John Lewis credit card - rewards reducing

HonestJohn

WillPS said:

MollyR said:

I didn't get an email either - seeing it in the Guardian was the first I heard about it.  I guess I'll keep the card for use at Waitrose, and investigate a better one for general spending.

You can do far better than 1.25% by buying gift cards elsewhere. You might even be able to double dip by buying them using a Barclaycard or Santander Edge credit card.

Good advice. Lebara customers can get 5% discount on a John Lewis gift card which, surprisingly, is more than that of a Waitrose giift card (4%).

MollyR

Attempting to log on to my account this morning, I was greeted by a screen telling me to ring the Fraud team since there had been unusual activity on my account.  When I rang, the computer asked for my credit card number or account number - and rejected the cc number twice, but accepted the account number.  "Unusually high call volumes" - a wait of approximately 15 minutes.  In fact they still had not answered after 25 minutes, and I was getting emails from people who had been trying to ring me, so I hung up.  Later I tried again;  this time I entered the account number first, and it rejected it twice, and then accepted the credit card number.  Still estimating a 15 minute wait.  20+ minutes later, somebody answered.  There had been a glitch, she said;  she would lift the block on my card, and I should be able to log into the account in a couple of hours.  I said that, since they knew there was a glitch, they should have put that as a message on the page when one tried to log in, or at least  put it on the recorded announcements when one rang up.  "Oh, maybe they are doing that now..." - with a great lack of confidence.  Outrageous customer non-service!!

Sovereign_Hunter_999

First I have heard of it - no email for me.

Thanks for pointing it out

Do you happen to know if they work out the points 'per transaction' or on your monthly statement balance i.e the total

Dazed_and_C0nfused

WillPS said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

WillPS said:

0.01% earn rate. Absolutely no reason to hold this card any more.

Although, from last experience, one likely bonus of getting rid of it is you will be invited to open a new account in a few months with either £20 or £40 worth of points to tempt you back.

Usually with no punitive requirement attached. 

Interesting - when was the last time you received such an offer?

A few months after closing an account.  It was after they changed banking provider so that might have been a factor.

km1500

Sovereign_Hunter_999 said:

First I have heard of it - no email for me.

Thanks for pointing it out

Do you happen to know if they work out the points 'per transaction' or on your monthly statement balance i.e the total

I believe it is points per transaction

WindfallWendy

I do like getting JL vouchers but their change means I'd probably be lucky to get £10/year. I worked out the return was something like 0.04% or something

I see Asda as a preferred alternative.... Any others that people are prioritising to switch to?

It looked like Amex offered the 'best' rewards, but previous experience is it's hit and miss whether Amex is accepted in some places. We've had supermarket cards in the past but I'm not very disciplined in making best use of all the points so it felt like a waste of not really a 'reward'. But I guess I need to think 'free food' is of course a benefit.

WillPS

WindfallWendy said:

I see Asda as a preferred alternative.... Any others that people are prioritising to switch to?

I wouldn't recommend it. 0.2% is pretty lousy (and the enhanced 0.75% at Asda is rubbish too)!

Before that, I'd consider:

• Santander Edge* (1% cashback, 2% in Y1, max £15/month, £3/month fee, effective up to 1.6% and up to 0.8% thereafter)
• Barclaycard Avios fee-free* (1 Avios per £, which can be converted directly to Nectar points, which gives an effective 0.5% back when used in Sainsburys/Argos at face value - fuel included)
• Natwest/RBS Reward CC (1% cashback in supermarkets, 0.25% everywhere else, £24/year fee which is refunded in full if a matching Reward current account is held)
• Co-op Members CC (0.6% cashback in Co-op foodstores, 0.3% everywhere else - need to be a Co-op Group member which costs £1 to become)

* denotes a card which can be used to purchase gift cards online as a purchase and earn cashback - sometimes these are via an employer but one that's open to everyone is Airtime Rewards, which offers 4% back on JL/Waitrose, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and many others. This is why accepting 1%/0.75% as a 'preferred rate' for Asda or Waitrose makes no sense IMHO!

A lot depends on your spending habits; if it's <£500 every month it probably doesn't make sense going for a card with a fee as that'll take most of your rewards away.

WindfallWendy said:

It looked like Amex offered the 'best' rewards, but previous experience is it's hit and miss whether Amex is accepted in some places. We've had supermarket cards in the past but I'm not very disciplined in making best use of all the points so it felt like a waste of not really a 'reward'. But I guess I need to think 'free food' is of course a benefit.

It depends where you shop. Most retail chains accept Amex nowadays, including all the supermarkets (even places like Farmfoods and Heron) and discount shops like B&M and Poundland. The biggest holdout now among national chains is Home Bargains. Acceptance in filling stations is also almost ubiquitous.

Independent stores and food are more patchy tho - Greggs and KFC are two notable examples where it is not accepted.

Depending on your spend you might find the Santander Edge CC eclipses what you'd get from an Amex anyway, particularly in Y1.

Finally I'd ask does it have to be an either/or? I generally suggest people have one than one card in their wallet - I have a Vitality Amex (which gives me 1.5% back on the first £1000 each month), a Santander Edge CC (which gives me 1% back on the first £1500 each month) and a now very rarely used fee-free Barclaycard Avios (0.5%).

When it's time to pay, I work through this sort of hierarchy:

1. If the total is worth it and the merchant accepts a gift card which I can purchase with a discount, I'll buy one with the Santander Edge CC or Barclaycard, typically earning around 5% in the process but sometimes as much as 10%
2. If the merchant accepts Amex, and my Amex spend that month is below £1000, I'll use the Vitality Amex (1.5%)
3. If either of the above is not true, I'll use the Santander Edge CC, unless I've spent more than £1500 that month on that card (1%)
4. In every remaining case I'll use Barclaycard Avios (0.5%)

It's actually a bit more nuanced than this; sometimes there are 'on-card' offers which mean a different card gets prioritised, but you get the idea.

WindfallWendy

Gosh, that's very comprehensive, thank you @WillPS!!

We have a joint Santander current account so spend from that (instead of a CC) because of the monthly cash back which is often around £10+/month.

Then I have my own CC for my own spending which is between £400-600/month. I split it with an Amazon/Barclaycard CC which I got because of some deal or the other (I can't be the only one who forgets why I'm in some peculiar arrangements, can I?!?). Oh - yes, I'm holding on to that one until I get enough Amazon points to get a £5 voucher (6 months so far... But with very minimal spending to be honest). 

Maybe I have answered my own question and I just use the Amazon one.

It's just so frustrating as CC management was my golden rule for good money management and playing the system ...and they're making it an almost pointless endeavour for me now!!

WillPS

WindfallWendy said:

Gosh, that's very comprehensive, thank you @WillPS!!

We have a joint Santander current account so spend from that (instead of a CC) because of the monthly cash back which is often around £10+/month.

Then I have my own CC for my own spending which is between £400-600/month. I split it with an Amazon/Barclaycard CC which I got because of some deal or the other (I can't be the only one who forgets why I'm in some peculiar arrangements, can I?!?). Oh - yes, I'm holding on to that one until I get enough Amazon points to get a £5 voucher (6 months so far... But with very minimal spending to be honest). 

Maybe I have answered my own question and I just use the Amazon one.

It's just so frustrating as CC management was my golden rule for good money management and playing the system ...and they're making it an almost pointless endeavour for me now!!

Yeah it's not easy at the lower end any more. Amazon Barclaycard gives 0.5% in Y1 (good) and 0.25% in Y2 (meh). 

ab101

So now the benefits have ended what card are people switching to? 

I had a look at the rewards cards on MSE at the time the email came out but don't want an AMEX and already have a Nationwide CC with fee free international use, everything else seemed quite rubbish.