Advice please: Natwest/Lloyds Duo/Ditch them all?

cyan_ee

Hi, first time posting here (nervous!) .
Since Natwest/Airmiles card perished, I got both Natwest (YourPoints) card and Lloyds Duo. I heard all about £3 charge on NatWest and I thought I should cancel this card as soon as I received Lloyds Duo.

However, I examined all letters I received from NatWest and there have been no mention at all about the charge. I can see "A fee ....will be charged to the Participant's account each month" written in microscopic letters in "Natwest/YourPoints Terms and Conditions" document, but I can't see any charge on my statement this month. My balance was just under 800 pounds.

From reading through the postings on the forum, I gather NatWest can decide to charge me £3/m anytime if they want to. YourPoints do not look very useful to myself anyway. So I'd like to cancel this card. BUT, Lloyds Duo cards are no better. I use Master card one more often as AMEX is not widely accepted and the former doesn't earn as much AirMiles as the latter.

I feel those three cards are not as good nor simple to use as what NatWest Airmiles card used to be. I wonder if I'd better change to a Cash Back type Master/Visa credit card.

Is this a good idea?
Has anyone made a similar decision? Which card did you choose?

I clear the balance every month and my annual spending is usually just above 10,000. I tend to shop locally and only visit supermarkets once every two month.

Any advices greatly appreciated!!! Thanks in advance xx

bwgames

I wasn't on the NW card, but I was in a similar position, trying to decide between cashback/loyalty cards etc.
my main objective was to get discounts on travel, as I do quite a few short haul flights a year.

The way I looked at it was to take my annual spending and see what I would get back.
If you have an annual spend of £10k, with a 1% cashback card such as Egg Money, you would get £100 back each year.
With the AirMiles cards, lets say £7k of what you spend was on Mastercard, and £3k on AmEx.

£7k nets you 140 airmiles, and the £3k on Amex 300. So 440 airmiles, enough for a decent-ish short flight. Probably worth £30 or so, when you consider the higher taxes.I'm also doing a lot of spending at Tesco, to get more airmiles, but as you say you only visit a supermarket rarely, that's not helpful to you.

I ended up getting the Lloyds TSB, as I can use Tesco points to get airmiles as well.
With my spend, I figured I'd be lucky to get £40/50 solely back on Egg, whereas I can just add the few airmiles I'll get from Lloyds to my amount from Tesco.
I'd probably get slightly more money-wise back on egg, but it just felt better to have everything collecting airmiles/tesco points, if that makes sense (but see my last paragraph).

It depends whether you'd use the airmiles, and be able to get more from promotions etc - if you can't, i.e. you're relying on the lloyds card (and nothing else), to get airmiles, you're in for a long haul, so perhaps Egg is better?
Having said that, you do get 500 airmiles upon signing up for Lloyds.....

I actually ended up getting both for the following reasons:

Most places where I shop accept AmEx (supermarkets, motorway service stations, airlines etc), so I'll use AmEx then. If they don't, rather than use the Lloyds Mastercard (which is pretty bad at 1point/£50), I'll use the Egg money card, and get 1% back on that...

Another way to look at it, is to go by Martin's article where he "values" Airmiles at 8.4pence.
To look at it another way, thats 8.4%.
Using the Amex card, I get 0.84% back on £10, using the Egg card, I get 10p. The difference isn't too bad, considering I'd use the airmiles.
However, use the mastercard, and it drops to 0.00168% (8.4p/£50)...

cyan_ee

Thanks a lot bwgames, very clear and helpful!

I'd like just one card to cover all of my everyday-shopping and Egg Money card sounds like a good idea as you suggested.

My slight worry for this card is that it would make my accounting a bit more complicated (I'm a self-employed). With ordinary credit cards, the bill will be paid by DD and my bank statement shows the exact amount. Job done.

With Egg Money card, I believe you have to set up a fixed amount paid into the card every month then have to keep an eye on the balance to see if a top-up is needed. (please correct me if I misunderstood!)

But then, the merit of this card is definitely attractive and earning easy money is never easy!

bwgames

Not quite, with the Egg Money card. You can do that, and you earn 4% interest on a positive balance, and you still get the cashback. One benefit of this is, if you have a positive balance, you can do cash withdrawals on the card and not get charged anything (although you will get charged if your withdrawal takes you into a negative limit)

Or, you can use it as a standard mastercard up to your credit limit, you'll still get cashback and obviously you will pay interest (typically 7.9%, which is relatively low for a credit card) if you don't pay it all off every month.

If you wanted to make a big purchase, over your credit limit, you would just pre-load it with the necessary amount e.g. purchase of £1000, credit limit of £500, assuming nothing on the card, add £500 to it, giving you a positive balance of £500. you then have £1000 to spend, £500 from your addition, and £500 your credit limit. Your final balance would be -£500, i.e. maxed out the card, and £10 cashback.