Credit cards that reward you for your spending

Do your usual spending with these cards, and you'll get rewarded!

We all love to get something for nothing. And by choosing the right credit card, you can get rewarded with loyalty points, cashback or even airmiles just for using the card for your usual spending.

Reward cards come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes though, so let’s take a look at some examples.

Reward points

There are dozens of different credit cards that offer reward points, so you’ll need to work out which best fits your needs.

For example, if you do all of your shopping at Tesco, then going for the Clubcard Credit Card is probably a good idea, since you get five points for every £4 spent at Tesco and one point for every £4 spent elsewhere. Similarly if you’re a Nectar point collector, the American Express Nectar Credit Card is worth a look, giving you four Nectar points for every £1 spent at Nectar sponsors and two points for every £1 spent elsewhere.

Some banks run their own reward schemes too. NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland have the YourPoints scheme, where you can redeem your points in exchance for anything from holidays and shopping vouchers to spa days. With the YourPoints World MasterCard, you earn one point for every £1 spent on the card. You also get a bonus 2,500 points once you get the card and every year thereafter, while for the first nine months your point rewards are doubled!

Meanwhile, Barclaycard has its own Freedom Rewards scheme. So with the Freedom Rewards Visa, you get three points for every £1 spent at Freedom partners, two points for spending at supermarkets or petrol stations and one point for every £1 spent everywhere else. You also get 17,500 bonus points, worth £30, when you spend £500 in the first three months.

Air miles

One of my favourite ways to get rewarded for spending is air miles, as they can really cut the cost of your holiday. My honeymoon was paid for almost entirely with them!

Again, each different scheme has its own associated credit cards.

So the official Avios scheme (what used to be known as Air Miles) has the Lloyds TSB Duo cards. As the name suggests, you get two cards – a MasterCard and an American Express. The return on your spending is better with the American Express (one Avios for every £1 spent, compared to one Avios for every £5 on the MasterCard).

If you prefer to stick with Virgin Atlantic, you have the choice of the White Card or the Black Card. With the White Card - which is actually two cards, an American Express and a MasterCard – you get one Flying Club Mile for every £1 spent on the American Express and for every £2 spent on the Visa. You also get 3,000 bonus miles with your first purchase.

There’s also the Flybe card from creation. It currently boasts an introductory offer of a bonus return flight (you just pay taxes and charges) when you open the card, while you earn one Rewards4all point for every £250 you spend.

For more on air mile cards, read The best air mile credit cards.

Cashback

If you know that you definitely want free flights or days out as the reward when you’re spending, then the cards I’ve already mentioned are your best bets. But what if you want to keep your options open? If you want to be rewarded for your spending, but don’t know precisely what you want, then a cashback card is worth a look.

With cashback credit cards, you get a percentage of your spend back in cold, hard cash to spend on whatever you want!

For example, the American Express Platinum Cashback Everyday card pays 5% cashback on your spending in the first three months, capped at £125. After that you get a rate of up to 1.25% depending on how much you spend over the year.

Alternatively there’s the Santander 123 credit card. This pays 3% on spending at petrol stations and on train tickets, 2% on department store spending and 1% on the money you spend at supermarkets. However, it does come with an annual fee of £24, unless you have the 123 Current Account.

There are plenty of other cashback credit cards worth a look. Check out The best cashback credit cards.

Don’t spend more!

To get the most out of reward cards, it makes sense to put as much of your usual monthly spending on the cards as possible. However, that’s not an excuse to spend more!

And make sure you pay off your bill in full each month. Otherwise the money you’ll spend on interest charges will wipe out the benefit of those rewards.

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More on credit cards:

The best 0% balance transfer credit cards

The best 0% purchase credit cards

The best credit cards to use on your travels

The best all-round credit cards

The best cashback credit cards