Best Cashback Cards Article Discussion Area

pensioner_margaret

JackieO wrote: »

I have a Morgan Stanley cashback card and have just received a cheque for £75.00 for the last years cashback.With this months statement I have also received a slip saying that from 1st June Morgan Stanley are going to introduce a £20.00 per annum fee for having their card Should I cancel my card and try a different company ? it seems daft to pay £20.00 a year to have a cashback card.It seems to defeat the object .I must admit I do pay my card off at the end of each month ,so perhaps that is why they want to charge a fee for my card Any thoughts on where I could go.I am a pensioner with a fixed income of around £12k per annum

As a further (2nd)response to your post:-
I am a similar position to you - fixed income about £12000
I was using an ASDA card for groceries and Morgan Stanley for everything else.
Now that I have cancelled Morgan Stanley I will use ASDA card for everything.
The main benefit of ASDA in my circumstances is the free delivery of groceries on line for orders over £99. I buy enough to last a few weeks (+cigs) and so I can always get it to be over £99. In addition I earn ASDA grocery vouchers which are to be sent to me in December and are equivalent to .5%. The delivery charges vary according to what day of the week delivery is, but cheapest is about £4 so that is like a 4% cashback to me - and it is a blessing not to have the hassle of carrying shopping home (at our 'ripe old age') + saving the cost of getting to the store.

stphnstevey

Can you eloborate on the grocery vouchers? Do you get points for petrol purchases or just the 2p off?

I currently have the GE Money card 3% cashback on petrol and groceries and dismissed the Asda card as it was only about 2% off petrol (2p per litre costing around £1 per litre). However the grocery vouchers might make it top the 3%?

pensioner_margaret

I'm sorry that I dont know what benefits are gained from buying anything other than groceries. My local Asda does not have petrol pumps and since I buy everything on line I dont use much petrol - (a tank full lasts me 2 months or more.)
My Asda card statement has a Points column showing
"Points earned this month"
"In ASDA 163 " (I spent £328.58)
"Outside ASDA 0 "
"new total 529"
"voucher value £5.29"
So it does look as though points are awarded just for using the card - maybe at a lower rate than .5% -sorry dont know until my next statement when I will have used it outside ASDA

pensioner_margaret

I have found this link which gives us some info

http://www.asdafinance.com/credit-card-features.html

Ps there is an annoying drawback that the website where you can check your balance only loads about 1 in 10 attempts (usual excuse - busy/technical difficulties)

PaulBaker4

About 6 months or so ago I read the recommendations on this site, and changed my Natwest Credit Card (collecting airmiles) for a cash back credit card.
At the time the best offer seemed to be the Conran card from MBNA. I have been using this since.
However Conran have now stopped doing this card, and my account is to be converted to a normal MBNA account, with no cashback.

Reading the forums again, the current best is American Express, but I don't want an Amex card because of the acceptablility in smaller retailers. Morgan Stanley also seems to have stopped, or at least is now making a charge for it's cashback card. So what's the current best on offer?

Egg monet still seems to be 1%, but I don't want the complexity of an account where you have an extra account and pay money about, I want a simple credit card.
I always pay off in full, and have a fairly high average spend as I put everything on CC and pay off each month.

Martin (MSE) if you're reading this, what can you suggest? Are there any other 1% cashback cards still out there for new customers? (Visa or Mastercard)

Cobertizo

PaulBaker - two quick things:
1) As far as I'm aware, the new £20 charge for Morgan Stanley cards does not apply to the Platinum (ie. the cashback card). (See http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=4822021&postcount=410 and http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=4882699&postcount=29.) Though there seems to be a lot of confusion about this, and from what pensioner margaret says below I may be wrong!
2) I'm not entirely sure what you mean about the Egg Money card, but while you can use it as a debit/credit card, it is perfectly possible to ignore this side of it and just treat it as a simple credit card. I use it as a normal Mastercard credit card, and have it set to pay off the full balance each month from my Nationwide current account.

pensioner_margaret

Mine was the cashback Platinum - got the £20 charge letter - phoned them - paid what I owed - cancelled -will get cashback by cheque in about 3 weeks -losing £11 of it because they only pay in multiples of £15

PS I had an egg card about 5 years ago and notified them of change of address. Despite that, they sent a statement to my old address which by then had been rented out to a local burglar. Fortunately I had paid for 6 months mail redirection. I cancelled that card immediately because I considered their security to be lax

Womaniser

I have just done some delving and Smile.co.uk have a cashback credit card, although it is only offering 0.5%. That is better than nowt though!

oly2c

Just got notification that my Morgan Stanley cash back card will have an annual £20 charge. Only lost 11p on my cashback fortunately as I have just asked for payment and it was a £15.11 total . Will be cancelling as soon as I receive the cheque - good job I didn't have it paid into my account.
I've never had any problems with Egg so I'll stick with that.
I pay for my petrol at ASDA with an ASDA card which knocks 2p a litre off plus vouchers equivalent to 0.5% - terrible website though as it's never working
If I use Tesco I use Egg giving !% off plus another 1% through my Tesco Clubcard.
If Egg change I'll get a Smile card (thanks for that tip)as I already have a current account with them and there service is excellent. Only 46 days max interest free though.

SSuzanne

I have a very small income (around 3K) as do some small work at home, and am about to give birth! Husband is the wage earner and earns a decent salary. I got the Egg Money after Martin's recc because I wanted a cashback card to replace my other cards which gave no benefits. I always pay off the bill in full each month, and we have no outstanding card debt. Due to my low income I was given a limit of £500 per month!!

As I use it to get the bulk of our purchases (shopping, petrol clothes, etc) this is completley useless. I tried to get it upped, but they only consider MY income not my husbands (although both my other cards in my name do consider this, and I have credit limits of £7k on both of them, and both cards are clear)

I've had the card for 9 months and despite the fact it is paid by dd in full each month when I ask for more credit, again they only type in my £3k income - and funnily enough it gets turned down!!

WOrse than that - it means I can't get the proper cashback as my card runs out of limit - I find this out when I am rejected at the till. You then have the gap between the statement date and the payment date when if I have spent £500 I can't use it for 2.5 weeks till bill paid. They say I could preload the card - but I don't get benefit of the credit card then. I don't want to use it as a debit card!

In march I was paid £23 cash back - but have found out this morning I got a £16 "over limit " charge. Apparantly there was an internet transaction which was authorised but not taken for several days. When it was taken i was over the limit by £50 for a few days. I didn't think it poss for this to happen.

I'm so fed up as it has more or less cancelled out my cashback, and the only reason it has happened is because the limit is so low!! They refused to refund the card charge saying it is valid. I have drafted a letter but don't hold out much hope.

I understand about sensible lending etc, but I don't have debt, and have never defaulted. So many people manage to be in debt with multiple cards etc - and I can't get an increase despite having had the card for 9 months - and they can see the rejected transactions daily / weekly, but seem to apply NO common sense to their policy.

I wish I'd never applied as it is a real inconvenience to be turned down at the till daily and then lose most of your cashback!!

*
[ was given a credit limit of £1,000 does this mean I can't make purchases over £1,000 per month? If this is the case and I would want to buy something for £2,000 I would have to preload the card with £1,000 before making the purchase?
Thanks again