Hi all, just a warning about eligible spends with the Virgin Money Platinum card. I paid my council rates via my linked platinum card through Paypal. Upon calling the call centre to confirm I have spent the eligible amount for my 20k bonus points they said my Paypal spend will not count. This is a first for me.
Yep, hence the reason my payment went to Paypal.
Post by overwatch 07/01/2018 on original deal.
Make sure you read the fine print as council rates and other government related bills will not be included in $1500/$3000 spend.
'Eligible Transaction means any purchase excluding (but not limited to) Cash Advances, Balance Transfers, Special Promotions, BPAY payments, purchases of foreign currency and travellers cheques, transactions made in operating a business, bank fees and charges such as interest and ATM charges and government related transactions. Government related transactions include transactions with government or semi-government entities, or relating to services provided by or in connection with government (for example but not limited to transactions made at Australia Post, payments to the Australian Taxation Office, council rates, motor registries, tolls, parking stations and meters, fares on public transport, fines and court related costs).'
My council charges credit card fee yet merchant banks don't want to count them towards anything.
Doesn't sound fair.
That's irrelevant. The interchange on a government MCC (which your council will be) is almost nothing, all that's gravy for their processor.
Paying council rates via Postbill pay/ direct is definitely ineligible. That's where the Paypal loop hole comes in. This is the fist time it has not been allowed for me.
That's where the Paypal loop hole comes in
loop hole
loop hole
Just in case it wasn't obvious
purchases of foreign currency and travellers cheques
Travellers cheques are excluded !!!!
I'm cancelling my card.
Nothing to do with PayPal then?
yep pretty standard for most cards for government related entities
Every other card for me simply processes it as a Paypal spend.
agree with the others, its not that paypal spend wont count, it's the fact that it has traced the transaction to council rates.
I got this card and had no issues when using paypal and having that count towards the spend.
In saying that Virgin Make it very hard for you to track what is and what isn't eligible spend, and the only way to know is ask about each transaction. Unlike the Velocity Amex where you get a running figure and see exactly how many points u earnt on what spend
I recon it will count, but customer service said no. I've still got a few days left in the cycle so wont risk it. Will just prepay a water bill or credit up a div pay card or similar.
i dont think water will count as thats utilities, and may come under government related transaction. when i saw i wasn't going to make it, i just went the coles/woolies gift card route. counts as supermarket spend and you will use them anyway
SA Water has been privatised. It doesn't exclude utilities as far as I can see in the T&Cs. Plus they didn't exclude it when I called. Cheers anyway.
perfect
Are you able to confirm SA Water is considered eligible spend for bonus points with Citi issued cards?
Did the gift cards work?
How on earth do they track what you paid for by paypal
That's a breach of privacy.
Paypal is the third party or intermediary.
That doesn't sound right
Well I thought that. But they obviously can
I don't have this card but I have amex cards that say government spend is less points.
And pay all my council rates via pp and get the full points
If you link your AmEx to your Paypal and pay for eBay purchase,AmEx transaction record shows exactly which eBay store you purchased from.Credit card companies can track where you spend now.There must be an agreement of transparency between them.
What do you know.
Most of my paypal purchases from other companies are showing up with names as well
Update* So 5 days before my final 20k bonus points month was up I called to confirm I had made the required eligible spend and to confirm what the last call centre op offered (which was a chance to earn 20k bonus points in the 4th month since I stuffed up the first month. Was told all good for current month spend and there was notes on my file for the 4th month bonus. Fast forward 2 months and I hadn't received any points. Called up again. They said my spend was ineligible in the 3rd month and there is no record of the 4th month offer. Spoke to a supervisor who wouldn't budge (I asked for him to refer to the voice conversations and said "notes" on file. Said he won't do that and I will get no points. AVOID this card. Ive churned through quite a few cards with no issues at all. This is the most shocking customer service experience I've ever had.
That's ridiculous, make a complaint with the FIO.
Yeah, I have lodged a complaint. I also looked up the Virgin Money Head office contact details in Australia for anyone else in the same situation.
Level 4, 7 Macquarie Place, Sydney NSW 2000
PH: (02) 8249 8000
Let's get the Dr Boom fake review account army to give them 1* reviews on google!
I usually work on the basis that if a spend is awarded points then it counts towards spending requirements.
Now it's not always clear if a spend will be awarded points until you get the next CC bill. Therefore if i'm in the 3 month qualifying period I do not leave it to find out until after the 3rd month to see if a transaction qualifies, I check in month 1 or 2.
e.g. Council rates payment. My rates are due in month 3. I would like that spend to count towards my qualifying spend for bonus points.
I make a small payment in month 2. If it shows up as earning points on my month 2 bill then I pay the full rates in month 3 with confidence. If it doesn't earn points on my month 2 bill, I am free to panic and start searching for new ways to reach the requirement. Where there's a will there's a way. :-)
Sounds good, but the statement doesn't list what earns points. So I called up (surely can't go wrong calling direct) a few days before the statement generation date to verify if a water bill, insurance policy and a teacher registration were eligible spends. I was told yes. Post statement, got a no you didn't make the eligible spend. Spent over 6k on this card…no bonus points. The only questionable spend would be paying my rates via Paypal in month 1. But, if you look up your transactions online it simply says 'Paypal' regardless if it was an Ebay transaction or bill.
if you make a payment in month 1 or 2 and then check the statement at the end of that period. You can work out what points you would have got if you had received them for every transaction on your bill.
If there is a discrepancy between that number and what you've actually got then you get on the blower to customer services and ask them which transactions didn't attract points.
Did they explain to you when you rang exactly which transactions didn't attract points. I think you have the right to a full explanation and then ask them to point out where in the T's and C's did it indicate that the transactions in question didn't qualify.
Unfortunately the "60k points promotion" eligibility spend T&C's are different than the normal point attracting eligibility T&C's. Interesting to note that even the call centers didn't realise this until I got them to physically check both T&C links. So, unfortunately the two don't correlate. But normally they do. On a side note, the Qantas version of this Citibank disaster product has no ineligible spends for the bonus points…but what a disaster the application process is.
This was the only thing I hated about this card, there was no way of tracking each transaction and if it counted unlike the amex or ANZ cards. I managed to get through ok to get the 20,000 points each month but still to this day don't know which if any of the transactions were not eligible.
Just thought I would let you know Virgin Money were adamant they weren't going to give me the points and said go speak with the FSO… So I lodged a case with the FSO, 2 weeks later I got the points!
Great to know!
Did you check the T&C to see what counts as eligible spend?