Amazon are offering an “Amazon MasterCard” – it seems that if you apply you get a £10 gift card from them — now I’m something of a numbskull when it comes to finance, so is anyone else aware of this/a user of it? Can I really just sign up and get a £10 freebie and then just forget about the credit card? I wouldn’t want to use it anywhere else and I don’t ever plan on spending £1,000 a year on Amazon. But I enjoy a freebie…
Amazon credit card
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It’s up to you of course, but I’d want more than 10 quid as compensation for the river of shit that’s going to flow into your mailbox/inbox the moment you sign up. I tend to the view that you shouldn’t screw around with credit cards unless you plan to use them. No good will come of it. OOMBA.
I’ve got what started life as an Amazon credit card – you used to get quite generous points on transactions to spend on Amazon. After several mutations it’s now become MBNA, with no points – still got the startlingly high credit limit of 6500 squid though.
MBNA?
https://www.mbna.co.uk/
That’s what I said. But my life doesn’t seem to have changed in any way since they came on the scene.
MBNA is in the process of being taken over by Lloyds: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/20/lloyds-snaps-up-mbna-for-19bn
I used to have Play.com (remember them?) card which had a similarly generous voucher scheme. That too morphed into MBNA and the points scheme stopped after a few years.
I think MNBA always ran them – they operated them in the name of whoever was offering up the vouchers and discounts, and hoped to keep the customers when the sponsoring company pulled out.
OOMBA-be-do-be-da-ba-doo-bop!
Yeahhhhh….
Like @mikethep I had an earlier version where you got something like £10 in Amazon vouchers for every £1k spent. When they stopped the vouchers I binned the card and switched to one from Asda which gives me back 0.5% of everything I put on it. This new Amazon card seems to offer both £10 up front plus the equivalent of 0.75% of all spend on Amazon and 0.5% of any other spend back as vouchers.
This may or may not be worth your bother – I know some people don’t use credit cards at all. I use them a lot, so this “cash-back” is worth having. They are absolutely not worth having if you don’t pay the bill in full every month, as their interest charges are well above the norm.
Worth a look here if you want to know more
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/cashback-credit-cards
We use John Lewis credit cards (middle class ponce klaxon) which gives us JL vouchers according to how much we spend. We save them up and either buy something nice or pay for the Christmas grocery shop. We could get a card that gives cash back or air miles but this suits us.
Us too, on all counts. Using it at Witrose etc we get tons of vouchers over a year. Always pay all cards off each month so every one’s a winner.
I can’t trust myself with credit cards so wouldn’t get one if they were giving me a steak dinner and a handjob at signup, but like Mike says above, nothing’s free. You’ll be fighting the spam off with a shitty stick.
Lovely imagery, bob 😉
I imagine it’d be rather difficult to concentrate on cutlery control.
Taking advantage of interest-free periods to help clear a high balance would be the only reason I’d recommend anyone to sign up for a new card. Discount offers are just tools to make you spend more (often on things you wouldn’t otherwise buy) and get into debt so that they can get interest payments from you.
I imagine getting an Amazon card would indeed fill your inbox with spam, but it’s easy enough to block the stuff from known sources.
It depends how you use a credit card. I use mine like a debit card and clear it every month so I want a decent cashback offer. If my current card (a Nationwide one) stops giving me this, I’ll swap to another one and I won’t give two hoots what the interest rate is cos I’ll never pay it.
I have 4 credit cards with a combined credit limit in excess of £50,000 – I have a smallish balance on two of them but don’t pay any interest. Debt if managed correctly is perfectly fine. I have the highest credit rating and you can’t get that without using credit in some way.
Also there is no way I would go abroad without a credit card.
However a £10 Amazon voucher is not the best offer available – I have free family travel insurance, access to Airport lounges and fee free use overseas.
Re the spam comments – I’m a total credit card tart and I’ve never had a problem. One mail a month saying “it’s time to pay”. Wish I could say the same for the online plumbing merchant or the printer cartridge company who seem to think daily updates are a good idea.
No, I would not advise signing up for a Credit Card you don’t really want in exchange for a £10 Amazon voucher. Please don’t do it.