American Express Cashback vs Reward

glass22

Hi,

I spend about 15k a year on American Express.

I currently have the 1% cashback card.

So make about 150 a year.

--

Are the rewards cards better? What could I get on those cards with a similar spend?

Voyager2002

It depends what you do with the Cashback, and what you would do with the Rewards...

If you spend it on BA flights (particularly in premium classes) then the BA Amex would work better for you: your earnings would be in Avios and would get you more than 1,500 pounds worth of flight benefits. If you spend your cashback at Sainsbury's then you would do better with a Nectar card. If you like flying with other airlines then the Rewards points are likely to work well for you, since you can exchange them for points with a large number of frequent flyer schemes.

[Deleted User]

It depends.

Do you want cashback, Avios, nectar points, SPG points or Menebership points to put towards Avios or other things as you wish?

glass22

I don't know what most of that is to be honest.

But I would sooner have 1500 in flights than 150 in cash

[Deleted User]

You need to look into how Avios works then, and the fact that you usually have to book the flights well in advance (at least 12 months).

Check out headforpoints site for more info.

Ben8282

How can we know what is better for you.
Look at how many rewards you expect to get for your anticipated spend.
Have a look at what you can get for this amount of rewards.
Decide for yourself.

glass22

Ben8282 wrote: »

How can we know what is better for you.
Look at how many rewards you expect to get for your anticipated spend.
Have a look at what you can get for this amount of rewards.
Decide for yourself.

Where can I see what I can get? its 1 point per pound spent?

Ben8282

glass22 wrote: »

Where can I see what I can get? its 1 point per pound spent?

On that basis your £15,000 spend will get you 15,000 points.
Now look here
https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/rewards/membership-rewards/
and you will see what you can get for 15,000 points.
You can have £75 worth of Selfridges gift vouchers.
A £75 IKEA gift card.
Etc.

[Deleted User]

Vouchers is the worst way to value points at.

You get a higher value exchanging for Avios or Hotel points.

Weybridge78

I have both. Used the Rewards one to get as many points as possible for my honeymoon. Am now using the Cashback one when making payments towards my Master's degree. Need all the cashback I can get!

HarryCrowther

£150 is good. Perhaps you could get a card that offers more than 1% though? For example, some offer 5% cashback for the first 3 months, so it might be worth shopping around to see if you can switch to a different credit card. Maybe you could even cancel your current credit card and reapply to American Express to get the introductory offer of 5% cashback for 3 months.