This new Amex card lets you spread the cost of purchases and pays you cashback on them! But it's only available for a limited period.
American Express has launched a competitive new 0% purchase credit card that comes with an extra treat – cashback on your spending.
With the American Express Platinum Cashback Card Exclusive you can enjoy interest-free purchases for 16 months as well as earn 1.25% unlimited cashback for every £1 you spend.
Plus you'll be able to earn double cashback of 2.5% on all purchases for one month every year, providing you manage to spend over £10,001 on the card in the previous 12 months.
Credit cards which allow you to earn cashback rarely come with 0% introductory purchase offers, which means anything you spend needs to be paid off each month to ensure what you earn isn’t eroded by interest charges.
But with this new Amex card you have the flexibility of waiting 16 months before your balance attracts interest on purchases, making it perfect if you have a big purchase or purchases coming up and you want to spread the payments.
The overall representative APR (the annual combination of fees and charges) on the card is 18.7% once its £25 annual fee is taken into account.
You can apply for the American Express Platinum Cashback Card Exclusive via selected partners including lovemoney until 3rd April 2014, but you’ll need to have a household income of at least £20,000 as well as a good credit history with no bad debt in order to be eligible.
How it compares
The American Express Platinum Cashback Card Exclusive offers a pretty competitive deal when compared to other 0% purchase credit cards.
The longest-lasting 0% introductory period you can find on purchases right now is 18 months, which is on offer with the Santander Purchase MasterCard and the Tesco Clubcard Credit Card for Purchases.
[SPOTLIGHT]These cards both come with representative APRs of 18.9% and are fee-free, unlike the Amex card. But apart from avoiding interest on purchases for 18 months you won't get much else thrown in apart from some short offers on 0% balance transfers.
The Santander Purchase MasterCard comes with nine months 0% on balance transfers with a 3% balance transfer fee. While the Tesco Clubcard Credit Card for Purchases comes with three months 0% on balance transfers for a 2.9% fee, though you can also earn Clubcard points (at least one for every £4 spent on the card, with more when you spend at Tesco).
The only real contender
The only real competition the American Express Platinum Cashback Card Exclusive faces that also combines 0% purchases with cashback comes from the Nationwide Select credit card.
The fee-free card offers 15 months 0% on purchases, commission-free purchases abroad and 0.5% cashback on all sterling purchases. On top of that it also provides 26 months 0% on balance transfers, which only attracts a 0.75% fee. It also offers a relatively low representative APR of 15.9%. But to get all this you need to apply by 31st March 2014.
So the Select is a decent option if you only want to carry around one piece of plastic, although the cashback offer is lower than the Amex Platinum Cashback Card Exclusive.
However, you’ll only be able to get the Select card if you have or open a Nationwide current account.
Earning more cashback
With the Nationwide Select Credit Card and the American Express Platinum Cashback Card Exclusive you get 0% on purchases combined with cashback, but the rate you earn isn’t spectacular.
However, if you are prepared to sacrifice the 0% offer on purchases and you will pay off your balance in full each month you can earn an even higher rate of cashback on your spending via the market-leading cashback credit cards.
The American Express Platinum Cashback Credit Card, for example, pays 5% cashback on purchases up to £2,500 during the first three months, giving you the chance to earn up to £125. Thereafter the card pays a flat rate of 1.25% cashback. It has a £25 annual fee but if you apply before 16th March 2014 you’ll get £25 bonus cashback that will cover that cost. The card has a representative APR of 18.7%.
If you are after a fee-free cashback card then you could go for the American Express Cashback Everyday Credit Card. It offers the same 5% introductory cashback rate but this time on purchases up to £2,000 made in the first three months with the card, which means you could earn up to £100. Thereafter you can earn between 0.5% and 1.25% cashback, depending on how much you spend. The representative APR on this card is 19.9%.
The Santander 123 Credit Card is another alternative. You can earn 1% cashback at supermarkets, 2% at department stores and 3% at petrol stations, National Rail and TFL travel. Unlike other cashback cards you’ll get your cashback paid monthly, so there’s no waiting around. The card attracts a £24 annual fee though, but you can get that waived for the first year if you have or open a Santander 123 Current Account. The representative APR on this card is 22.8%