Credit card Annual fees return - your views?

M_Thomson

OverlandLandy wrote:

If I dont spend £4k+ on my BA Amex I get charged £14.

Taken from the BA Amex website,

a) For the Credit Card, no annual fee will be payable. For the Premium plus card an annual fee of £120 will be applied.

On the Blue and Platinum, it used to be that if you didn't spend £500 or more a year, then you would be charged £15. They recently changed this. I would assume they have change it for the BA Amex too.

wazza

having to give up my job a couple of years ago i am now on benefits. use my credit card for shopping etc for the family. imagine the feeling if they were to introduce the annual fee. i will cancel all but one because i feel using credit card is more secure than debit card.

lisyloo

use my credit card for shopping etc for the family. imagine the feeling if they were to introduce the annual fee

Can you not get a cashback card?
Surely if you get £50 cashback and spend £20 on a fee then you are still £30 in credit.

King_Of_Fools

lisyloo wrote:

Can you not get a cashback card?
Surely if you get £50 cashback and spend £20 on a fee then you are still £30 in credit.

I would never take the risk of paying in order to get cashback - it sounds too much like a pyramid scam to me. There is far too much chance of the company withdrawing or reducing the cashback in the year so you could end up spending £20,000 just to cover your annual fee with 0.1% cashback!

lisyloo

There is far too much chance of the company withdrawing or reducing the cashback in the year so you could end up spending £20,000 just to cover your annual fee with 0.1% cashback!

You are right to highlight the risk(s), but sometimes cards come with guarantees.
e.g. Egg money is guaranteed to pay 1% until approx Feb 2007

I agree that you should be aware of the risks involved but if you base it on a low level of spending and have a guarantee then I can't see where there would be any risk.
Of course spending patterns can change but the person I was replying to was talking about shopping for his family and feeding the kids is what I would call an "inelastic demand".

Bisoy

I would keep my cashback cards so long as it has it's guaranteeand ditched all other cards. There are far more benefits using a credit card as compared to a debit cards.