Best credit card rewards for all spending

[CupcakeCrumbs]

Am looking for a credit card recommendation to use for all monthly spending where I earn points/rewards or cash back? I need an additional card holder for DH and together we spend about £2000 a month. Have used Barclaycard for their rewards for decades but am increasingly disheartened with them, and am looking for recommendations/ideas to get the most out of this please!

I use BA Amex. Not sure if it is the 'best' but we save up for business class flights and love it for that.

Thank you but we are lucky if we afford a flight abroad at the moment so don’t feel air miles would be much of a benefit. Ideally I’m hoping for cashback or points that turn into vouchers. I’m trying to make our money work the hardest it can in this climate.

Ww have a John Lewis card which gives a reasonable return in vouchers, which we save for Christmas presents.

I put all my monthly spends on AmEx Nectar. You’d get approx £25 worth of points on a £2k monthly spend. It gets transferred over to your nectar loyalty card each month, so I put it towards a Sainsbury’s shop.

Lloyds are doing 1% cashback

This sounds great. Do you have any problems with places not accepting Amex? I know the bakery in our village doesn’t accept it!

Yes I've just got their new Ultra credit card. 1% cashback for the first year, reducing to .25% after that.

Get an avios barclaycard or amex. You can transfer to all sorts of other point programs. If you build a lot of avios, transfer to nectar & spend on shopping. Look for cards offering bonuses and aim for them. Always pay onto what you spend so no interest.

I am currently using John Lewis but their scheme has reduced their points now so am going to go for the Lloyd's 1% one.

Some businesses don't take AMEX, but all the places that you are likely to do big spends in, such as supermarkets and petrol stations, do.

This Amex one is cash back - and I make about £400 a year plus various extra offers. Through this link will pay you £30 I think which more than covers the £25 annual fee

Sorry - edited to say sorry £25, which covers the fee

https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/platinum-cashback?ref=rOSEMB2ZrJ&XL=MIMNS

Yes. There are a few businesses that don't.

I have a barclaycard for when a business doesn't accept amex. I just transfer money to it as I would with amex.

I don't love amex but it does have some good perks and I received 50,000 points for a £5k spend (I just made sure I put all food shops, petrol, hotels, gifts..etc, anything I could use amex with). I'll not keep a amex card long term it was just to get the bonus points.

The trick is. Think about end goal, what do you want to use points for. Which schemes can you transfer about (ie avios, nectar etc etc) and focus on areas of spend where cards can be used and always use them. Don't have lots of schemes, focus on one or two.

Don't get into big debt trying to spend big but be focussed on only two cards and where you can use them for everyday spendings. Be clever - I don't set up a direct debit where I can pay with a credit card (ie council tax and electricity - had to ask organisations if I could do this first and they let me).

Paying with cash is a last resort

I use Tesco which has just been taken over by Barclaycard I think, for all grocery shopping and day to day expenditure, anything from £1K to £2K a month. This has always given me Tesco vouchers that I use for Railcards and top RAC membership.

I use Pulse for my business and get cashback, and for personal Amazon shopping, I use an Amazon card and build up points for Amazon vouchers.

(Smaller shops won't take Amex as the charges to them are very high).

Yeah... we moved (as did many others) when they last overhalled their points and we are now with Halifax which pays a higher % back on the spend, but I miss the vouchers as a physical "reward" ... we fly a lot so have also considered the BA Amex, however, morally we don't "like" how much Amex charges to businesses and we dont fly with One World Alliance much these days either.

I have a M&S Mastercard as back up. Only issue I’ve had so far is some parking apps don’t accept it. I think they charge retailers a slightly higher fee, so I imagine smaller businesses may not accept it, but never had an issue with larger retailers.

Brilliant, thank you! I’m aiming to put as much as possible thru the credit card to get the benefits-didn’t know about council tax, great idea!
Ideally I’d like maybe M&S or nectar points (to use in sainso’s as we do shop there for ‘a treat’ and I tend to get a lot of kids clothes/gifts there too. This would help with birthday/xmas gifts too.
a lot of the kids’ clubs go via my debit card each month so I could transfer them too maybe.

Ooh I’ve not heard of pulse? We have a business with a monthly turnover of around £12k so this could be really beneficial maybe?

we use Amazon a lot- what’s an Amazon card? I’ve not heard of this!

I did some research recently and the paid for credit cards seemed the best for awards. My go tos are the Virgin Credit Card & Amex Gold. They compliment each other really well.