Martin's deals of the week
Earn £40 (re)building your credit, is the free EE power bar all it's cracked up to be, Virgin Trains summer sale, up to two kids’ Eurostar tickets for £1 each and £12 Pimm’s in time for Wimbledon. These are our MoneySaving Expert Martin Lewis’ Deals of the Week.
Remember, deals can change quickly, even while I’m on the programme. So always double-check the terms and conditions before spending. Plus, while I hope these deals will save you cash, don’t spend if you can’t afford it, don’t need it, or won’t use it.
Web exclusive: Tesco.com £16 off £60
New customers to Tesco online can get a code from Voucher Codes for £16 off their first £60+ shop for orders delivered on or before Friday 31 July. Delivery starts from £1 or it’s free if you click and collect from a store. There are a few exclusions, including milk formulae and tobacco, so check the T&Cs before placing your order.
Earn £40 (re)building your credit
Whether you want a mortgage or a contract mobile phone, credit ratings count. It's all about trying to predict future behaviour based on your past. So if you’ve little to your credit history or you’ve a poor one, rejection’s likely. Yet equally, those who’ve never had credit also get rejected due to a lack of data.
The solution is get a credit card and do around £50/month of normal spending on it- never withdraw cash - then repay IN FULL each month (preferably by direct debit so you're never late) so there's no interest. After six months to a year, you'll look a better credit citizen. Of course, the catch-22 is, how do you get a card if you've a poor history?
The answer is a specialist credit (re)build card. These target this market, most even accept people with past CCJs/defaults and even old bankruptcies. There are two cards out at the moment that pay you for spending too:
Earn £40: Spend and fully repay monthly and the new Barclaycard Initial will credit your account with £10 every three months. In fact, to get the £10 you just need to either spend or be repaying an old balance each month, making at least the minimum repayment. However that’ll mean you pay interest, so it’s best to repay in full.
0.5% cash back: Aqua Reward gives 0.5% cash back on all spending, which can add up over a year.
Fail to fully repay on these and there’s a hideous 34.9% representative APR.
‘Is the ‘free’ £20 EE power bar a con?
Many have asked me this over the past week, due to viral info going around about it –this is because technically it’s a hire agreement (something I explained on the show last time). Is it all it's cracked up to be? I do believe it’s still a very good deal but it has been poorly communicated. After GMB highlighted the issues this week, it has changed its T&Cs to make them clearer. In brief…
The reason it says it’s a hire agreement is so EE (including Orange and T-Mobile) customers can swap their power bar for a fully-charged replacement at any EEstore as many times as they like. Yet it’s also a likely attempt to restrict it if you’re no longer a customer, meaning you may not be able to use it anymore (or you may have to pay).
The terms also say that after 18 months - this refers to the 18 months from when you first get the power bar - you must return it and that if you don’t, it can charge you £5 (or £20 if you’re not a customer) for doing so. EE says it legally needs to state an end date but in reality, it will review the scheme then and decide whether to continue it, end it or change it and that in most circumstances it doesn’t have any intention of charging people – including people who leave it snetwork.
Martin’s quickies
Virgin Trains summer sale: Until 11.59pm tonight, Virgin Trains is having a sale across its West Coast Mainline network,with one-way adult tickets available between London and Birmingham for £5 and between London and Manchester for £10 (child’s tickets are half the adult price). It’s valid for travel from Saturday 18 July to Thursday 27 August, but you need to book by tonight. There were one million standard and first class tickets when the sale started on Tuesday, mostly on its off-peak trains so check carefully before you book.
Two £1 Eurostar kids’ tickets per adult in August: While it’s struggling at the moment, there is a great way to get summer tickets for the family. Book online at Eurostar or call 03432 186 186 until Thursday 9 July to get up to two £1 each way child tickets from London St Pancras to Paris, Brussels, Lille, Calais or any Belgian station, with each full-paying adult (max. of two kids per booking). It’s for travel betweenSaturday 1 August and Thursday 27 August. A child ticket (usually £51 return) is for ages 4-11, under 4s travel free.
£12 Pimm’s: A Wimbledeal – a one-litre bottle of classic Pimm’s (or Pimm’s Blackberry & Elderflower) is £12 online at most Tesco’s (until 12 July) and Morrisons (until 5 July) compared to the usual £20. Please be Drinkaware.