Discounted (non-railcard) access to standard fares

strowger · 23 Aug 2014

Hallo all,

I'm wondering what sort of levels of discount people are managing to get on standard non-TOC-specific fares *without* using railcards. Not so interested in TOC-specific offers (eg where the TOC's own site sells their own advances slightly cheaper) or very restricted offers like superbreak and megatrain.

There are some sites offering 1-5% off via quidco/topcashback.

1% credit card cashback is quite easy to get (and, exceptionally, 3% with the Santander 123 card).

By combining the two, a worth-having 5-6% off is possible.

I know there are people who can get 10% discount on Redspottedhanky credit via employee benefit/reward systems like rewardgateway - although this has to be paid for via debit card and is slightly clunky.

Are there any other good ones?

RailUK Forums

Mojo · 23 Aug 2014

Depends what you consider it to be worth (most rate it as 1p per point) but the Amex Gold Chargecard gives 2 points per £1 on petrol and transport fares. Of course you could also stack discounts (eg. combine it with a cashback site). Or even a complicated one I did recently which was buy £50 gift card in Tesco (which acts as an Online Visa debit); from which I gained 150 Clubcard points, 100 Amex points (and 2p off per litre of fuel!), then used the card to get 10% off RSH through Rewardgateway, and then went through to get a further 1% cashback!

strowger · 23 Aug 2014

Mojo said:
Depends what you consider it to be worth (most rate it as 1p per point) but the Amex Gold Chargecard gives 2 points per £1 on petrol and transport fares. Of course you could also stack discounts (eg. combine it with a cashback site). Or even a complicated one I did recently which was buy £50 gift card in Tesco (which acts as an Online Visa debit); from which I gained 150 Clubcard points, 100 Amex points (and 2p off per litre of fuel!), then used the card to get 10% off RSH through Rewardgateway, and then went through to get a further 1% cashback!

Mojo,

Thanks for the reply.

I've looked carefully at those £50 cards in Tesco before - partly for the reasons you state here and partly because I'm aware of a number of fraudulent activities which use them. AFAIK there is a £4 fee for them which means they effectively cost £54. If you know different I would be most grateful for details!

Quidco/TCB no longer offer cashback on redspottedhanky, which is a shame. I've had over £2k from topcashback.

Cheers

Mojo · 23 Aug 2014

strowger said:
I've looked carefully at those £50 cards in Tesco before - partly for the reasons you state here and partly because I'm aware of a number of fraudulent activities which use them. AFAIK there is a £4 fee for them which means they effectively cost £54. If you know different I would be most grateful for details!

They do not all attract a fee for simply purchase and use. The ones I use only charge fees when you don't use them, or wish to do things like consolidate balances across multiple cards.

strowger said:
Quidco/TCB no longer offer cashback on redspottedhanky, which is a shame. I've had over £2k from topcashback

Yes they don't, although the 'Head For Points' blog seems to suggest that they will be returning soon, although no source is given. Rewardgateway does still offer the 1%.

strowger · 23 Aug 2014

Mojo said:
They do not all attract a fee for simply purchase and use. The ones I use only charge fees when you don't use them, or wish to do things like consolidate balances across multiple cards.

Thanks - that's potentially very useful - which brand of card is it?

Yes they don't, although the 'Head For Points' blog seems to suggest that they will be returning soon, although no source is given. Rewardgateway does still offer the 1%.

Cheers, interesting site I've not seen before. Funny that the stated reason is "payment delays" - I always found RSH paid promptly.

maniacmartin · 23 Aug 2014

Tesco stock two types of prepaid Visa card. The silver ones have a hefty fee, but the black '3V' branded ones do not. They come as a £25 card, but you need to buy £50 worth (2 cards) to get the bonus clubcard points. They expire 12 months after purchase (not activation) and any odd amounts left on them can be used to buy a custom-value East Coast voucher.

Sometimes the 3V ones can go out of stock at some Tesco stores for some time. Also don't buy too many at once as it gets Tesco's fraud suspicions up.

strowger · 24 Aug 2014

maniacmartin said:
Tesco stock two types of prepaid Visa card. The silver ones have a hefty fee, but the black '3V' branded ones do not. They come as a £25 card, but you need to buy £50 worth (2 cards) to get the bonus clubcard points.

Thanks.

So I make that:

2 * £25 3V cards costing £50 by credit card and yielding 1% cashback on the purchase and 150 clubcard points. These 150 points are worth £1.50 in Clubcard vouchers, which are in turn worth £3 on ebay or at redspottedhanky (or more if you have a use for one of the 4x-face-value entertainment offers). There's also some petrol discount gained, and potentially further discount coupons issued at the checkout.

2 * £25 card can be spent on 2 * £25 redspottedhanky voucher via rewardgateway, yielding £50 RSH credit and leaving £2.50 on each card to spend elsewhere.

End result: £50 train ticket has cost (£50-£3-£5-£.50) = £41.50, or 17% off face value.

Redspottedhanky supposedly pays 1% cashback via rewardgateway - and may yet return to quidco/tcb. If so, we may be up to 18% off face value.

Nice.

bb21 · 24 Aug 2014

That is one hardcore money saving strategy.

Be3G · 24 Aug 2014

maniacmartin said:
Tesco stock two types of prepaid Visa card. The silver ones have a hefty fee, but the black '3V' branded ones do not. They come as a £25 card, but you need to buy £50 worth (2 cards) to get the bonus clubcard points. They expire 12 months after purchase (not activation) and any odd amounts left on them can be used to buy a custom-value East Coast voucher.

Sometimes the 3V ones can go out of stock at some Tesco stores for some time. Also don't buy too many at once as it gets Tesco's fraud suspicions up.

This, whilst not strictly railway-related, is very useful to know. There've been one or two occasions in the past that I've thought a prepaid debit card would be useful, but the only ones I've ever seen have had a fee to merely purchase them, so I've steered clear.

strowger · 26 Aug 2014

Be3G said:
This, whilst not strictly railway-related, is very useful to know. There've been one or two occasions in the past that I've thought a prepaid debit card would be useful, but the only ones I've ever seen have had a fee to merely purchase them, so I've steered clear.

Note that the 3V cards are online-only; there's no physical card. Although you purchase a piece of plastic in the shop, it isn't a payment card, merely a marketing gimmick. The actual "card" number is provided online after purchase, and is not the number printed on the piece of plastic.

In other news, I've successfully bought a pair of £25 3V Visa debit cards at Tesco, and received the bonus clubcard points. I've managed to redeem one for redspottedhanky credit via rewardgateway, but I've discovered a small problem: The rewardgateway site (at least, my employer's version of it) will only allow the purchase of a single voucher of each type per day. So the fastest it would be possible to buy vouchers is £25 per day.

I should also say, in case anyone else is thinking of doing this, the following: I am sure that 3V, and their card issuer, are reputable businesses. However *in the past*, other providers of pre-paid cards of this type have often proved flakey, short-lived, prone to law-enforcement problems and disappearing with customers' funds. To be on the safe side, I wouldn't be keeping large value of these cards lying around - I'd get the funds on them spent ASAP.

maniacmartin · 26 Aug 2014

Reward gateway also only lets you use 5 different credit/debit card numbers per calendar month

island · 26 Aug 2014

This sort of process with 3V cards was publicised extensively on FlyerTalk where folks started using them to pay into premium bonds and it got very abruptly shut down one day. Very soon afterwards the amount of 3V cards stocked in Tesco's went way up.

I echo any suggestions not to tie up money in this.

Mojo · 26 Aug 2014

maniacmartin said:
Reward gateway also only lets you use 5 different credit/debit card numbers per calendar month

It appears to be a rolling period of a month.

Thanks to strowger for doing the maths, but I'm also benefiting from my American Express which gives me stuff of value equal to 2p per whole £1 spent. In addition to the 1% cashback what is my total discount? :lol:

Rewardgateway allows for me only the purchase of 1 voucher type per day in separate transactions, but combined you can buy multiples. For example I could buy 2 x £25 in one go, and 5 x £10 on one day.

strowger · 26 Aug 2014

Mojo said:
It appears to be a rolling period of a month.

Thanks to strowger for doing the maths, but I'm also benefiting from my American Express which gives me stuff of value equal to 2p per whole £1 spent. In addition to the 1% cashback what is my total discount?

Rewardgateway allows for me only the purchase of 1 voucher type per day in separate transactions, but combined you can buy multiples. For example I could buy 2 x £25 in one go, and 5 x £10 on one day.

Both the Rewardgateway restrictions (1 purchase of each type per day, 5 cards per month) are reasonably easy to work around in a large organisation where there are lots of friendly co-workers who don't use the site much.

Mojo I think that with 2% card cashback, against my 1%, you are getting 18% discount on the tickets, or 19% if the cashback site pays out.

You could quibble that some of the money is coming out as Eastcoast vouchers, which aren't discounted. But on the other hand I have not included anything for Tesco fuelsave (petrol discount), the possibility of Clubcard points having greater than 2x the standard value for you (eg if you use them for a leisure activity where they are valued at 4x face) nor for further discounts available from Tesco voucher offers (which can be significant - I've been combining £7-off-£70 and £6-off-£40 on a £70 shop most weeks recently). A "double clubcard points" voucher would be particularly worthwhile here.

drbdrb · 7 Sep 2014

The Amex card that seems to give a good balance between cost and reward is the Costco TrueEarnings American Express Credit Card.

No card fee, but a £30 Costco membership fee, gives 2% cashback on rail fares, with no maximum.

island · 7 Sep 2014

Isn't the cashback paid in Costco vouchers though? And Costco membership is not available to the general public.

drbdrb · 7 Sep 2014

island said:
Isn't the cashback paid in Costco vouchers though? And Costco membership is not available to the general public.

Amex says "Each year youll be sent a paper voucher for the value of cashback rewards you have earned, which can be redeemed for goods, services or cash" at Costco.

As for membership, I agree it is not the whole of the population, but includes anyone employed in -

Banking / Finance
Local Government
Fire / Rescue Service
Post Office
Airlines
Education
Police Force
Civil Service
Armed Forces
Medical / Health Service
Insurance

or qualified as

Qualified / Certified / Chartered Accountant
Chartered Architect
Doctors (MD) / Dentist / Optician / Pharmacist
Chartered Surveyor
Solicitor / Barrister / Magistrate / Advocate
Chartered Engineer / Civil etc

or employed or retired from what Costco describe as a Costco "Gold Company".

strowger · 8 Sep 2014

drbdrb said:
The Amex card that seems to give a good balance between cost and reward is the Costco TrueEarnings American Express Credit Card.

There's a good guide to cashback cards at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/cashback-credit-cards

The halcyon days of widely-accepted 1+ % cashback cards are gone

The days of 5-digit sums being offered as fee-free "balance transfer" at 0% to a bank account are also sadly long gone.

Even the AmEx cards, which are all that is left offering 1% now-a-days, have restrictions and fees.

I guess that for airline users, the various airline-linked cards are more valuable - but for various reasons that's no use to me.

snail · 30 Sep 2014

strowger said:
Even the AmEx cards, which are all that is left offering 1% now-a-days, have restrictions and fees.

Barclaycard have just replaced my cashback Mastercard with an AMEX and Visa combination. AMEX pays 1%, Visa 0.5% with no fees.

paddington · 1 Oct 2014

strowger said:
The halcyon days of widely-accepted 1+ % cashback cards are gone

Yes there are fees and restrictions, but that doesn't mean you can't get 1+%

Halifax Clarity pays £5 per statement if you spend over £300. This is not publicised at all.

Capital One Classic Extra pays 0.5% + £10 per year. Plus fee-free purchases in foreign currency, at the mastercard exchange rate, which is occasionally better than the interbank rate. So slightly gray ethically, but if you know what you are doing, you can buy "cash" with the card overseas and sell it immediately for 2% more £ than you will be charged.

Santander 123 has the fee but if you spend enough you will make it back. Plus you can get no fee in the first year and topcashback could give you the second year free.

Discounted (non-railcard) access to standard fares

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