Any cashback that is worth it, at least 5% minimum?

Chrysalis

I still do some monthly expenditure on my old capital one card, pay in full every month.  Which is basically now days my only CC balance.  Keeps my credit history active.

However this card has no cash back, I have recently started accepting lloyds cashback offers on my debit card, and is quite nice, the offers are typically 5-20%.

However when I look for credit cards that offer cashback, they seem really bad typically 1%, and often also have fees.  Is there any cards that offer multiple percentage with either no or low fees to make it worth bothering with?

Gandalf644

Chrysalis said:

I still do some monthly expenditure on my old capital one card, pay in full every month.  Which is basically now days my only CC balance.  Keeps my credit history active.

However this card has no cash back, I have recently started accepting lloyds cashback offers on my debit card, and is quite nice, the offers are typically 5-20%.

However when I look for credit cards that offer cashback, they seem really bad typically 1%, and often also have fees.  Is there any cards that offer multiple percentage with either no or low fees to make it worth bothering with?

If yhou look at the linked MSE page, it goves details of the 'top pick' of rewards credit cards:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/best-credit-card-rewards/

Only one Amex gives 5%, however this is both time limited and capped.

As you have found, the rest are circa 1% or less - mainly due to the cap on fees, so it is not like the USA where multi percentage rewards are common.

Exodi

5% on all spending without conditions would be insane!

The Lloyds cashback offers are usually fringe merchants on higher margins, they're certainly not offering you 5-20% off your supermarket shop.

As Gandalf644 says, the Amex Cashback Everyday Credit Card is 5% for 5 months (capped at £125, which is effectively a spending cap of £500 per month) or the Amex Cashback Credit Card is 5% for 3 months (capped at £125 again, which is effectively a spending cap of ~£833 per month) then they drop to 0.5%-0.75% and the latter has an annual fee.

But in reality they are £125 sign up bribes (like banks do £100-£175 switch bribes) packaged as high rate cashback offers.

Plus you have the issue that not everywhere accepts Amex.

But again a 5% cashback card would be insane.

My recommendation would be something like chase offering 1% on all debit card spending.

1% on all spending is certainly not "really bad", unfortunately I'd suggest you may be out to lunch!

TwiceNightly

You can get decent offers through Lloyds, for example at the moment I have 10% cashback at Morrisons and 5% cashback at Waitrose activated, both in store and multi use.

For the Morrisons offer there I'll be getting:
10% cashback for the offer
0.5% cashback for the credit card
4% cashback via Airtime rewards

Nasqueron

Exodi said:

5% on all spending without conditions would be insane!

The Lloyds cashback offers are usually fringe merchants on higher margins, they're certainly not offering you 5-20% off your supermarket shop.

As Gandalf644 says, the Amex Cashback Everyday Credit Card is 5% for 5 months (capped at £125, which is effectively a spending cap of £500 per month) or the Amex Cashback Credit Card is 5% for 3 months (capped at £125 again, which is effectively a spending cap of ~£833 per month) then they drop to 0.5%-0.75% and the latter has an annual fee.

But in reality they are £125 sign up bribes (like banks do £100-£75 switch bribes) packaged as high rate cashback offers.

Plus you have the issue that not everywhere accepts Amex.

But again a 5% cashback card would be insane.

My recommendation would be something like chase offering 1% on all debit card spending.

1% on all spending is certainly not "really bad", unfortunately I'd suggest you may be out to lunch!

It's crazy in the UK yes, because of the fees even with the increase post-Brexit as we aren't subject to the lower EU caps. However in the US, the fees the CCs charge are higher so they can offer great cashback offers to the premium customers. I think it balances ok here

Grumpy_chap

CC reward benefits are less generous than they once were.
There are ways to maximise the gains by combining the CC rewards with other forms of reward:

• Retailer loyalty cards
• Curve card sometimes has retail cashback - tends to be store dependent
• Work schemes such as Reward Gateway (if accessible for the individual - employer dependent) to purchase discounted vouchers

Sometimes, it is possible to combine multiple of the above plus the CC rewards.
Often, the "overlay" will break eligibility for S75 or similar protections.

Exodi

TwiceNightly said:

You can get decent offers through Lloyds, for example at the moment I have 10% cashback at Morrisons and 5% cashback at Waitrose activated, both in store and multi use.

For the Morrisons offer there I'll be getting:
10% cashback for the offer
0.5% cashback for the credit card
4% cashback via Airtime rewards

That 10% cashback offer certainly sounds good, but without being able to see the detail I don't know if it's particularly relevant to the discussion.

E.g. what the maximum value is per transaction, what the expiry date is, whether it would be offered again, etc.

These types of tailored cashback offers are typically specifically targeted to entice new users. I suspect people doing their weekly shop at Morrisons or Waitrose would likely not get these offers (though feel free to correct me if you do indeed do your regular shop at Morrisons?).

Nasqueron said:

Exodi said:

5% on all spending without conditions would be insane!

The Lloyds cashback offers are usually fringe merchants on higher margins, they're certainly not offering you 5-20% off your supermarket shop.

As Gandalf644 says, the Amex Cashback Everyday Credit Card is 5% for 5 months (capped at £125, which is effectively a spending cap of £500 per month) or the Amex Cashback Credit Card is 5% for 3 months (capped at £125 again, which is effectively a spending cap of ~£833 per month) then they drop to 0.5%-0.75% and the latter has an annual fee.

But in reality they are £125 sign up bribes (like banks do £100-£75 switch bribes) packaged as high rate cashback offers.

Plus you have the issue that not everywhere accepts Amex.

But again a 5% cashback card would be insane.

My recommendation would be something like chase offering 1% on all debit card spending.

1% on all spending is certainly not "really bad", unfortunately I'd suggest you may be out to lunch!

It's crazy in the UK yes, because of the fees even with the increase post-Brexit as we aren't subject to the lower EU caps. However in the US, the fees the CCs charge are higher so they can offer great cashback offers to the premium customers. I think it balances ok here

Yes indeed, and as you say I think we have a decent balance over here.

What people don't realise in the US is that although they get much more generous credit card offers, these are subsidised by every customer through the retailer charging higher prices due to higher fees.

Obviously it would be a false economy if in the UK the CC providers charged higher fees, the shops raise their prices by 5% to compensate, but now you can now get 5% cashback through a credit card. I don't think anyone would want that.

crumpet_man

To look at it another way, 1% or less as cashback is not much, but it's more than zero.  Would you rather get a few pounds back on your annual credit card spend or get nothing back?

TheSpectator

The Morrisons reward is usually capped at a max of £10. The cashback rates look decent but problem is I never shop at these places.

Fingerbobs

TheSpectator said:

The Morrisons reward is usually capped at a max of £10. The cashback rates look decent but problem is I never shop at these places.

My Virgin cards had a 10% Morrisons offer last month, I think the minimum spend was £35 per transaction (otherwise you got 1%) but as far as I could see there was no cap on the cashback. I've currently got over £40 of "future cashback" showing in the app thanks to that offer. 

Chrysalis

Exodi I use the Morrisons offer, min spend of £100, lasts the entire month, and usually comes back the next month.  Cannot remember what spending limit there may be.

I made £16 on cash back on Lloyds in September.