NEW: Is Clubcard Pay an easy way of earning Virgin Points or other rewards?

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Tesco Bank has launched Clubcard Pay, an interesting new debit card product that you top up from your bank account.

We are writing about it because you earn Clubcard points on each transaction you make using Clubcard Pay. These can be converted into Virgin Points, Hotels.com credit or various other rewards.

If you remember the Tesco current account debit card, which is now closed to new applicants, it is very similar.

You can learn more about Clubcard Pay on its website here.

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 (the position with HMRC is not clear), 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

There is an optional extra feature where you can round up each transaction to the nearest £1 and save the money via Tesco Bank. You can disable this and I am ignoring it here.

The Tesco in-store earning rate looks weird ….

Tesco appears to be saying that you won’t earn anything extra on your Tesco spending, after Day 100, but you will earn extra points on spending elsewhere.

For the first 100 days, you WILL earn an extra 1 Clubcard point for every £1 spent at Tesco or in a Tesco garage.

After that, you revert back to your standard Clubcard earning rate of 1 point per £1. This is instead of, and not on top of, the 1 point per £1 you would get for swiping a standard Clubcard.

Here is the text to confirm it:

“For the first 3 months (100 days to be exact) after you open your Clubcard Pay account you’ll collect 2 Clubcard points for every £1 you spend using your Clubcard Pay debit card, on qualifying products in Tesco and on Tesco Fuel (excludes Esso). That’s one extra Clubcard point for every £1 you spend. After 100 days, you will go back to the Clubcard points collection rate you usually get in Tesco when using your Clubcard.”

Double points on Tesco shopping is small change to many HfP readers, however. The key issue is what you earn on general debit card spending.

Based on 1 Clubcard point per £8 spent, you would receive:

2.5 Virgin Points per £8 spent

3p of Hotels.com voucher per £8 spent

….. and so on. The full list of Tesco Clubcard travel redemption partners is here and of course there are many non-travel options too.

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.

Who should get this card?

If you make substantial and regular payments by debit card – excluding payments to banks, gambling sites, NSI, financial institutions etc – then this looks like an interesting deal.

You will be getting no rewards on your debit card transactions at the moment, so even a paltry sum is better than nothing.

If it works for paying HMRC I could be interested. When you are paying large sums of VAT, PAYE, self-assessment etc even a tiny return like 2.5 Virgin Points per £8 will add up.

It may work for people who can’t justify the £150 annual fee for Curve Metal. Curve Metal allows you to pay HMRC using a Visa or Mastercard credit card for free, earning credit card rewards.

If you are not a big user of debit cards, I don’t see the attraction of Clubcard Pay – especially as you have to keep it topped up via manual transfers which adds extra faff to your life.

You can find out more about Clubcard Pay on the Tesco Bank website here.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – December 2021 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit or charge card, here are our November 2021 recommendations based on the current sign-up bonus.

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the top current deals:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

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.

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and free for a year Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and a long list of travel benefits Read our full review

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

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: