Air Miles or Smart Points Galore ! (Shell)

Member Name: ultras67

Product:	Shell
Date:	24/05/01 (1378 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Issued by well known bank, Option of smart points or air miles, can triple dip to boost earnings

Disadvantages: typical high normal interest rate, not much else to distinguish it from the pack

By applying for and using a Visa card issued by Royal Bank Of Scotland you can also earn free Shell Smart Points or Air Miles.

The credit card is a fairly standard offering with the option to transfer your balance from another credit card ( but no points are awarded for this ). 5.9% APR introductory rate for 6 months on transfered balances, 17.9% APR after that. There is a good addition of free purchase protection to cover some items against theft or damage. An option to apply online is available.

Because it is issued by Visa it has all the normal Visa advantages -acceptable in thousands of places in the UK & worldwide, cash advances and so on.

A new issue bonus of 600 smart points is on offer for succesfully applying for the card and then you receive 4 point for each £10.

If you buy anything from a Shell garage ( or other issuer of Smart points like Halfords )you can get up to triple points as you can also use your Smart Card to collect points.

When redeeming the smart points, there are quite a not a bad range of gifts from household items like kettles, irons, etc to high street vouchers for Dixons, watches, cd players etc

Getting high street vouchers is quite expensive, costing 600 points ( almost £1700 in single collection mode )for £5.00. But if you double or triple dip the real cost drops quite dramaticaly.

You can also swap the smart points for Air Miles and can quite quickly build up a fair amount. The exchange rate ( using £1700 example above ) would get you 85 Air Miles.

The card design is a bright and breezy ( can you guess what it will be from Shell ? ) Shell that does stand out from the normal dark and sombre offerings.

As for the credit card, yes it is a good one with a not bad rate of return of points and above average facilities. If you dont mind putting all your eggs into one loyalty scheme then it is one to certainly think seriously about especially if you are a
driver or already collect Air Miles.

Summary: