NS&I until I need to withdraw it rather than taking it out ASAP, if everyone withdraws their NS&I cash as soon as it clears I can see NS&I blocking 3V cards.

Good points RE keeping under the radar layz.

Bizarrely I find 3V cards in every Tescos I go to this week after many weeks of no luck - I check with Tesco website that they have a "gift card store". Perhaps they are getting better at stocking, or are clearing out all their prebought 3Vs before they stop selling them. Or its random luck.

I'll name one Tescos, for fellow readers, as I left them with dozens of 3V cards (Thursday evening): Thetford superstore just off the A11.

I have an Amex Gold in its first year, and I seem to be getting triple MR points at Tescos (bonus rate in first year). Note thats the current Amex gold not any grandfathered rate.

So per £50 I have been getting:
150 (tesco CC points)
150 (Amex MR points)
Avios at base rates
150+(150/250*600)=510 Avios per £50

Both Amex and Tescos seem to fairly regularly have better conversion deals so 510 is the minimum avios.
Plus the £2000 spend on the gold triggers the 20,000 point bonus. Which wont be a problem with all the 3V cards! And I'm rolling in £5 off for £40 and 5p a litre vouchers.

3V used for Council tax (Cambridge city), giffgaff topup so far, and now have the NSI account.

Long may 3V cards continue :)

The helping hands coupon specifically excludes gift cards.I will try to use 1 monday when the start date opens,but my tesco has become a little cute of late,and even with some shopping items have been refusing to accept these as part payment.

Good choice of mobile operator there! Do you ever top up giffgaff using O2 vouchers from Tesco? A few times in 2012 I received bonus points vouchers from Tesco for buying O2 top ups.

I mentioned one place where I seen these gift cards, mentioned it here, went back the next day (less than 12 hours later) and there were gaps where the 3V used to be ;)

I'm really surprised this keeps on going.

I use 3V on two things:
- I buy rail e-vouchers on eastcoast.co.uk, I've prepaid what I estimate to be a years train travel this way. They can be used on any train operator.
- The rest in NS&I.

In my case I've never had a problem before using these with gift cards, as long as I buy something else at the same time.

If I joined the queue with an onion and 20 3V cards then they might have said something ;)

Of course, each store will vary.

If you go to a Tesco nearly every day anyway (close to work or home) and have a supply of helping hands then there's not much to lose by just adding a single £50 gift card to your shopping.

Yes I try to always buy O2 topups in Tescos for the points, and because giffgaff dont take amex themselves. I haven't had any bonus vouchers though, perhaps I dont buy enough. I normally just use it PAYG, most of the time my S3 is on Wifi, so dont need mobile data 99% of the time, and when I would like it I'm abroad and its madly expensive - even on giffgaff.

Trains, aha. Good plan, though I commute by car, so trains are a minimal use for me, but a really useful one for others who spend £1000s a year.

It may be because I bought a few months top ups in advance to increase my total spend before I handed over a double points coupon. It meant that in Tesco's eyes there was a spike in my top up buying and then I stopped buying them for a few months so they wanted to encourage me to start again.

I often get bonus vouchers to encourage me to buy things I used to buy but don't anymore.

If you can't find any 3V cards...
 

At 510 avios for each £50 turned over even the 3.95 fee would be worth it for some people. The people who buy avios anyway I mean

Are you sure you get the 150 bonus points for the Visa cards?

On the Tesco Giftcard website it says

There were about a dozen of these in Tesco Dundee last week for those still searching ;)

Yes, I'm sure.
For me they have. Headforpoints says same, what ever the Tesco site says, their system gives 150.

I buy them in sets of 2*£25 and the 150 have posted for each and every set, which is dozens of sets. I feel 2*25 avoids triggering and possible single transaction alarms, and maximises the vouchers. I got 2*150 points when I bought 4*£25 though (first 3v purchase).

I left 10 3vs on the rack at AIRDRIE Tesco yesterday evening. Bought 14. Nice young girl at checkout was happy to process them in batches of 4, + 2, shared between 2 Club Cards

Luckily some of us get 680 (the old 800 conversion rate per £2.50 of vouchers, plus 2 Avios per pound on the BMI AmEx). :p

I have had mixed fortunes using the helping hand vouchers in the past for vouchers, but if you choose the least experienced looking cashier and buy another few things too then it normally works.... I have about 8 helping hand vouchers to try next week ;)

That's old information, must not have updated it. Originally Visa cards didn't count, now they definitely do (most recent purchase yesterday).

http://www.tesco.com/giftcard/faq.asp#visa

nothing in Reading and surround areas....

There's already a Tesco thread in this forum - could we ask a mod to bury this business in there?