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MARTIN'S QUICK BRIEFING
Five weeks to double your Tesco points' value
How good is its new 'Big Clubcard Voucher Exchange' promotion?
If you've got Tesco Clubcard points, sit up and take note. It's just launched its Big Clubcard Voucher Exchange' promo to coincide with sending out the latest batch of vouchers. For five weeks you can trade each £5 voucher in for £10 to spend in store on certain goods ...
The new Tesco points hierarchy.
- Up to 4x value - Tesco Rewards.
Every voucher can be quadrupled (eg, turn £5 into £20) on Tesco Rewards brochure* items, which include days out, RAC membership, travel and more.
Yet this is based on list prices, so if you're considering exchanging £20 for a gizmo with an £80 RRP, first check if it's available elsewhere for less, just in case its real value means you're better off using the double up scheme below.
- New! 2x value - Big Voucher Exchange. For five weeks, you can swap each £5 voucher for £10 in store to spend on the following: toys, clothes (inc. school uniforms), flowers & garden, homeware, pet food, baby & toddler, phones and glasses (though there are exclusions so check first). Vouchers must be spent by 5 Sept (see Tesco revamp News).
- 1x value. If neither of the above suit, you can spend your vouchers on groceries and other goods from the store.
Boost Nectar, Airmiles, Boots points and more.
Every scheme has its own peccadilos: to find out how to boost all of them, see the full Tesco, Boots, Airmiles & Nectar Boosting guide.
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| The Ones Not To Miss |
£100 cashback and 0% interest credit card
Perfect for big purchases - bag 5% cashback and spread repayments at no cost
Accepted new Amex Platinum* cardholders get a mammoth 5% cashback (£5 per £100) on up to two grand spent in the first 3mths (tiered cashback up to 1.25% after), plus it's now offering 0% interest on spending for 6mths. So if you've a big purchase planned, you can spread repayments at no cost and get up to £100 cashback. To get one requires family income of £30,000+ and you have to pass a credit check. Quick warnings: American Express isn't universally accepted, so if you've a specific purchase in mind check the shop takes it first. Plus, when the 0% period ends the interest jumps to a huge 19.9% APR, so either clear it within that time or shift to a 0% Balance Transfer card after. 0% for 13mths + Tesco points: Alternatively, the Tesco* card lets new cardholders spread repayments interest free for just over a year and gives one clubcard point per £4 spent - though that's worth far less than the Amex cashback. Again, beware. The rate rockets after the 0% period to 16.9% APR. FULL info and alternatives in the Updated Guides: Top Cashback Cards, 0% Spending Cards Related: 7.7% Loans, 16 Mths 0% Balance Transfers
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£10 off £50ish spend at Asda, Tesco & Sainsbury's
New discounts for 1st time online grocery orders. Also grab a New Look £5 off £30 spend voucher
Plus online Benefit 15% off and GondolaWine £20 off £70 codes. See the Daily Deals List: Discount Vouchers
Free solar panels worth over £10,000. A firm's offering to fit panels to qualifying homes free, reducing your electricity costs, but you don't keep profits for producing electricity. Pros & cons: Free Solar Power
Council tax - are you in the wrong band?
Up to 400,000 homes are. Check & get your costs lowered and a rebate of £1,000s
Whether you rent or own, if you're in too high a band, not only can you get bills cut, but a backdated rebate from when you moved in, possibly worth £1,000s. In last week's poll, a massive 42% of 15,000 voters said council tax was their biggest bill after mortgage or rent. To help, we've fully updated the council tax rebanding guide. Why are so many misbanded? The first valuation was nearly 20 years ago - a rush job of 'drive-by' assessments. In England & Scotland they've NOT been revalued since. Check & Challenge system: Three years ago, we launched the unique system and it's now estimated up to 130,000 homes have benefited. It's free to check using web tools, takes 10 mins and primarily involves seeing if you're in a higher band than neighbours in similar properties. See the full step-by-step guide and council tax discounts available in the Updated Guide: Council Tax Rebanding Related: Bank Charges Reclaiming, Free Remortgage Guide
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50 restaurant vouchers from over 30 chains!
New easy navigate MSE Restaurant Voucher mini-site inc Pizza Hut, GBK, La Tasca, Bella Italia
And new restaurant specific pages, eg, All Pizza Express Deals or All Strada Deals. Try the New Restaurant Vouchers mini-site
Thur only! £10 spa treatment flash sale on Lastminute.com. Massive choice of spa treatments at hotels, salons and health clubs - starts 10am Thurs. Preview info in the Daily Deals List: Cheap Beauty Deals
New top 3%ish savings guaranteed to beat base rate
They promise to rise if UK rates do, but you must lock cash away to qualify
Normally, lock cash away and the rate's fixed, so if UK rates rise you're stuck, but two new deals help combat that problem, at marginally lower rates. Top tracker savings (2.8%+ AER).
1 YEAR: The Santander Tracker Bond (min £10,000) guarantees to be 2.3% above base rate until it ends in Sept 2011, so it's currently 2.8% (some existing Santander customers get 0.2% more). It's branch/phone only and no withdrawals are allowed. 2 YEARS: The Coventry BS* Guarantee Tracker Bond (min. £1) pays base rate plus 2.2% with a min. 3.2% until Sept 2012. You can withdraw money early for a 90-day interest penalty. Top fixes (up to 4.9% AER): Lock-in with the Bank of Baroda* online (only via Moneysupermarket) at 4.9% for five years and 4.3%, 3.8% and 3.15% for three, two and one year, respectively. Yet beware, the longer you lock in, the bigger the risk UK rates will rise, making your fix no longer competitive. Top easy access: The current top variable rate is The AA at 2.8% AER though 2.3% of this is a year's bonus, so ditch & switch after. Halifax* Websaver Extra at 2.6% is the top clean (no bonus) rate, though it has minor withdrawal interest penalties. All accounts have the full £50,000 savings guarantee. FULL info & more options in the Updated Guide: Top Savings Related: Safe Savings, 3.2% Cash ISAs, 4% Regular Savers
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£12 school uniforms at Tesco - coat, trousers/skirt & three shirts
Plus M&S £9.50 full school uniform, Morrisons £2 items & Asda two shirts, trousers & jumper £7
This is a saving across the board, in fact it's a uniform saving (sorry). All deals in the Deals List: Cheap School Uniforms
100 past NO.1 album downloads £3 each at Amazon
Also get a code for 5 totally free tracks to download when registering for HMV's download service
Another week of top download deals - for full info on all of them go to MSE's Tunechecker: MP3 comparison site
Got friends who'd like to save? Please tell them about this email
Cheap mobile roaming - slash call costs overseas. New Guide!
Roaming self defence - stop mobiles becoming cash assassins losing £100s abroad
Even within the EU where costs are capped at 38p/min (£22/hour), calls aren't cheap. Outside Europe this can treble, so we've rewritten and reresearched our guide including tips like ...Text don't phone: get friends to text as it's free to receive SMSs abroad, but even in Europe it costs £1.50 to receive a ten minute call. Use Skype on Smartphones: download Skype or similar, then find a free wireless internet connection and you can call home for free or pennies. Ask for hidden discounts: all mobile networks have add-on bundles (the guide lists them) that can lower call costs. Some are free, but if you don't ask you won't get the special rates. Use a worldwide sim: switch sim card and you can call home for just 16p depending on country. Full info and list of deals in the Updated Guide: Mobile Roaming Related: Cheap Holiday Money
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10,000 FREE Grand Designs Live tickets (usually £18). Special code valid until 16 Aug, for tickets Fri 8 Oct at Birmingham's NEC. See the Daily Deals List: Cheap Days Out Free £15 eye pencil & free 3x Barry M £3ish glosses with £3ish mags
Also in mags, free Hairgroup haircut - plus code for a free £12.50 Vie shadow palette (£3.50 p&p)
The mags cost less than the freebie would! Plus £11 Nails inc mini-manicure in the Daily Deals List: Cheap Beauty Deals
Top graduate accounts 2010 - £2,000 0% overdraft
Not just for new graduates, anyone who's finished uni in last 3 years could gain
Banks are desperate to retain and attract potential future high earners, so graduate accounts have hot deals that can save recent students £100s in overdraft costs. The biggest 0% deals: both Lloyds and RBS list £2,000 in the first year after graduation, £1,500 in the second and £1,000 in the third. Yet as Lloyds guarantees accepted graduates these amounts and RBS judges case by case, Lloyds pips it. What if I left 2 years ago? Anyone who left uni within the last three years can apply for these, so if your graduate account elsewhere was shorter, consider switching. Why judge by 0% overdraft? When student accounts end, some face overdraft charges on money they were lent for free - yet getting the best graduate account means you've longer to clear it, and it won't cost you in the meantime. Even the debt free (if financially disciplined) can take 0% overdrafts and put cash lent for nowt in a Top Cash ISA to make money. FULL info and breakdown in the New Guide: Graduate Accounts 2010 Related: Repay Student Loan?, Bank Accounts Coming Soon: Top Student Accounts 10/11
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Cheap Florida Theme Park Tickets. We've updated our Orlando park-by-park guide inc; 14 days for seven with Disney UK* and 2% discount on multi-park seller Maple Leaf Tickets*. FULL info: Cheap Disney & Universal Tickets
Dump Nationwide's debit card for overseas spending
From 1 Nov, it's adding a 2% 'load' charge on ALL spending overseas, plus a £1 cash withdrawal fee
New cheapest is Halifax's Clarity credit card, which is load free worldwide, with a low ATM fee, though always pay in full each month or it's 12.9% APR. News: Nationwide overseas charges Guides: TravelMoneyMax.com, Cheap Travel Money
£9 ticket code for West End's The Secret Of Sherlock Holmes (min. 2) worth £40. Get two top price tickets for £18 at London's The Duchess Theatre. See the Daily deals List: Cheap Days Out
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| Big & Easy Ways To Save |
| Quick links or click the titles for full pros, cons, alternatives & more savings |
- 0% Balance Transfers: Natwest* and RBS*, 16 months 0% with 2.9% fee (APR 16.9%).
- Top Bank Accounts: In credit? Santander* Free £100 & 5% interest
- Cheap Gas & Elec + Cashback! Top comparison site: Energyhelpline*
- Car Insurance: Use both MoneySupermarket* & GoCompare* then get cashback. Also see: Van, Motorbike
- Cheap Travel Money: Best way to spend abroad, Halifax Clarity credit card (paid off in full or it's 12.9% APR)
- Cheap Travel Insurance: Annual cover: Individuals from £14, Families from £28, Over 65s £29 & more
- Home Insurance: Use as many as poss of GoCompare*, CompareTM*, MoneySup* & Confused* + get cashback
- TravelMoneyMax.com: Find best online holiday cash deal for Euros, US Dollars, Yen & all others
- Cheap Broadband: Plusnet* £6.49/mth up to 10Gb download
- Cheap Personal Loans: £5k-£7.5k: A&L* 8.8%. £7.5k-15k: A&L* 7.8%.. £15k+: Tesco* or A&L* 8.7%.
- Free Printed 30 page+ MSE Guides: Remortgaging, Mortgages
- Compare Mobile Recycling Sites: Check if you get up to £150 for old mobiles via MSE's mobilevaluer.com
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| More MoneySaving |
Great 'Free Car Journey Games' Hunt
It's summer, you've a long journey with your partner or the kids planned – so it's time to play 'eye-spy', 'I went to market' or ...? We thought we'd tap MoneySavers for your car games ideas (Martin's started it with his made up Scrabble-buzz game). Add your ideas/read other: Great 'Free Car Journey Games' Hunt Past Great Hunts: View all
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Archna's Free Game of the Week!
Collect the artifacts before plummeting to the bottom of the ocean. Bule
Are you scared of semi-colons? That's it for this week, but before you go... If you're flummoxed by semicolons, seek help from a party gorilla and a couple of high fiving dinosaurs.... How do I use a semicolon?
We hope you save some money,
Martin & the MSE team
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Q. I recently cancelled a Jet2 flight. I know I'm not entitled to a refund but given the biggest part of the fare are taxes, is it possible to have a refund of this element? John O'Shea, by email
Martin's A: The rules state, cancel your flight and you're entitled to the Air Passenger Duty back, and as this can be up to £110 for long haul flights, it's a serious whack.
Yet airlines are cunning creatures and charge reclaiming admin fees that can be greater than the amount you're getting back, so many don't bother. This is outrageous, as if they don't give a refund they needn't give the tax to HMRC; they just pocket the cash.
Jet2 charges £40 per booking, so if your taxes were more than that write to Customer Care Team, PO Box 134, Leeds LS19 9DY.
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Discuss: Budget airline taxes
Suggest: A question of the week
(big general issues not personal q's pls) |
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Explanation of * Links
FSA NOTE: Referring people to insurers or insurance intermediaries can in some circumstances require FSA authorisation. For this reason, Martin Lewis of Shepherd's Studios, Charecroft Way, Shepherd's Bush, London W14 0EH is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
How this site is financed. Any links with a * by
them are affiliated. That means go via this link and a contribution may be made
to MoneySavingExpert.com, which helps it stay ad-free and free to use. You
shouldn't notice any difference, the links don't impact the product at all and
the editorial line (the things we write) is NEVER impacted by it. If it isn't
possible to get an affiliate link for the best product, it's still included in
exactly the same way. As we believe transparency is important, we're including the
following 'un-affiliated' web-addresses for the same things: alliance-leicester.co.uk, americanexpress.com, comparethemarket.com, confused.com, coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk, disneyinternational.com, energyhelpline.com, firstdirect.com, gocompare.com, halifax.co.uk, mapleleaftickets.com, mobilephonechecker.co.uk, moneysupermarket.com, natwest.co.uk, plus.net, rbs.co.uk, santander.co.uk, tesco.com, tescofinance.com. Read more about this in how this site is financed.
MoneySavingExpert.com is the free to use Consumer Revenge website focused on how to save you cash. It's owned, and run by ultra-focused journalist and bestselling author Martin Lewis. On TV amongst other things Martin is GMTV's Money SavingExpert and presents money programmes for ITV1 Tonight. On Radio Martin has regular slots on Radio 2 Vine and Radio 1 Whiley. He's also a columnist for amongst others the News of The World, The Telegraph and the Sunday Post. Find out more: About the site and its funding.
Disclaimer: This e-mail is based on journalistic research. It does not constitute financial advice. Any information should be considered in regard to your
own specific circumstances. All tips are followed at your own risk and should be followed up with your own research Full Terms & Conditions.
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