Tesco credit card

wos

Hi,
looking to apply for a Tesco credit card and wondering what the experience of doing so has been like for others who have recently done so (could only seem to find some complaints about the application process from online posts a few years back)?

What supporting documentation do they look for (photo ID, payslips, bank statements, utility bills)?
Are originals required and how far back do they require (for bank statements etc)?
Do I need to include my existing credit card information if I do not wish to avail of a balance transfer?
Will slightly different addresses on bank statement and utility bills (e.g. Main Street / Main St.) cause a problem?

I cannot imagine it being as single online application form as the website would lead you to believe.

Thanks.

oEmmao

from what I can remember it was a straight forward enough procedure, i think i have my card about 2 years now

BobSmith128

Application is straightforward. A lot of questions from what I can remember.
Around two weeks later - you receive a posted form from Tesco which you need to complete and send back. I think at this point they ask you to send supporting documentation.
Then a further two weeks later another letter from Tesco requesting your signature which you need to send back.
So the processing time can be slow - I believe I was waiting for around 8 weeks since I began the online application process until I got my card in the post.

My balance on my card was very low to start with - ~950 euro - possibly because I had another credit card with a large limit or perhaps in general Tesco don't give high limits initially. Still you can get this increased after 1 year and then every six months after that - mines up to the ~4000 limit now which is more than enough and I can now retire my other credit card.

There is no online access to view your account - you need to ring their call centre and ask for it.
Register your clubcard account and you can view your transactions on your card via it - https://secure.tesco.ie/register/?from=https://secure.tesco.ie/clubcard/myaccount/home.aspx

Register with mybills.ie to pay off your card as well as setting up a direct debit to take 100%.
You can then choose to let the direct debit run or pay off the account manually as you wish.
Don't try to front load the card as the money will go into a holding account and not on to your card.
I tried to do this at the start when my limit was low and this is the answer I got.

Still even though with what some people will see this as hassle - the tesco vouchers is what it's all about.
Every purchase you make should be on the card and then pay off the full amount each month. You'll build up a nice amount of points - much more than you could ever do if just shopping in Tesco.
Then you use the clubcard boast to multiple the value of the vouchers.

I use all my vouchers for my Bord Gais bill - have saved around 375 euro off my gas bill in a 12 month period. Not bad.
If you use Tesco mobile its worth even more.

Possibly my only concern is that Tesco in the UK have reduced the number of points earned since the EU brought in legislation to limit the commission that can be earned on credit cards. As a result Tesco (like all credit card operators) are earning less commission and therefore don't have as much to pass on to their customers. This happened in the UK towards the end of 2015. However haven't seen any sign of this yet in Ireland - not sure if they proceed with a similar measure here - I would expect them to do so but no word yet.....

JTMan

BobSmith128 wrote: »

Possibly my only concern is that Tesco in the UK have reduced the number of points earned since the EU brought in legislation to limit the commission that can be earned on credit cards. As a result Tesco (like all credit card operators) are earning less commission and therefore don't have as much to pass on to their customers. This happened in the UK towards the end of 2015. However haven't seen any sign of this yet in Ireland - not sure if they proceed with a similar measure here - I would expect them to do so but no word yet.....

Yeah, it is weird that Tesco Bank have cut the rewards significantly for UK customers but not for Irish customers. Tesco Bank have being reducing the number of product lines that they offer Irish customers in recent years, one wonders if Tesco Bank will cut their credit card service in the near future.

CaSCaDe711

Hi folks.

Hopefully not too off-topic, recently got my Tesco credit card in the post and used for the 1st time this week. Would like to know have any of you successfully set up PTSB online banking as the payment method?

Got Tesco's BIC and IBAN details from here

but PTSB require the following:

Country of payee
Name on account
BIC
IBAN
Reference

My questions are can I use any name for Name on account (i.e is it solely for my benefit so I know what I'm paying into?)

and

will I use my credit card number in the Reference field, so Tesco know where the payment should go?

Thanks in advance.

mattaiuseire

Use:

Ireland
Tesco Credit Card
BIC
IBAN
Credit card number

CaSCaDe711

Thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated.

Yggr of Asgard

You might be better of using mybills.ie with your PTSB Visa Debit card, the amount you pay is credited faster to your Tesco Visa Card than via Bank Transfer.

At least in my experience.

paulers06

I found that the application process took a while. There were no issues but with sending stuff backwards and forwards I think the whole process took 6-8 weeks. Always find the call centre staff very nice to deal with.

I use mybills.ie and as Yggr of Asgard mentioned, it's credited way faster.

Have my Tesco card about 7 months now and find it great. I use it to pay for everything. Saving my points for a boat to France later in the year to fill the car with wine

mmooney1983

Just got a refusal letter in from Tesco after I applied for the credit card
Earn about 60k per year with joint mortgage 247,000 outstanding
No repayments missed
Last credit card no repayments missed and account closed last year as I didn't use it
So I applied for my credit rating and see Tesco rated me very highly... so I don't get it.
Probably better off without it anyway!

Atlantic Dawn

mmooney1983 wrote: »

Just got a refusal letter in from Tesco after I applied for the credit card
Earn about 60k per year with joint mortgage 247,000 outstanding
No repayments missed
Last credit card no repayments missed and account closed last year as I didn't use it
So I applied for my credit rating and see Tesco rated me very highly... so I don't get it.
Probably better off without it anyway!

You should apply for your credit report to see what that says...
http://www.icb.ie/cr_options.php

Yggr of Asgard

You also could do a request to tesco under the data protection act (6.35€ cost) which should show you all the data they used and give you a clear indication of why the refused you.

Such a request also lead to re re-evaluation of the decision so that they can avoid giving you your full data as it might include internal data sets.

I wish we had consumer protection laws that would force banks to give you a clear message as to why the refuse you.

Fiskar

Nice to see refusals of credit for genuine reasons but your case seems OTT. In my case while I got the card they gave me only a fraction (45%) of the credit limit I had with AIB. I had to wait 1 full year for a review and now at up to 81% of the AIB credit limit.

Biggest issue I have with the account is that bills are posted and are not available to view online. I have told them on countless occasions that the posting of bills must be costing them money. Will possibly move to KBC where I believe you can see transactions on-line.

AlmightyCushion

Fiskar wrote: »

Nice to see refusals of credit for genuine reasons but your case seems OTT. In my case while I got the card they gave me only a fraction (45%) of the credit limit I had with AIB. I had to wait 1 full year for a review and now at up to 81% of the AIB credit limit.

Biggest issue I have with the account is that bills are posted and are not available to view online. I have told them on countless occasions that the posting of bills must be costing them money. Will possibly move to KBC where I believe you can see transactions on-line.

I couldn't ever consider a credit card without the facility to view my transactions online. How have they not brought this in by now?

Yggr of Asgard

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I couldn't ever consider a credit card without the facility to view my transactions online. How have they not brought this in by now?

I don't think there are sufficient number of customers in Ireland to justify the cost of implementing it.

Let's be honest most people only have a tesco card for the points and with the new EU regulation they will have to cut them soon, so it will become even less interesting to the public.

The only reason they still have not cut the earning for Ireland in my opinion is that they fear they would loose further grocery market share if they cut the rates and giving how they continue to decline they don't want to risk that.

Yggr of Asgard

Fiskar wrote: »

Nice to see refusals of credit for genuine reasons but your case seems OTT. In my case while I got the card they gave me only a fraction (45%) of the credit limit I had with AIB. I had to wait 1 full year for a review and now at up to 81% of the AIB credit limit.

Biggest issue I have with the account is that bills are posted and are not available to view online. I have told them on countless occasions that the posting of bills must be costing them money. Will possibly move to KBC where I believe you can see transactions on-line.

Tesco are very conservative with their limits and if I would not shop so much at them to get enough return of it to cover way more than the Stamp Duty I would get ride of the card, but if you shop regularly at Tesco you can get good cash back.

The day my cash back is below the stamp duty the card will be canceled.

Arbie

Tesco have offered a credit limit of 8% of my current cards! My ICB is clear, cards paid off in full each month, etc. They tell me €1,000 is the standard limit now. No chance to increase limit for 12 months. Very disappointing.

Yggr of Asgard

Arbie wrote: »

Tesco have offered a credit limit of 8% of my current cards! My ICB is clear, cards paid off in full each month, etc. They tell me €1,000 is the standard limit now. No chance to increase limit for 12 months. Very disappointing.

Well with 12500 € limit on your other cards, do you really need another card with 30€ stamp duty?

Are you shopping that often at Tesco?

Arbie

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

Well with 12500 € limit on your other cards, do you really need another card with 30€ stamp duty?

Are you shopping that often at Tesco?

We do get a lot of shopping & petrol there so it would certainly be worthwhile, but I'd planned to get rid of 2 other cards and use this instead. I didn't want the limits matched but €1,000 is too low for flights, hotels, etc. on family holiday. The funny thing is my finances are better now that when I got the other cards. How do they calculate these limits?

Yggr of Asgard

Arbie wrote: »

We do get a lot of shopping & petrol there so it would certainly be worthwhile, but I'd planned to get rid of 2 other cards and use this instead. I didn't want the limits matched but €1,000 is too low for flights, hotels, etc. on family holiday. The funny thing is my finances are better now that when I got the other cards. How do they calculate these limits?

No idea it does not make any sense, when I got the card in 2003 they also offered €1,000 to me to which I laughed and asked for reconsideration as it did not match my shopping habit. They did raise it substantially after 3 month of usage but since than it has been on the same limit it is now. Yes it's the same for over 12 years now.

I just shop too much at Tesco to close it and move on. I get way more out of than the pesky stamp duty, so I am happy with even the restrictions of no online banking.

Lenny

Yep, very strange with Tesco, I got a card last year, I got 3k limit, can't remember what I put down how much I earned, but during the late 12 months it was hard to stay within the limit, kept having to ring up to pay money to it, but it was causing problems by putting money towards a credit account, I can apply for a raise in a week or so, hope to raise it. I had an aib cc with 10K limit so I have kind of done away with that one,
Not being able to view the account online is a pain in d arse, u can login to your Tesco points and see the transaction so at least u can remember and then forget

mmooney1983

I got my credit bureau report immediately as I was so scared... Tesco rated me close to the highest score of 571

Yggr of Asgard

mmooney1983 wrote: »

I got my credit bureau report immediately as I was so scared... Tesco rated me close to the highest score of 571

Why would you think that Tesco rated you 571 from your ICB credit report?

571 of what?

The scores on your ICB report are done by the ICB and not Tesco.

The ICB has 3 different score methods (2 of their own cooking and 1 international FICO) and 571 is not possible with their own 2 and for FICO is very low.

You might want to check that again.

mmooney1983

Ok, sorry, as the rating was next to 'TESCO BANK' I presumed they had rated me
The history of enquiries is one line
DATE - TIME - INSTITUTION (Tesco Bank) - BRANCH NAME - (Credit cards) - ICB CRIF 3 (520) explained as lowest score/highest risk = 271 and highest score/lowest risk = 555

(571 was my typo, sorry)

So maybe I have this all wrong but I got 520/555... that's not good?
I have never missed a payment on anything so can't figure out where the 35 points went.

Yggr of Asgard

mmooney1983 wrote: »

Ok, sorry, as the rating was next to 'TESCO BANK' I presumed they had rated me
The history of enquiries is one line
DATE - TIME - INSTITUTION (Tesco Bank) - BRANCH NAME - (Credit cards) - ICB CRIF 3 (520) explained as lowest score/highest risk = 271 and highest score/lowest risk = 555

(571 was my typo, sorry)

So maybe I have this all wrong but I got 520/555... that's not good?
I have never missed a payment on anything so can't figure out where the 35 points went.

I see what you mean, what the line means is that the ICB provided Tesco Bank with the scores when Tesco requested your report.

The scoring is done by the ICB, as to why you are missing some points, ICB tries to explain here: http://www.icb.ie/pdf/Sample%20Credit%20Report.pdf

And all of the calculations are based on the arbitrary secret calculations that the score models do, you have not lost 35 points, you still can gain 35.

The scores are not only influenced by missed payments, they take into consideration the length you have the accounts, the available credit (against your limit), what accounts they are etc.

mmooney1983

Cool, that's really interesting. Don't particularly need the card but a few people recommended it for the points etc. Anyway I will leave it but certainly won't be applying for anything again for another 12 months. Thanks!

insullation

Points now reduced to 1 point for every 8 spent outside tesco on credit card

oEmmao

can you tell me where you read this please? i did a couple of transactions in the last few days and im still geting 1 point per 2euro spent on non-Tesco transactions.

insullation

Got letter in post yesterday...comes into effect 5th of October I think

JTMan

insullation wrote: »

Got letter in post yesterday...comes into effect 5th of October I think

Exactly. The Tesco Credit Card website will probably not be updated until5 October 2016.

I'm switching to KBC for my credit card.

lotsofthegreen

insullation wrote: »

Got letter in post yesterday...comes into effect 5th of October I think

A very sad day indeed! We run everything possible with this card (clearing monthly) with gas and electricity working out very cheap as a result.

It's still better than nothing but a 75% hit in its 'value'. Feckers better set us up online banking to compensate slightly!

insullation

Unfortunately it's more than 75% hit in most cases e.g previously if you spent e.g. 15 euro you got 7 points....the same transaction now will get you 1 point....on my last 10 transactions 1 got 265 points but on the new scale I would get 48 points....not worth it now for me as a years transactions would not probably cover the government level so better off with a card that has online access at least

Yggr of Asgard

You can blame the EU for it, with the restrictions on the interchange fee that banks now get on credit card transactions cards that offer points/value without a yearly fee are slowly dying out.

So to keep you shopping at Tesco they keep the points level there but for the rest they just reduce it further because they can't make any money on it anymore.

And for us in Ireland the silly Stamp Duty makes it even worse because it's now harder to get that insane amount of money together.

1983211

its not great, but is there better credit card?

Yggr of Asgard

KBC offers 1% cashback (limited to 10€ per month) on groceries and online transactions.

JTMan

AIB also offers 0.50% cashback, only on their Platinum card, on amounts spent over 5,000 EUR per year and below 50,000 EUR per year.

KBC is the best reward option for light and medium credit card usage.
AIB is the best reward option for heavy credit card usage.

maximoose

lotsofthegreen wrote: »

Feckers better set us up online banking to compensate slightly!

I really can't believe we still don't have any online functionality.

insullation

Am I right in saying that if you spent 40000 on the tesco credit card outside of tesco in a year you would only get at best 50 Euro and probably a lot less with the minimum spend being 8 euro

lotsofthegreen

insullation wrote: »

Am I right in saying that if you spent 40000 on the tesco credit card outside of tesco in a year you would only get at best 50 Euro and probably a lot less with the minimum spend being 8 euro

Sounds right unfortunately. But if u spend 12000 (in multiples of 8) ud get €15 and if your using Boost its get you €30 off electricity or gas so essentially cover the stamp duty. I think I'll keep it but I wouldn't be too bothered if I was starting out looking for a credit card

Yggr of Asgard

Unless Stamp Duty is finally going away (maybe if we get the 19 Billions from Apple) it's no longer good value to have the card if you don't do primary grocery shopping in Tesco and/or use Clubcard Boosts because it will take a lot of spending to get the stamp duty alone back.

We should lobby the government to get ride of this incredible stupid idea of stamp duty on credit cards. Credit cards make it easier for Revenue to track us and get's ride of cash, all in the governments interest.

msmx5

insullation wrote: »

Am I right in saying that if you spent 40000 on the tesco credit card outside of tesco in a year you would only get at best 50 Euro and probably a lot less with the minimum spend being 8 euro

I think you are right insullation. Having used the card for most expenditure for the last 10 years or so (has it been around that long?) I think I will now be changing. It was good while it lasted and we did get longer out of the reward points than those in the UK!

Looks like AIB Platinum is the next in line... with 0.5% rewards for spend over €5,000 and up to €50,000 ie €225 max reward per year if you hit the 50k

1983211

i tried to apply for kbc card but they refused me because i have tesco credit card with high available credit (my balance on it is only like 300 euro tho). they said i can apply again when i close my tesco card. so i will get aib credit card instead, at least i will have online banking since tesco offers so little now.

JTMan

1983211 wrote: »

i tried to apply for kbc card but they refused me because i have tesco credit card with high available credit (my balance on it is only like 300 euro tho). they said i can apply again when i close my tesco card. so i will get aib credit card instead, at least i will have online banking since tesco offers so little now.

Farce KBC expecting you to close your Tesco Bank account before they will allow you (re)apply for a card.

I have just applied for a KBC card. Hopefully, I don't encounter the same crap. I have no intention of closing the Tesco Bank card until KBC accept me.

Mary63

Is it fair to change terms and conditions like this.

I got the credit card specifically for the points,its a second crdit card which I didnt really need.

I think I might cancel it now and boycott Tesco altogether.

Yggr of Asgard

Well Tesco Personal Finance is not doing this for charity and when the EU capped the money they can get from transactions, it was clear that they (like all the other rewards cards) are going to have to modify the points/miles earnings. They used to get nearly 3% of transactions are intercharge, now it's 0.3%, so they need to make up for it.

I think if it's a second card right now, you might be better off to close it soon, pay the 30€ stamp duty for this billing cycle and cut your losses.

If it's the primary card, than if you qualify for KBC or AIB and you have enough spending on those cards, you might want to get the new card before April, make sure you get the letter from Tesco confirming you paid the 2016 stamp duty so that you don't pay it twice.

yqtwqxqm

There is nothing to make up for the lack of online functionality with the Tesco credit card at all now.
Time to cancel it.
I prefer cash, but used this card for the boost points. Bit of a waste of time now, so im going back to cash.

dobsdave

Think i'll keep the card till April and cancel just before the new stamp duty cycle,and just use my ptsb one from then on.
No point in getting rid before that, every little helps :-)

Yggr of Asgard

You need to make sure that you not only cancel the account but also have paid all the amounts including stamp duty due on the account before the 1st of April. If your account is still active (account not card) on 2nd of April you still will be liable for stamp duty. Only if the account is closed you will avoid it.

As everything with Tesco is via phone you need to do this with enough time at hand to avoid any nasty surprises (like interest or fee's) keeping your account open.

BuffyBot

TBH, I can't see them remaining in the market for too much longer.

_kookie

Very sad news.
I loved getting those points.
With the KBC card at least you will get online access which was the biggest pain with the tesco card.
Is the KBC card mastercard only? Isnt that the second tier of credit cards?
And I see from KBC website that "*To be eligible for the grocery reward, the retailer must be categorised under a ‘grocery’ merchant category code with MasterCard."

So all of the spending on your card doesnt count towards rewards.
The tesco card was good while it lasted but pretty worthless now.
At least if they had online access you could keep it and get the paltry reward now and again, but not worth keeping without online access to me anymore

Dream123

_kookie wrote: »

Very sad news.
I loved getting those points.
With the KBC card at least you will get online access which was the biggest pain with the tesco card.
Is the KBC card mastercard only? Isnt that the second tier of credit cards?
And I see from KBC website that "*To be eligible for the grocery reward, the retailer must be categorised under a ‘grocery’ merchant category code with MasterCard."

So all of the spending on your card doesnt count towards rewards.
The tesco card was good while it lasted but pretty worthless now.
At least if they had online access you could keep it and get the paltry reward now and again, but not worth keeping without online access to me anymore

Got the tesco letter in the post this week too. I applied for a tesco card ages ago and when a card with a 1k limit was sent out I never actually used it so had forgotten I had one. Wouldn't know where to find it and never got statements

Been using the AIB platinum card for some time now and actually enjoy getting a few quid back every month, feels like a bonus, do pretty much all my spending through it, doesn't seem to be any catches in terms of transaction types that allow cash back etc