Sant 123 vs Tesco CC with club-card vouchers

grace2much

Hi, I just moved from my old bank to Santander 123 and now have their credit card along with my Tesco credit card that has my clubcard attached to it.

We always used our tesco card for virtually all of our purchases (tesco grocers, tesco petrol and normal online shopping etc) it was handy to get the clubcard points and we used them usually with the clubcard boost to buy things around Christmas. But we did notice that often we ended up buying things just to use the points up so not a great idea.

From a cashback perspective which is best (purely in money terms)? I had though of buying our petrol at tesco but using my Sant CC to take advantage of the 10p off offers.

I'm rambling......sorry....bottom line which saves you the most money or is there a combination of using both CC's that is the best way to optimize our spending......thanks in advance for suffering through my muddlied thinking...:o

msallen

Use the 123 CC to pay for your petrol at Tescos but use your Tesco CC as a club card for the purchase.

SeduLOUs

If you use Tesco credit card you get 1 point per £4 (on top of normal clubcard points), so if you spent £100 in Tesco, you would get an additional 25 points (worth 25p in vouchers or 50p if you use boost).

If you used Santander 123 card to spend £100 in Tesco you would get £1 back. If you used Santander 123 card to spend £100 in Tesco petrol you would get £3 back.

The obvious answer is to use Santander card whenever you are in a supermarket/department store/petrol station, and use the Tesco credit card for everything else that wouldn't get you Santander cashback.

Don't forget to still use normal clubcard to pick up the general spend points and fuel save even when using Santander card.

grace2much

msallen wrote: »

Use the 123 CC to pay for your petrol at Tescos but use your Tesco CC as a club card for the purchase.

Thanks for that makes good sense.

Whats your opinion on our non-tesco related purchases, say holidays flights, eating out, just normal everyday things along with the yearly bigger spends (like the holidays I mentioned above) . I appreciate your help....

grace2much

SeduLOUs wrote: »

If you use Tesco credit card you get 1 point per £4 (on top of normal clubcard points), so if you spent £100 in Tesco, you would get an additional 25 points (worth 25p in vouchers or 50p if you use boost).

If you used Santander 123 card to spend £100 in Tesco you would get £1 back. If you used Santander 123 card to spend £100 in Tesco petrol you would get £3 back.

The obvious answer is to use Santander card whenever you are in a supermarket/department store/petrol station, and use the Tesco credit card for everything else that wouldn't get you Santander cashback.

Don't forget to still use normal clubcard to pick up the general spend points and fuel save even when using Santander card.

Got it...! very clear and concise answer thank you for taking the time to shed some light on my confused thinking.....:T

YorkshireBoy

grace2much wrote: »

Whats your opinion on our non-tesco related purchases, say holidays flights, eating out, just normal everyday things along with the yearly bigger spends (like the holidays I mentioned above) . I appreciate your help....

The Santander card has a long 0% period on purchases I assume? Does the Tesco card have the same, but perhaps shorter? Do the Tesco points outweigh the savings interest you'd make by only making the minimum payment on Santander and saving the rest until the end of the intro period? I suspect they won't, at least for some considerable time.

SeduLOUs

grace2much wrote: »

Thanks for that makes good sense.

Whats your opinion on our non-tesco related purchases, say holidays flights, eating out, just normal everyday things along with the yearly bigger spends (like the holidays I mentioned above) . I appreciate your help....

You seem to be sorted now but just wanted to add that my answer was based on the assumption that you will pay the card in full each month and therefore pay no interest.

If you aren't going to pay in full when the statement arrives and want to pay it off gradually then you want to be putting large holiday purchases on the card with the lowest APR. This is probably Santander which has an introductory 23 months of 0% on purchases and a lower standard rate than the Tesco cards. The interest saved will probably far outweigh the value of the lost clubcard points.

Edit (additional thought): If you wanted to be particularly crafty you could buy the holiday on the Tesco card to bag the points, and then balance transfer to Santander. The 23 months 0% is also for balance transfers and there is no balance transfer fee during the introductory period.

grace2much

SeduLOUs wrote: »

You seem to be sorted now but just wanted to add that my answer was based on the assumption that you will pay the card in full each month and therefore pay no interest.

If you aren't going to pay in full when the statement arrives and want to pay it off gradually then you want to be putting large holiday purchases on the card with the lowest APR. This is probably Santander which has an introductory 23 months of 0% on purchases and a lower standard rate than the Tesco cards. The interest saved will probably far outweigh the value of the lost clubcard points.

Edit (additional thought): If you wanted to be particularly crafty you could buy the holiday on the Tesco card to bag the points, and then balance transfer to Santander. The 23 months 0% is also for balance transfers and there is no balance transfer fee during the introductory period.

Im a "pay in full" guy so no probs there. As for the holiday transfer, nice idea but it would cost me tooooo much in brain cell power for me to handle that.....:eek:

SeduLOUs

grace2much wrote: »

Im a "pay in full" guy so no probs there. As for the holiday transfer, nice idea but it would cost me tooooo much in brain cell power for me to handle that.....:eek:

I can afford to pay off my Santander card in full, but am letting a balance ride for a while because it's on the 0% interest period and not costing me anything, and the money that would have paid it off is currently sitting in my 123 current account earning me interest.

There's always a few quid to be saved and manoeuvred here and there, but it can become your life's work managing it all for usually a pretty small return, and if you forget about a 0% end date anything you gained is lost very quickly. I know I'm starting to go overboard when the other half's eyes glaze over as I'm explaining my next idea...

grace2much

SeduLOUs wrote: »

I can afford to pay off my Santander card in full, but am letting a balance ride for a while because it's on the 0% interest period and not costing me anything, and the money that would have paid it off is currently sitting in my 123 current account earning me interest.

There's always a few quid to be saved and manoeuvred here and there, but it can become your life's work managing it all for usually a pretty small return, and if you forget about a 0% end date anything you gained is lost very quickly. I know I'm starting to go overboard when the other half's eyes glaze over as I'm explaining my next idea...

Great idea and hats off to you for doing this. As you alluded to above though for me it would be too much work and I would end up forgetting a due date and end up paying more.

Its just a pity Sant has the £25 annual fee (waved for the first year) but cant be too greedy I am thankful for what they do offer..

barry_the_bear

SeduLOUs wrote: »

Don't forget to still use normal clubcard to pick up the general spend points and fuel save even when using Santander card.

Use your Tesco credit card as the clubcard when buying petrol, not a normal clubcard. You get extra points for using your Tesco credit card as a clubcard rather than a normal clubcard - even if you don't pay using the Tesco credit card!