Transferring funds from a PlusNet reward card

fillip2k

Hi all, I've recently signed up to plusnet and have been given a plusnet reward card. I'd rather have the 65 quid in my bank account to help pay off a 0% Overdraft I used to pay an unexpected demand for fees from my PhD. However I can't seem to find away to do it.

The terms of the card say I can't withdraw cash from it at an ATM. I've seen suggestions that using a service like Money gram might work, but having never used this I'm not sure about.

Does anyone have any experience of doing this? The card is issued by Blackhawk Limited if that makes any difference...

Thanks!

MattMattMattUK

fillip2k said:

Hi all, I've recently signed up to plusnet and have been given a plusnet reward card. I'd rather have the 65 quid in my bank account to help pay off a 0% Overdraft I used to pay an unexpected demand for fees from my PhD. However I can't seem to find away to do it.

The terms of the card say I can't withdraw cash from it at an ATM. I've seen suggestions that using a service like Money gram might work, but having never used this I'm not sure about.

Does anyone have any experience of doing this? The card is issued by Blackhawk Limited if that makes any difference...

Thanks!

In theory you could add the money to a PayPal account and then transfer it to a bank account, if the card will allow, but these cards are often very limited and the ways around those limitations are often closed down.

If you are particularly desperate for the £65 you would be better off using that amount to pay for some essentials (food?) then using the money you would have spent on food to pay the £65 worth of fee.

fillip2k

Thanks for the reply. I had a feeling that this might have been the case. I think your suggestion of using the card for everyday things until it is spent and moving that money to my other bank account will be the best solution... 

Fingerbobs

Here are a few alternative suggestions, which may or may not be useful:

• Top-up your Amazon gift card balance (if you regularly buy stuff from Amazon)
  
• Make a £65 payment to a Utility company or Council Tax (even if you normally pay by Direct Debit, many utility companies also allow ad-hoc manual card payments) (I personally use this method, as it effectively converts the value of the card into money, as it's just knocked off my next bill).
  
• Purchase a £65 gift card for whatever supermarket you usually use, and use this to pay for your shopping until it's exhausted.
  

Chino

Fingerbobs said:

• Purchase a £65 gift card for whatever supermarket you usually use, and use this to pay for your shopping until it's exhausted.

Why would the OP not just use the Reward card directly?

WillPS

Chino said:

Fingerbobs said:

• Purchase a £65 gift card for whatever supermarket you usually use, and use this to pay for your shopping until it's exhausted.

Why would the OP not just use the Reward card directly?

Buying something they might later wish to return from a retailer they regularly use (if the retailer insists the same card is used for the refund).

Ensuring the value is used up before the card expires or has punitive fees applied.

WillPS

Fingerbobs said:

• Top-up your Amazon gift card balance (if you regularly buy stuff from Amazon)

If you do this, be warned that Amazon will place a £1 charge on your card which you'll need to wait to drop off completely before you can spend the full value. You might find it easier to just buy a £65 Amazon gift card from a retailer that sells Amazon gift cards (e.g. Tesco, Morrisons, Wilko).

GrumpyDil

Chino said 

Why would the OP not just use the Reward card directly?

And to add doing this (after waiting for the 1.00 hold to clear) means you can spend the whole value rather than ending up with an odd value left on the card

Fingerbobs

GrumpyDil said:

Chino said 

Why would the OP not just use the Reward card directly?

And to add doing this (after waiting for the 1.00 hold to clear) means you can spend the whole value rather than ending up with an odd value left on the card

This. (Although there's generally no £1 hold).

I know you *can* ask shops to pay only a certain amount on a particular card and then pay the remainder by another method, but using a Gift Card avoids the need to do this, and avoids the need to know the exact remaining balance on the reward card.

Fingerbobs

WillPS said:

Fingerbobs said:

• Top-up your Amazon gift card balance (if you regularly buy stuff from Amazon)

If you do this, be warned that Amazon will place a £1 charge on your card which you'll need to wait to drop off completely before you can spend the full value. You might find it easier to just buy a £65 Amazon gift card from a retailer that sells Amazon gift cards (e.g. Tesco, Morrisons, Wilko).

They've never done this when I've used prepaid cards to top-up my Amazon balance. I guess it could vary depending on the particular type of card used though.

WillPS

Fingerbobs said:

WillPS said:

Fingerbobs said:

• Top-up your Amazon gift card balance (if you regularly buy stuff from Amazon)

If you do this, be warned that Amazon will place a £1 charge on your card which you'll need to wait to drop off completely before you can spend the full value. You might find it easier to just buy a £65 Amazon gift card from a retailer that sells Amazon gift cards (e.g. Tesco, Morrisons, Wilko).

They've never done this when I've used prepaid cards to top-up my Amazon balance. I guess it could vary depending on the particular type of card used though.

Fair enough - it was definitely the case with the prepaid Mastercards offered by TopCashback (in the past) and Perks at Work tho. If I had one of these cards I'd prefer to make sure it was emptied in one shot.