Best no annual fee cash (or reward) back credit card which is not American Express?

Alpha_5

Like the OP I'm affected by the Asda CC closure. I've gone for the Amex Everyday Cashback (£25pa fee). The card arrived 2 days later and up and running. Its a shame Amex isn't as widely accepted, but I think it's pretty much the best on the market right now. 

D3xt3r5L4b

Alpha_5 said:

Like the OP I'm affected by the Asda CC closure. I've gone for the Amex Everyday Cashback (£25pa fee). The card arrived 2 days later and up and running. Its a shame Amex isn't as widely accepted, but I think it's pretty much the best on the market right now. 

So long as you meet the £10k spend per annum to offset the fee

blue.peter

Alpha_5 said:

... Its a shame Amex isn't as widely accepted...

It might not be universally accepted, but it is very widely accepted. The only big companies that I know of that don't accept AmEx are B&Q and my local VW/Audi dealer (which is part of a fairly large chain). Even many small businesses accept AmEx these days. I have an AmEx Platinum Cashback Everyday card (no annual fee), and about 95%+ of my spending goes on it (that's about £10,000* in a typical year). There are months when I don't need my Visa or MasterCard at all. It can be linked to a PayPal account for businesses that accept PayPal, even if they don't accept AmEx directly.

Yes, it's a good idea to have either a MasterCard or Visa as a backup that can be used at the few places that don't accept AmEx. But it's a good idea to have a backup card anyway.

*Incidentally, £10,000/year spending is the threshold at which the AmEx Platinum Cashback card, with its £25/year fee but a higher cashback rate, becomes better value.

Hammer_Time

SpideressUK said:

funkycredit said:

Wouldn't you have been better with the cashback platinum card? Rewards only gives points Doesn't it? 

Too late now of course lol

I should have scrolled down a bit more :-)....I think that one only gives cashback for the spend that you do in the first 6 months and presumably gives nothing back after that time and just becomes a standard credit card? With the world as it is at the moment our normal 6 monthly spend is *far* reduced from what would normally be (not bought petrol since the start of April!) so we would probably not get the "best" out of that card if it is only for the initial 6 months that you earn anything off it.  The one we are getting, I got the impression that it was only points.......not totally sure "how" to get to the higher points but the first 5,000 come by putting £2K on the card within the 1st six months.  I need 20,000 points to get to the point of an Amazon gift card so I will just hold out for that........these systems normally take me 4 years or so to get to point where I redeem them......I think I have been waiting about 4 years now to get what will convert into a £130 of gift vouchers at ASDA after 13/7/20 :-)

Platinum cashback everyday credit card has no fee, the only downside is you have to spend £3000 a year. 

See details below

Earn a Welcome Cashback Bonus

Enjoy a generous 5% cashback on the purchases you make for the first six months, up to £100 cashback. The only hard part is choosing what you’re going to turn all that cashback into.

No limit on cashback

Remember there is no cap on how much cashback you can earn in a year.

Earn cashback on purchases

After the first six months of Cardmembership you’ll earn up to 1% cashback, depending on how much you spend on the Card:

• Spend £0 to £5,000 and receive 0.5% cashback on purchases
• Spend over £5,000 and receive 1% cashback on purchases

The more purchases you make on your Card, the more cashback you can earn. As long as you spend a minimum of £3,000 in your Cardmembership year, every full £1 you spend on purchases qualifies for cashback.

Steve_L

SpideressUK said:

funkycredit said:

Barclaycard Rewards?

Not sure why but the eligability checker said wont be able to get that card.  It is perhaps as it said most likely to be accepted if salary £20,000 and we only have a £17,000 salary coming in but we have had credit cards for years and always paid them off in full every month every time and have a really good credit rating.

The £20,000 salary threshold is for their Platinum Rewards cashback card. I blundered onto this page when I was checking out their basic "Rewards" cashback card. My pension is half this and I've just got the latter one.

Alpha_5

D3xt3r5L4b said:

Alpha_5 said:

Like the OP I'm affected by the Asda CC closure. I've gone for the Amex Everyday Cashback (£25pa fee). The card arrived 2 days later and up and running. Its a shame Amex isn't as widely accepted, but I think it's pretty much the best on the market right now. 

So long as you meet the £10k spend per annum to offset the fee

It's only £5k spend to offset the £25 fee. That won't be an issue for me. But as both cards pay 1% on spend of £5k-10k, fee-paying cardholders only stand to gain if they spend £10k+. That's the punt I'm taking and that's where acceptance of Amex will come into play. 

Alpha_5

blue.peter said:

Alpha_5 said:

... Its a shame Amex isn't as widely accepted...

It might not be universally accepted, but it is very widely accepted. The only big companies that I know of that don't accept AmEx are B&Q and my local VW/Audi dealer (which is part of a fairly large chain). Even many small businesses accept AmEx these days. I have an AmEx Platinum Cashback Everyday card (no annual fee), and about 95%+ of my spending goes on it (that's about £10,000* in a typical year). There are months when I don't need my Visa or MasterCard at all. It can be linked to a PayPal account for businesses that accept PayPal, even if they don't accept AmEx directly.

Yes, it's a good idea to have either a MasterCard or Visa as a backup that can be used at the few places that don't accept AmEx. But it's a good idea to have a backup card anyway.

*Incidentally, £10,000/year spending is the threshold at which the AmEx Platinum Cashback card, with its £25/year fee but a higher cashback rate, becomes better value.

I actually pay for most of my supermarket shopping through an employee benefit scheme. I get discounts by purchasing top ups on to gift cards through a third party provider. Alas, sadly I can't use Amex to pay for that. So that's a sizeable chunk of my monthly spending I won't be able to use the card for.

Thanks for the heads up on PayPal. I have an Amazon Mastercard which I used to double up the cashback on (Creation/Asda allowed you to pay your statement with another credit card) so I'll be using that as a backup. 

D3xt3r5L4b

Alpha_5 said:

D3xt3r5L4b said:

Alpha_5 said:

Like the OP I'm affected by the Asda CC closure. I've gone for the Amex Everyday Cashback (£25pa fee). The card arrived 2 days later and up and running. Its a shame Amex isn't as widely accepted, but I think it's pretty much the best on the market right now. 

So long as you meet the £10k spend per annum to offset the fee

It's only £5k spend to offset the £25 fee. That won't be an issue for me. But as both cards pay 1% on spend of £5k-10k, fee-paying cardholders only stand to gain if they spend £10k+. That's the punt I'm taking and that's where acceptance of Amex will come into play. 

I mean the fee to offset making the £25 worthwhile over the free card. 

As per HFP advice:

Which is the best Amex cashback card to get?

Time for a quick bit of maths.

The break-even point for getting the £25 card is £10,000 of spending per year. For everyone except the highest spenders, you are better off with the free Platinum Cashback Everyday card.

For example:

spend £9,000 per year and you will receive £65 on the free Platinum Cashback Everyday and the same £65 on the Platinum Cashback card, adjusting for the fee

spend £11,000 per year and you will receive £85 on the free Platinum Cashback Everyday and £87.50 on the Platinum Cashback card, adjusting for the fee

SpideressUK

roddydogs said:

Dont take mse's eligibility guide as gospel, it said I didnt pass when I did.

This was barclay card's own "soft search" test thing but my husband had several fraudulant activities against him in April 2020 so I am thinking this might be the reason we were rejected as those companies are yet to remove the fraudulant "hard credit searches" off our "clear score" credit file.  It is very irritating to be penilised when we should have a 100% good credit rating due to no fault of ours fraudulant activity which seems to impact for months on end.

Alpha_5

D3xt3r5L4b said:

Alpha_5 said:

D3xt3r5L4b said:

Alpha_5 said:

Like the OP I'm affected by the Asda CC closure. I've gone for the Amex Everyday Cashback (£25pa fee). The card arrived 2 days later and up and running. Its a shame Amex isn't as widely accepted, but I think it's pretty much the best on the market right now. 

So long as you meet the £10k spend per annum to offset the fee

It's only £5k spend to offset the £25 fee. That won't be an issue for me. But as both cards pay 1% on spend of £5k-10k, fee-paying cardholders only stand to gain if they spend £10k+. That's the punt I'm taking and that's where acceptance of Amex will come into play. 

I mean the fee to offset making the £25 worthwhile over the free card. 

As per HFP advice:

Which is the best Amex cashback card to get?

Time for a quick bit of maths.

The break-even point for getting the £25 card is £10,000 of spending per year. For everyone except the highest spenders, you are better off with the free Platinum Cashback Everyday card.

For example:

spend £9,000 per year and you will receive £65 on the free Platinum Cashback Everyday and the same £65 on the Platinum Cashback card, adjusting for the fee

spend £11,000 per year and you will receive £85 on the free Platinum Cashback Everyday and £87.50 on the Platinum Cashback card, adjusting for the fee

I think we're in agreement here - to make paying the fee worthwhile, I need to spend over £10k.

To make the fee back I only need to spend £5k.

So I'm hoping to put over £10k of my spend on the card. But if I only spend £5001 on it, I'll still be happy and no worse off financially than if I'd gone for the fee-free version.