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Prepaid Visa/MasterCard "Gift Cards" from shops/supermarkets - does anyone still sell them?

These used to be for sale in most supermarkets and places like WHSmith, Boots and Argos alongside the normal gift cards, usually in £25 and £50 denominations (although Morrisons had £100 ones), but I haven't seen any for a while. 
Does anyone know of any shops still selling them? 

Just to pre-empt the obvious comments - I am well aware that these things carried hefty fees, and for most purposes made absolutely no sense whatsoever. I won't go into my reasons for wanting one in this thread; suffice to say it's nothing dodgy. 
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Comments

  • grumbler said:
    Thanks, I'm aware of these, but they're not quite the right thing. The ones I'm thinking of are not reloadable, have a fixed pre-loaded amount on them, and you just pick them up off a hook and buy them through a normal checkout along with your other shopping. 
  • WillPS
    WillPS Posts: 4,726 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Newshound! Name Dropper
    edited 15 December 2023 pm31 11:28PM
    No, they've all been replaced by Prepaid Mastercards (or Visas) which only work at specific retailers (i.e. restaurants, fashion, activities etc). Probably in no small part because of the kind of 'nothing dodgy' loopholes you were trying to take advantage of, but also because they were a favourite of scammers.
  • The_Urbanite
    The_Urbanite Posts: 359 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    edited 16 December 2023 pm31 6:32PM
    I haven't seen any for a while.

    They were a useful tool in the points/rewards generating game. I would buy them at a discount, typically 7-10% which would more than offset the activation fee (4.5% on the £100 cards), then empty them out in one fell swoop to whichever financial institution would take them. One of a number of profitable manufactured spending schemes.

    This was of course going on for a number of years after the 3V/Pay.Com and NS&I scheme ended which died not long after being publicised.

    Pity they went, they were good, even if the issuers did keep trying to stop them being used like this as their business model relied on people not spending everything on them for whatever reason.
  • Thanks all. Yes pity they've gone. The last place I saw some was in a branch of Argos. They had a small quantity (maybe 3 or 4) left, and they never restocked them. 
    I stopped using them because I ran out of places that would actually accept them and turn them back into money, but the returns on each card "processed" were small so I never did it in a big way. I took part in the 3V bonanza of course :wink:
  • I used the £100 Vanillas to pay off my credit card and top up Viola for free - it got annoying when Vanilla reduced the online purchase limit to £40, technically tripling the workload.
  • la531983
    la531983 Posts: 2,555 Forumite
    1,000 Posts First Anniversary Name Dropper
    Bitrefill website sell them, up to £40. You have to have cryptocurrency though, which peoples views on vary.
  • I saw a load of Vanilla Mastercards in Whsmith this week so they're still about.
  • Fingerbobs
    Fingerbobs Posts: 1,690 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 4 January 2024 pm31 3:08PM
    I saw a load of Vanilla Mastercards in Whsmith this week so they're still about.
    Thanks! I looked in my nearest WHSmith just before the festive period and didn't see any. I'll have another look! 

    Edited to add: looks like Sainsbury's and Asda also stock them...
    https://www.myvanillagiftcard.com/whereToBuy/
  • WillPS
    WillPS Posts: 4,726 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Newshound! Name Dropper
    Yes, I spotted some in Sainsburys just before Christmas. They seem to have delisted Amazon ones though (which I guess makes sense as they compete directly with them via Argos).
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