What's your favourite credit card for perks?

[slimdown]

We've been with Tesco for years, but the erosion of benefits and the fact we are considering shopping elsewhere means I want to re-evaluate. Curious to know your favourite perk cards? We are switching to Ocado so no credit card to take advantage from there I don't think. We do like to fly with Virgin but not sure if I want the tie nor do it frequently enough to benefit from air miles. The Amex cards look good but I worry about their acceptance.

(We have separate cards for foreign travel so don't need to worry about that)

What do you like?

American express, 5% cashback for the first 3 months and then 0.5% thereafter😁.

@Brahumbug do you find it is widely accepted? Online etc?

We have John Lewis for the vouchers, though they are not as good as they used to be.

We have British Airways Amex. It's accepted in about 95% of places I've been. I used to have an Amex about 10 years ago and found it wasn't accepted at as many places back then, but now almost everyone takes it. We got a bonus of 70,000 airmiles for spending £3k in the first 3 months, and then you get a companion reward flight if you spend £10k annually.

Another one for John Lewis, I spend a lot in there and you get double points on anything spent in JL.

@DappledOliveGroves thank you, I have to admit airmiles really confuse me! We spend about £30,000 on our credit card a year, would this get us a good amount of airmiles do you know? Not sure if there is a calculator for such things!

@slimdown There are various sites that give you an idea of how many airmiles you need for various flights (Use our BA Avios Calculator for British Airways Points Redemptions (thriftypoints.com))

I decided this year to focus attention on airmiles and so I can't say much yet, but I took out an Amex gold card (and got 50,000 bonus points which I can convert to numerous different airlines' airmiles schemes. I'm going to add mine to the Virgin Airmiles I've already got and plan to use the airmiles to upgrade from economy to first class to New York next year). I also get access to airline lounges round the world with my Gold card!

Then DH took out the BA Amex premium card and got a 70,000 points bonus for spending £3k in three months. These will be Avios points, and should be enough for three of us to fly return to Greece next year so that should mean we only have to pay for a hotel for our summer holiday. We also collect Avios through Nectar points, so my plan is that the majority of all our flights for the foreseeable future should be almost free, or significantly cheaper, just by us using our credit cards for day to day spending.

Bear in mind the BA Amex card has an annual fee of £250.

@DappledOliveGroves thank you that's really useful, I will have a play around with the calculators.

@slimdown
Brahumbug do you find it is widely accepted? Online etc?
A few places don't accept it, but most do, especially the places you spend a lot of money such as supermarkets and petrol stations. I use it online all the time as the customer support is excellent. I had an item not turn up up. It was only £38 , so not covered by section 75 protection but they still reimbursed me.

American Express all day long. Their service is also second to none.

I do have a back up Pulse MasterCard for places that don't take Amex. That pays 0.25% cashback.

Amex 0.75% cashback, once £10k spent, 1.25% cashback. This nets me around £200 a year.

I have an Aqua 0.50% cashback card for non Amex spend, which is very little these days.

I've started using my Chase 1% debit card more, I like the roundups to a 5% account too.

Thanks all. Considering the BA Amex card, to anyone who has that, could my husband sign up for it but link it to my BA/Avios account?

Reason I ask is there is another excellent Mastercard with Avios sign up bonus and would like a back up for Amex, but don't want to get refused signing up to 2 credit cards at the same time, I would like us each to have the separate card (would get joint cards with them too) but pool into one Avios account? Is that doable?!

I use an M&S credit card. The reward vouchers aren't the most exciting, but I buy the kids underwear or get myself a couple of bras with them or we treat ourselves to a nice bottle of wine. They also send a few money-off or extra points coupons through every quarter which is nice. It's also a Mastercard which is accepted everywhere, unlike Amex which is less readily taken at independent stores and restaurants