£36 cashback for every £100 spent??!!

Stuart_W

Article about cashback credit cards on BBC websdite today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20208285

Interesting claim about the amount of cashback available.

Cashback amounts can vary between £1.10 and £36 for every £100 spent on the card each month.

If anyone can find a cashback credit card offering £36 cashback for every £100 spent, please let me (and Martin Lewis) know!

Even the lowest figure (1.1%) isn't right. I'm not sure what they meant to say in that sentence.

aleph_0

I've searched Capital One's and Defaqto's public media centre, and can't find the report in question, so it looks as if the article is based on a closed report/press release.

£36 is a multiple of 12, so £36 cashback on £1,200/year is 3%, and sort-of makes sense (ignoring the 5% introductory figures, and assuming the report was produced the new Barclaycard came out). If the other figure was meant to be £1.20, then we would have 0.1%, but no idea where £1.10 comes from.

Does anyone else find the non-use of percentages in these situations really annoying? A simple "Depending on the card, a cashback cards gives between 0.1% and 3% of spending back as cash each month", picking artificial examples is just silly.

The whole article feels like quite churnalism of a PR-release, rather than anything useful.

Stuart_W

Well, they've had a go at changing the sentence. It still isn't clear.

Cashback amounts vary but can reach up to £36 for every £100 spent on the card each month.

Pretty sure as you suggest that is supposed to be an annual cashback figure for spending £100 every month - but it still doesn't read like that.

Just adding the words "per annum" after £36 would do.

It's a pretty pointless and unhelpful article.

I especially disagree with

To make the card truly worthwhile a customer would need to spend well in excess of £1,000 per month,

Just a fairly modest spend of £64 every week on an easy-to-obtain Aqua card would mean £100 a year. Even small families could get to that level of spending by putting all spending on the card, and that cashback could be several sets of school uniform for a single mum, or for a bit of christmas spending. Anyone that can manage a credit card (that's of course the important point)should be being encouraged to use one to save money, not made to feel that cashback cards are the playthings of the wealthy.

sfax

aleph_0 wrote: »

I've searched Capital One's and Defaqto's public media centre, and can't find the report in question, so it looks as if the article is based on a closed report/press release.

£36 is a multiple of 12, so £36 cashback on £1,200/year is 3%, and sort-of makes sense (ignoring the 5% introductory figures, and assuming the report was produced the new Barclaycard came out). If the other figure was meant to be £1.20, then we would have 0.1%, but no idea where £1.10 comes from.

Does anyone else find the non-use of percentages in these situations really annoying? A simple "Depending on the card, a cashback cards gives between 0.1% and 3% of spending back as cash each month", picking artificial examples is just silly.

The whole article feels like quite churnalism of a PR-release, rather than anything useful.

Agreed. These articles are generally dumbed down and often inaccurate or just vague. When evaluating cashback you have to consider how much you'll spend and what you'll spend it on in order to get a clear idea of the overall % you'll earn. Introductory offers and caps just make it slightly harder to compare one deal with another

aleph_0

They've added a new paragraph, which clarifies things a little:

The upper threshold of £36 is on one particular card where the cashback rate - 3% on all spending - is capped at £100 per year, so there is no customer benefit from spending anything more than £278 per month on that card. The average cashback level on cards is much lower.

You're right, adding 'per annum' would be the easiest way to clarify things. The claim about the average being much lower is a little misleading. I guess the aim is to try to provide some 'balance' - but that would be better provided by just doing a well-researched article about cashback cards.

ic

Journalists never are good at maths - they just cherry pick numbers without properly understanding them. They love to jump all over useless stats without providing the underlying figures.