Points Redeemed !!! But with the new 'Conditions', do you really fancy a new Vauxhall ? (GM Card)

Member Name: sidneygee

Product:	GM Card
Date:	31/01/01 (3368 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Discounts earned from everyday spending, Brilliant Discount obtained on two Vauxhall purchases

Disadvantages: Offers have now deteriorated - badly !, You may not like Vauxhalls a lot !

For APRIL update, please see end of Review

UPDATE February 2002

I have decided to include the reason for why I have down-rated this product from 5 stars to 2 stars at the beginning, leaving the original (Crowned) opinion below largely unaltered.

There have been previously unannounced and damaging changes to the GM card Conditions of Use to take effect from 1st February 2002 that reduce substantially the advantages that the credit card had previously. The major change is the limit of the discount that you can get. The limit is now £1,000 for a Corsa/Agila/Frontera/VX220 and vans; £1250 for Astras and Zafiras; £1500 for a Vectra; and £2,500 for an Omega.

Fortunately the old Conditions still apply until you redeem your current points, provided that you do this before 1st April 2005. Thus this still allows Heather and myself to redeem a further two tranches of more than £2,500 on two new Vauxhalls by that date. If we can bring ourselves to do so, that is ....

And hidden in another leaflet is a new “Condition 2 (g)”, requiring you to use the card at least once in every 6 month period. You have to look further on to establish that if you do not comply with this, then “ .... A fee of £10 may be charged ... for our administration costs in contacting you if you are in breach of Condition 2(g)”. Now, I could easily have been in breach of this condition over the. Past 12 months when we have been directing most of our expenditure via Heather’s GM Card ....

Oh, and you can no longer get the American Chevvy’s from a Vauxhall Dealer.

So, IMHO, until Vauxhalls improve dramatically in the desirability of their cars, I cannot now give the overwhelming approval for the GM card that I did in January 2001 when I wrote this review....

Original (Updated) Opinion:
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I was an early convert to the use of credit c
ards. Back in the days before cash machines and Banks still used leather-bound ledgers to record the day’s business (well perhaps not that far back) paying for things could be a problem. Cheque guarantee cards only came in around 1967, and only covered cheques up to £30, so 'wads of cash' were the order of the day when paying for things. At that time, even as little as £50 could be called a ‘wad’, which it was - if all in those old-style 'oncers'!. It is of course still possible to carry a low-cost wad in Scotland, where the Banks still issue poond notes (and I am sure the Executive would also issue groats/bawbies/sprazies if still allowed to mint coins ....).

Thus I acquired a Barclaycard in 1971 and retained it up until the time when they started to make an annual charge. I found the convenience of paying with a single cheque each month quite appealing and soon my credit card was been flashed all around Derbyshire and all points south.

For clarification, up until 1980, I had never been further North than Newcastle (and generally had no intention of doing so), but that's another story (or opinion) as to how I came to be in Edinburgh !

When first announced, the GM card seemed too good to be true. It was issued by General Motors, as a result of its success in the USA and allowed you to 'earn' discounts when buying a new Vauxhall car or van.

I never had any particular desire to buy a new Vauxhall over and above any other make of car, but when I first saw the GM card advertised in 1993 or 1994, I thought – now here’s a bargain if ever I saw one, and within a week of their issue I had a GM card (with a 'very early number', as the ‘customer service people always tell me on the phone).

I pay no heed to the interest charges made by credit card companies, since I am always able to pay off my credit card bill each month. But now here was a card with real
benefits. No hoarding of points to get a ‘free gift’ as had become the case with Barclaycard (worth about 0.5%, I worked it out as at one point), but with the GM card initially you got the equivalent of £5 per £100 spent to be used against the purchase of a new Vauxhall, up to a maximum of £500 a year and £2,500 over a 5 year period. This was the original 'deal'). There were also (and still are) 'partner points', where you get double points with certain retailers. At one time, this included Esso Petrol and Comet Store purchases, but now the only ones worthwhile are Vauxhall garages, Great Western Hotels and Hertz Rentacar. Still it seems that I have earned over 200 extra ‘partner points’ since buying that Corsa (see April 2002 update below) ...

A potential problem is that you cannot retain points after 5 years, so that points over 5 years’ old are lost, progressively from your account. Thus I signed up and duly earned my first 500 points within a year, and I was well on the way to earning the next 500 over the following year.

Then, they altered the rules, giving you the option of staying on the existing system, or agreeing to a reduced rate of £3 for each £100 spent, but with the addition of a £200 ‘bonus’ and removal of the £500 a year limit. At that time I was directing more and more of my spending through the credit card, and could see the advantage of this altered system, so I agreed to the change (obviously at the 'last minute', so that I could maximise the number of points earned).

Thus, I had 2,300 points accumulated on my GM card by July 1997, when I needed a new small car for the whole family, including 3 children to drive/learn to drive on.

Now, Vauxhall are very keen to tell you that the GM point discount is separate from any discount that you negotiate with the dealer. Thus, many people assume that you should not tell the dealer about your GM points
until after you have agreed a deal.

In my opinion – WRONG !!

By declaring your GM points (and making sure that you are trying Vauxhall garages from other groups of dealers in your area) you can show the dealer that you are SERIOUS about buying this particular Vauxhall car, and you WILL buy it from him, at the right price.

This worked well in my case and I had 3 garage groups competing for my business, eventually 'screwing' them down so that I got the lowest price from the closest dealer. The eventual saving that resulted was over £3,200 off a car which then cost me £6,200 on the road with one year 'free' insurance, and velour car mats and locking wheel nuts 'thrown in'.

This was a Corsa Breeze 5 door *(see opinion already written).

That extra £2,300 discount in effect paid for at least half of the depreciation over the 3 years that I owned the car before selling it to my elder daughter (at a price well below a dealer's price). Some bargain, what ?

After buying the Corsa, I was delighted to find that a further 200 ‘bonus’ points had been added to my account ‘as a thank you for buying a new Vauxhall’. My account now stands at 2,708 points but, for the past 8 months we have been directing most of our credit card business via a second account. Taken out in Heather’s name. This itself attracted a 200 point initial bonus, so we now have over 1800 points already in that account (as at 9 July).

So, how do we accumulate so many points? Well, we doo direct all possible spending through the credit card. Even £3 or £4 spent a Safeway’s is put on the GM bill. Remember, even a £3.33 spend is worth the equivalent of a 10 pence discount, so all possible spending is done through the card.

Incidentally, there is no annual fee and our daughters had no problems in getting a card as soon as they started working full time.

Attemp
ts to get one when they were students failed. I believe that GM require an income of at least £8,000 pa before they will issue a card.

Admittedly, with the use I make of it, I need my card 'replaced' every 9 months or so because of 'wear and tear'. Sometimes, it has been known to almost 'self-combust' after a particularly heavy shopping session, directed by Heather.

The Gee family's credit card spending habits are a frequent topic of conversation (!) at dinner and lunch parties in our area but there are none of our neighbours who are quite so committed to spending on their credit cards.

As I see it, we have spent no money that we wouldn’t spend anyway, and there is the advantage that there are rarely wads of cash around the house or on our person to attract 'thieves and vagabonds'. This 3% return on what we spend is well and truly worth having.

Now, 8 years since taking out the card and we have received or can get discounts totalling almost £7,000 !!

OK, I will admit, Vauxhalls may not be the very best cars on the road, but they are not all that bad. Obviously the economics may not be so clear-cut on larger Vauxhalls, but for the Corsa, the Astra, the Zafira, the VX220 and possibly the new Vectra - well, they are not such bad cars.

If you can boost your discount so much, then this must make the Vauxhall much more 'competitive' with other similar models on the market.

You could splash out on a Yankee GM car - how about a Chevvy Blazer 4WD (RHD) or a Caddie (RHD). If yoo can handle LHD, there was the Camaro range or even a Corvette !! But sadly this option is now no longer. The points could allay some of the costs when some Vauxhall dealers (such as 'Premier' in Edinburgh now stock the full Chevrolet/Cadillac range. I tried to persuade them to allow me to use my points against a Chevrolet Blazer when they were selling them off at £16950, but
the vehicles were 'factory pre-registered', and wouldn't.

It really does surprise me how very few of our friends use a GM card, and how many still carry significant amounts of cash around with them or in their houses. Heather and I manage on about £10 cash a week each (unless I am travelling on business, when I might need a little more – for tipping taxi drivers, please note, kenjohn !!), but our credit cards are our constant and trusty companions. A multi-function card from our Bank also allows us to have debit card facilities and to draw cash out of a cash machine or via supermarket shopping when we need it. That is also useful for spending larger wads than the credit card will allow (see my Vauxhall Astra review).

I suppose it is just having a financial strategy that works well for us and our circumstances. We can now access our account details on the web, and pay the account each month by telephone banking, and there has never been interest paid on the balance owing. On one occasion, over a Christmas period, we did get charged interest because the cheque we had sent then had not been cleared in time but, when we complained, that was 'corrected'. These problems have ceased with telephone banking.

I will admit that I am a little disappointed as regards the low level of discount allowed against a Vauxhall dealers' Network Q second hand car. £500 maximum seemed a little mean - but even that is no longer an option now !

Footnote

The commentary from nikkisly has been duly noted. Certainly when I use the points in question, I shall describe my experiences.

With the recent 'glut' of new cars, more and more pre-registered cars have appeared on dealers' forecourts. Often these offer a very good deal, the major disadvantage being that sometimes yoo have to compromise on the colour/specification. The other possible disadvantage is that yoo may not be the first name in the lo
g book and it may not have the latest 'registration letter'.

The availability of pre-registered cars cannot be predicted but all deals have to be checked out carefully to ensure that they are the best for yoo at the time when yoo want to buy the car. Pre-registered cars generally 'appear' towards the end of the month, as dealers try to make their 'targets'.

The two specific examples which I saw of that last September (when we started looking for a new car possibly for January 2001 delivery).

Premier Motors, the nearest Edinburgh dealer had an Astra (forget the spec.) and a 2.5 V6 Vectra. They were at excellent prices, the Astra being about £2,000 off and the Vectra £5,000 off, at £14995 for a special edition Vectra, in 'Mirage' with pale coloured leather). The dealer wouldn't contemplate allowing my points against this "special Vauxhall purchase price" (as he called it) and the £ 5,000 discount offered. We just might have been tempted if he had (but the 'extra' we paid for the Accord Type R was money well-spent).

It is also the end of the month which is the generally the best time to try and negotiate a deal, but it MUST be for IMMEDIATE delivery (which might just allow the dealer to achieve sales targets).


Of course there are models which you will never find as 'pre-registered' or discounted. The Astra Sri and the VX220 sports car comes to mind with Vauxhalls, and you can still use your GM points on that VX220 (if you can get in and out of it without the risk of damaging your internal workings !).

When the current Astra was first sold, Vauxhall even placed a temporary 'moratorium' on using GM points against the purchase. If I had wanted one of those at that time, I would have been 'rather annoyed'.

Who knows what other detrimental changes will be introduced - so do you really want a Vauxhall THAT much that the extr
a discount will make a difference ?

UPDATE APRIL 2002
One of the great problems with working as a Consultant is that the workload (and hence income) becomes rather a case of either having a feast or having a famine. From last September through to this March, it has been a real famine. Now I am getting fat again ...

Thus it takes time to deal with the 'problems in life'. And one of these has been specifying and ordering a new Vauxhall using my GM card points. If I do nothing then the points start to expire in
July of this year.

Specifying
When we bought a Corsa in 1996 (see my review - un-crowned, BTW), there was no problem apart from determining the colour (Metallic Green) and deciding whether or not we should have central locking (NOT I decided, because I had fore-seen the potential problem of an undesirable trying to enter the car whilst one of our daughters was driving).

Now, almost 5 years later, there have been problems in making a decision. This car is to replace our Renault Espace, and I thought that a Vauxhall Zafira would be the ideal choice (bought from the website www.broker4cars.co.uk - see my review). But hey ! This Gee family is run as a democracy, so there was a family conference, and Heather and myself visited the two local Vauxhall dealers and crawled over the Zafira, the Corsa and the Astra. We rejected out of hand the VX220 (at my size for G*d-sakes !), the Astra Coupe (not an attractive body, IMHO), the Vectra (old one losing money fast and the new one un-tested) and the Omega (another license to lose money).

The Astra convertible tempted, but vandalism of soft-tops is rife in Edinburgh, unfortunately.

The Zafira was eventually rejected. A little small to be a direct replacement for the Espace, and we now only need the carrying capacity once or twice a year (when a van can be hired for £20 a day).

But the price available from broker4cars was very tem
pting (from £10,900 on the road, less our GM points).

We had previously tried a Corsa 1.0, and were not impressed. I also tried a 1.2 litre, but this did not quite 'cut the mustard'. A 1.4 litre Corsa Comfort is available until the end of April with Free Insurance, but no dealer could offer a test drive in one of these. Even broker4cars could only offer one as a direct factory order, but with a total discount of almost £1300 that was tempting. Pity we didn't like the Corsa. Trying to find a sports model Corsa (the 1.4/1.8 SRi) - or even the Turbo-diesel SXi which has the 'sports suspension') to test drive was equally abortive. What is the point of spending your good money on buying a car when you have not tried either THAT model, or at least one that has the same feature(s) that seem so attractive in the brochure ? The sports suspension could have transformed the car - or, more likely, made it very uncomfortable).

So, it all came back to the Astra. But which model ? The economy of the "Eco4" tempted, but again a test drive would have been essential and was not available. The 1.8 gave adequate performance, and the choice narrowed between the 1.8 SXi 5 door and the 1.8 SRi 5 Door. A review will be posted to explain how the final decision for a 1.8 SRi was made. The total factory cost with extras is £15,395, but an 'up-front' total discount of £1519 is available through broker4cars, together with a further £525 discount available from Vauxhall through their current Finance package. All the deal is carried out through the Vauxhall main dealer in Ripley Derbyshire who pay a commission to broker4cars.

We take out a loan to finance £1500, payable over 12 months with interest charges of £224.50 BUT for this model, Vauxhall give a £750 Deposit allowance, so we are in profit to the extent of £525.50. All legal and above-board.

Thus, the discount totals £2,044 (13.27%!!)
AND in addi
tion, there are my GM points. But how many can I redeem ?

I knew that I had in excess of £2500, so in March I telephoned the Points Redemption Centre to enquire what proportion I could spend. I was told that I had 2,725.17 points available. This indicated 225.17 'partner points'. Now, I could not see that almost 10% of my spending had earned 'partner points', but on discussing this matter with the Customer services bod, we decided that the initial 200 points that Vauxhall 'gave' me when I bought the Corsa were being counted as 'partner points'. Great, I thought .... But then. a bit later, I looked at my last statement and saw that this was the Total Number of points that I had earned, which increased to 2,965.25 in my next statement. I telephoned again, several times, to be given a variety of answers - from "2,500" (i.e. NO partner points) to "it depends on which model you are buying"), but no definite total. I then wrote to the Points Centre and complained. I did however make a typing error in that I quoted "2,755.17 points" as the total that I had been quoted in March. The reply arrived stating that I had "2,755.17 points" (!!!) available to redeem on my next Vauxhall (with the balance remaining for future purchases).

Thus, the cost of the factory order UK delivered Astra SRi (with extras) ends up at
£10,599 - a total discount of 31.2 per cent. As soon as the first repayment has been made on the £1500 loan, I will try to negotiate a discount for early repayment.
Delivery within 4 to 6 weeks. A £200 deposit has been paid.

And all from forward thinking (in applying for and using a GM card) and looking for the BEST deal.

Beat THAT if you can !

And, Heather now has 1732 points on her card. I can transfer my points to her when she uses them, before April 2005. Now I hope that Vauxhall introduces some decent new models and broker4car
s is still around at that time.

© Sidneygee 2002

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