Transferring funds from a PlusNet reward card

fillip2k

Thanks for all the replies peeps, I decided to use the card for my day-to-day spending and if I end up with an awkward amount left just pay it into my octopus energy account or something. Just transferring the 65 to the account I want to pay off on my payday at the end of the week... I had hoped I could use the card to pay my Plusnet subscription  but seems they were wise to that idea and chose a service that stops people setting up a recurring payment on the card... 

Fingerbobs

fillip2k said:

Thanks for all the replies peeps, I decided to use the card for my day-to-day spending and if I end up with an awkward amount left just pay it into my octopus energy account or something. Just transferring the 65 to the account I want to pay off on my payday at the end of the week... I had hoped I could use the card to pay my Plusnet subscription  but seems they were wise to that idea and chose a service that stops people setting up a recurring payment on the card... 

Bear in mind that a lot of places (Amazon and Octopus included) have a minimum payment amount of £1.

If you end up with less than £1 remaining on the card, it can be annoyingly difficult to spend it.

fillip2k

Just thought I would update peeps, I went with the option of crediting my Octopus account with the money. This helped clear some debit from winter (I guess this built up as I started my account with them just before winter so had not accrued any credit)
This has given me a bit of credit on the account and taken a load off my mind re the Octopus debit! Thanks for all your suggestions people, very much appretiated!

Alex9384

Is it a normal debit cad? If you had a Revolut account you could top it up by the debit card. Then you can transfer the money from Revolut wherever you wish.

Fingerbobs

Alex9384 said:

Is it a normal debit cad? If you had a Revolut account you could top it up by the debit card. Then you can transfer the money from Revolut wherever you wish.

Unfortunately, they don't work like a normal debit card. Although most of them claim they are accepted anywhere where a MasterCard/Visa logo is displayed, this isn't true. I haven't found any direct way of converting these prepaid cards into money (believe me, I've tried a lot!). Closest route I've found is to make a payment to a utility company, as the OP has done.

Here's what I've tried so far...

Yorkshire Building Society - Transaction declined.
NS&I Direct Saver - Rejects card number.
Family Building Society - Transaction declined.
Barclays PingIt (Jar Top-up) - Rejects card number.
Barclays PingIt (Request Money link) - Rejects card number.
Curve - Rejects card number.
Santander credit card - Transaction declined.
Barclaycard credit card - Rejects card number.
Nationwide credit card - Rejects card number.
Halifax credit card - Rejects card number.
Cambridge Building Society - Transaction declined.
Monzo Request Money link - Rejects card number.
Skipton Building Society - Rejects card number.
Revolut - Transaction declined.
NatWest credit card - Impossible (no option to pay by debit card)
Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings - Rejects card number.

The_Urbanite

Fingerbobs said:

Alex9384 said:

Is it a normal debit cad? If you had a Revolut account you could top it up by the debit card. Then you can transfer the money from Revolut wherever you wish.

Unfortunately, they don't work like a normal debit card. Although most of them claim they are accepted anywhere where a MasterCard/Visa logo is displayed, this isn't true. I haven't found any direct way of converting these prepaid cards into money (believe me, I've tried a lot!). Closest route I've found is to make a payment to a utility company, as the OP has done.

Here's what I've tried so far...

Yorkshire Building Society - Transaction declined.
NS&I Direct Saver - Rejects card number.
Family Building Society - Transaction declined.
Barclays PingIt (Jar Top-up) - Rejects card number.
Barclays PingIt (Request Money link) - Rejects card number.
Curve - Rejects card number.
Santander credit card - Transaction declined.
Barclaycard credit card - Rejects card number.
Nationwide credit card - Rejects card number.
Halifax credit card - Rejects card number.
Cambridge Building Society - Transaction declined.
Monzo Request Money link - Rejects card number.
Skipton Building Society - Rejects card number.
Revolut - Transaction declined.
NatWest credit card - Impossible (no option to pay by debit card)
Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings - Rejects card number.

If the issuer has blocked an MCC, then trying different merchants with the same MCC won’t work. Some of these issuers block some categories and don’t even mention this in the T&Cs. They really need to be challenged on their claims about where they can be spent. 

With cards like this I’d just pay them into my bank account in one fell swoop and job done. It seems like the OP has found an exit strategy so all’s well that ends well.

For more inspiration on how to cash cards out I’d recommend reading on manufactured spending and choosing a route that suits...

Fingerbobs

The_Urbanite said:

Fingerbobs said:

Alex9384 said:

Is it a normal debit cad? If you had a Revolut account you could top it up by the debit card. Then you can transfer the money from Revolut wherever you wish.

Unfortunately, they don't work like a normal debit card. Although most of them claim they are accepted anywhere where a MasterCard/Visa logo is displayed, this isn't true. I haven't found any direct way of converting these prepaid cards into money (believe me, I've tried a lot!). Closest route I've found is to make a payment to a utility company, as the OP has done.

Here's what I've tried so far...

Yorkshire Building Society - Transaction declined.
NS&I Direct Saver - Rejects card number.
Family Building Society - Transaction declined.
Barclays PingIt (Jar Top-up) - Rejects card number.
Barclays PingIt (Request Money link) - Rejects card number.
Curve - Rejects card number.
Santander credit card - Transaction declined.
Barclaycard credit card - Rejects card number.
Nationwide credit card - Rejects card number.
Halifax credit card - Rejects card number.
Cambridge Building Society - Transaction declined.
Monzo Request Money link - Rejects card number.
Skipton Building Society - Rejects card number.
Revolut - Transaction declined.
NatWest credit card - Impossible (no option to pay by debit card)
Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings - Rejects card number.

If the issuer has blocked an MCC, then trying different merchants with the same MCC won’t work. Some of these issuers block some categories and don’t even mention this in the T&Cs. They really need to be challenged on their claims about where they can be spent. 

With cards like this I’d just pay them into my bank account in one fell swoop and job done. It seems like the OP has found an exit strategy so all’s well that ends well.

For more inspiration on how to cash cards out I’d recommend reading on manufactured spending and choosing a route that suits...

I agree they shouldn't be allowed to claim that these cards can be used "anywhere." 
The problem is it's usually not possible to know what merchant uses what MCC. You can sometimes have a pretty good guess, but it's not always reliable (NS&I Direct Saver being a case in point). 
It's not always the MCC that causes the block either. As you can see from my list above, a lot of merchants simply won't accept the card number, so there's no way to even find out of the MCC is blacklisted by the card issuer. 

Do you mean that you have a way to pay these cards into your bank account? I'd love to be able to do that! 

Nikkster

I saw this thread after my plusnet reward card arrived last week, its taken me a bit of effort to find it again! Thought I'd try buying premium bonds with it anyway, expecting the issues mentioned above - it went through fine! (Will update if for some reason the transaction gets reversed)

[Deleted User]

They generally don't work for any money/quasi-money or reoccurring transactions if it's a Purecard like BT branded versions. 

I was gifted an One4all card and it was a major pain with no chip/pin and limited acceptance. 

Fingerbobs

One4All doesn't claim to be a prepaid MasterCard. It's a "multi-retailer" Gift Card, rather like Love2Shop, that just happens to use the MasterCard network. There is a full list of retailers it's accepted at on their web site. 
My gripe is with the ones that claim they can be used "anywhere MasterCard is accepted" when this isn't true.