Cashback vs Rewards Credit Cards - which is better?

ic

Personally whenever I look into rewards cards, I tend to find myself drawn back to cashback cards. By the time you've built up the rewards, what is available may have changed. I also find many of the rewards can be had by other means - many restaurant chains that are available via clubcard rewards for example run vouchers - many are listed on the main MSE site - and the two can't be combined. Cashback is just that - cash, spend it where you like, no matter where you spend in the first place.

Gromitt

ic wrote: »

Personally whenever I look into rewards cards, I tend to find myself drawn back to cashback cards. By the time you've built up the rewards, what is available may have changed

I took out a AA credit card for just that reason - I knew I was going to have to take out some breakdown cover, and they were offering (At the time), 4% cashback on motoring purchases and 2% cashback on everything else. Got 2500 points in the 6 months I had the card, which equaled a £50 discount. I then purchased the policy through Top Cashback, which gave me another £20.

So it cost me £71, but I've got £70 cashback so far, and another £2 to come (cashback on the £71). I don't think thats bad.

Johnmcl7

SavingFish wrote: »

It is a bit of a minefield figuring out which rewards are best. As others have said, it depends on how you use your cards and how you would use the rewards in question.

My long term card lineup (i.e. ignoring intro bonuses):

Aqua: 3% cashback (first £300 of spending each month).
Creation: 1.5% cashback on petrol/supermarket spends.
Amazon: 2% back when spending on Amazon, 1% back in Amazon gift certificates on all other spending.

(I tend to buy a lot of things on Amazon anyway, so the gift certificates will get used no problem).

Any downsides to the Amazon card? I buy a lot from Amazon so 2% is pretty good as is the 1% which is the same as I get on Barclaycard (formerly an Egg card). Did they give you a reasonable credit limit and can you automatically pay in full each month? The current card doesn't have a great credit limit and it's never been increased (no debt at all, never missed a payment and earn substantially more than when I took the card out) and they block the card every time I buy a computer so I'm looking for an alternative.

Thanks,
John

anon_ymous

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

Any downsides to the Amazon card? I buy a lot from Amazon so 2% is pretty good as is the 1% which is the same as I get on Barclaycard (formerly an Egg card). Did they give you a reasonable credit limit and can you automatically pay in full each month? The current card doesn't have a great credit limit and it's never been increased (no debt at all, never missed a payment and earn substantially more than when I took the card out) and they block the card every time I buy a computer so I'm looking for an alternative.

Thanks,
John

The Amazon card seems more a rewards based card, as opposed to a cashback card. If you buy a lot from Amazon, I guess it's worth it

Looking here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cobrandcard/marketing.html/ref=cobrand_bac_huc_vc_COMBO_for_25_V1_nm?pr=ukconcbcc&inc=uk5gc&ts=16vym6v179afmlgy1kwdpx7ykxjagk&flavor=GC5&plattr=GC5&ad=3x_rewards&place=vc&imp=AVG8DMM9FNR2H

I don't know if my maths is quite right but here goes:

You spend £333.33 in the first three months, where you get 3 points per £1, which in turn gets you about 1000 points, which gives you a £10 code. That's up to 3% worth of points in the first three months

After that, it seems to be 2% on Amazon and 1% elsewhere. If you spend on Amazon a lot, I suppose yes it makes sense, but I personally don't tend to use Amazon all that often. An eBay credit card however...

It's tempting to get this:

https://apply.creation.co.uk/creation-cashbackcard/web_channel/cards/microsite/carddetails.aspx?termsAndConditionsCode=MC1012&MC=18400010&operatorCode=WebMC&responseCode=CBK023

That has a limit of £200 cashback, so you're looking at spending a max of a figure between £13333.33 and £40,0000/year

For me, I'd never really spend £13333 on a card, so it makes sense, especially as the first £3333.34 I spend, I'll spend on the Aqua card

It's certainly a better card than the Capital One classic extra