3V cards are still alive and kicking, surprisingly

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Mike Jones says:

  9 Aug9 August 12:27

  I cleared out the Ealing Broadway Tesco Metro the other day – got a nice 20 cards. It’s the first time in probably about 8 weeks that they’ve restocked. My local Tesco Extra (Wembley) has never had any in stock.

  One thing I have learnt is not to trust the Homebase online stock checker. In some cases i’ve had the website display that there are loads available when there hasn’t been and in other cases there have been loads in stock when the website says there is only one. I have noticed though that the Homebase till system is a lot slower to activate the cards so doing a big buy can often frustrate the people behind you in the queue.

• JLev1986 says:

  9 Aug9 August 13:06

  Can you buy supermarket vouchers with these to spend on your normal food shop? I know where some are but struggle to see where I can use them even with the lists people have provided.

  • Rob says:

    9 Aug9 August 13:50

    highstreetvouchers.com used to accept them (so you could buy vouchers for other stores), not sure if that is still an option as I have a niggling feeling I read something about them not taking them now.

    You could presumably use them to buy supermarket gift vouchers on ebay, possibly for below face value! I know Waitrose charge postage if you buy their gift vouchers online, not sure about other supermarkets.

    • E Wortley says:

      9 Aug9 August 23:56

      I bought some Asda vouchers from Highstreetvouchers the other day. No problems,

• What's the Point says:

  9 Aug9 August 13:32

  I purchased 20 of them this week at an Extra store – in 2 separate batches of 10. As sometimes one of the cards fails to scan and you then have to go through all the activation receipts to figure out which ones you need to take home and which ones to leave!
  One of the staff members told me that I wasn’t allowed to use a Credit Card for the second batch, as they had been victims of fraud with credit card payments??? So I paid with my bank visa debit card, so only a slight loss on the maximum points I could have earned.
  I then tried to explain to the check out person why I was buying so many, but they glazed over in a similar fashion to when I try and explain airline loyalty schemes to non-believers!

  • louie-m says:

    9 Aug9 August 14:15

    For future reference, if you ask the cashier to press the sub-total button on their screen after each (or each couple) of cards, any failures will pop up on their screens then, so you know which one has failed. Then rescan. I’ve not had one failure yet doing it this way – and I’m well on the way to £10,000…..

• Gordon says:

  9 Aug9 August 13:38

  Here’s some interesting news for those of using the cards to pay for your tax or vat. Its seems that I have broken HMRC’s systems!! They can’t cope with the number of individual transactions! I have paid several thousand in vat over the last quarter and I just had a call from HMRC saying that their systems cant handle the presure. The lady was very nice and laughed when I explained that I was buying the cards to collect clubcard points. She didn’t know what the limit was but told me that if I continued at present the payments could be missed by them. So it looks as though I am going to have to set up a direct saver with National Savings and break them as well 🙂

  • Farringdon says:

    9 Aug9 August 14:00

    Keep going like this and you’ll bring down the entire UK government.

    • Gordon says:

      9 Aug9 August 14:02

      wonder if the government Budget Deficit can be funded using 3V

  • louie-m says:

    9 Aug9 August 14:16

    I’ve not had any problems so far and have paid over £8k to HMRC. Have you paid more than that or is it because it is VAT and not income tax you are paying I wonder?

    • Dan says:

      9 Aug9 August 14:18

      I’ve paid about £3k in 3V cards to HMRC for just income tax and not had any problems either.

    • Gordon says:

      9 Aug9 August 15:18

      I have paid about £6K in vat to them over 2 quarters. They told me its the number of transactions that their system cant cope with. I had noticed when I logged into their vat system, that the last few payments had stopped being credited in £25 multiples. Instead they had been batched into random larger payments like someone was adding them up manually and entering a total.
      I have also paid corporation tax but that was a lower amount. The problems seem to have occurred once I had paid about £5K. Therefore, they may have an issue when the number of transactions reaches around 200. I don’t know whether this is an overall number or a maximum per vat accounting period.

• Simon says:

  9 Aug9 August 15:02

  Getting these things is like going on a wild goose chase.

  Is there anywhere in N/E London or Essex outskirts that have them? Have looked in my local stores to no avail.

• louie-m says:

  9 Aug9 August 15:17

  Actually I did a count at lunchtime – I’m up to £9,825, some of which have been used for council tax, utility bills and Priority Club VISA payments. That’s more or less sorted hubby’s and my AAdvantage card spending, so 70,000 AAdvantage miles as well as Clubcard points on maybe 90% of them (and Nectar on the rest) + points for the AAdvantage card Amex spend. And that’s without driving more than maybe 20 miles in total out of our way to raid Tescos (and that only when hubby allows!). Top tip – Lincolnshire. Packed with big Tescos and no competition, our weekend there probably paid for itself in CC points. Tis very boring processing them though….. Thanks to FT and to Raffles for pointing me in that direction 🙂

  • What's the Point says:

    9 Aug9 August 16:04

    Hats off to you for this amazing result! I can imagine that your house will always have some trace of that silver scratchy foil floating about from the back of the 3V cards for decades to come……

    • louie-m says:

      11 Aug11 August 14:15

      Yep, I ought to get the Hoover out!

      Incidentally, I found 8 cards in Sevenoaks yesterday, so that tips me over the £10,000 mark 🙂

• BTC says:

  9 Aug9 August 15:50

  Picked up 10, left about the same, at Dundee Riverside.
  Have also seen a local Metro stocking them now too.

  Shame the NS&I site isn’t taking web registrations at the moment.

  • Alan says:

    9 Aug9 August 18:14

    Ha I think the two of us are competing for them at Riverside 😛

    • BTC says:

      10 Aug10 August 10:13

      Hah – there’s been plenty to go around so far!

      • Alan says:

        10 Aug10 August 10:16

        Indeed – the benefits of being in a non-London based location 😀

• James67 says:

  9 Aug9 August 16:22

  Raffles, do you have any stats on volume of comments? Seems like 3V cards might be our favourite topic? Just curious!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.