What Are The Best Reward Credit Cards For Low Spenders?

Flying away business class and staying at luxurious hotels isn’t just for the rich and famous nor is it only for those who put thousands and thousands of pounds through credit cards every month! Worried that you don’t spend enough to make collecting points worthwhile? Here are some of the top reward credit cards for low spenders…

This is our experience using the points system to collect as many points as possible and is not a recommendation of any financial product. Always seek independent financial advice before taking any credit product out.

Choose a program

As you don’t have high amounts of spend to put through multiple cards it’s better to focus on collecting one type of ‘point’ to be able to redeem a reward quicker. Think of it this way… 10,000 Avios is enough to get you a return Avios flight but 3000 Hilton points, 4000 Marriott points & 3000 Avios won’t get you anywhere!

What’s the best program?

That depends heavily on you! Would you prefer to use points to fly or for hotels? How many points are you likely to earn a year? How many points do the flights/hotel stay you want cost? If you ignore any sign-up bonuses £500 spend on a membership reward would net you 500 points a month, if the flight you want costs 120,000 it would take you 20 years to save for it! Don’t worry if you don’t want to wait that long however you can utilise sign-up bonuses to supercharge your earning… but more on that later!

I still don’t know what scheme to choose…

If you are indecisive or want the ability to decide later choose an American Express membership reward earning card as these give you the flexibility to redeem your points into different schemes later. You can view the schemes this includes here – https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/rewards/membership-rewards/search?q= – popular ones include British Airways Avios, Hilton Honors Points & Marriott Bonvoy Points.

Don’t forget by choosing to earn points through credit card spend remember you are doing this instead of putting spend through a cashback credit card so there is always a ‘cost’ involved.

For example, rather than spending on an Amex membership reward card (1 point per £1), you could put your spending on the Amex Platinum Everyday Card which earns 0.5% on spending up to £10,000 & 1% on spending above that. That means you’d in effect be paying 0.5p a membership reward point if you spend under £10,000 a year.

Another option you could compare to is the Amazon Platinum Card (potentially good if you shop at Amazon a lot), if you are an Amazon prime customer you’d receive 3 points per £2 spent at Amazon and 0.5 points per £2 elsewhere. 1000 points equal a £10 voucher which means by ‘choosing points’ you’d be missing out on 1.5p of Amazon credit per membership reward point on spending at Amazon and 0.25p worth on spending elsewhere.

If you are looking for a good comparison of cashback/reward credit cards take a look at Money Saving Expert’s guide here – https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/best-credit-card-rewards/

So… What Are The Best Reward Credit Cards For Low Spenders?

We’ve included cards that are FREE with no annual for at least the first year. If the second year has an annual fee just cancel before the first year is up.

Amex

These are sorted in order of the amount of spend required to hit the sign-up bonus.

1. The Free British Airways American Express earns 1 Avios per £1 spent and has a sign-up bonus of 6,000 Avios (if referred) from spending £1,000 in 3 months (£333 a month)
2. The Free Amex Rewards Credit Card earns 1 Membership Reward per £1 spent and has a sign-up bonus of 6,000 membership reward points (if referred) from spending £2,000 in 3 months (£666.66 a month)
3. The Nectar American Express (£25 annual fee FREE for the first year) earns 2 Nectar points (converts to 1.25 Avios) per £1 spent and has a sign-up bonus of 21,000 Nectar points (if referred) (13,125 Avios if converted) from spending £2,000 in 3 months (£666.66 a month)
4. The Amex Gold card (£140 annual fee FREE for the first year) earns 1 membership reward point per £1 spent and has a sign-up bonus of 22,000 membership reward points (if referred) from spending £3,000 in 3 months (£1,000 a month)

Non-Amex cards

Outside of Amex you are a lot more restricted for options…

1. The Free IHG Rewards Club Credit Card earns 1 IHG point per £1 spent and has a sign-up bonus of 10,000 IHG points from spending £200 in 3 months (£66.66 a month)
2. The Free Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card earns 0.75 Virgin points per £1 spent and doesn’t currently have a sign-up bonus.

Can I still make ‘big’ points as a low spender?

As a low spender, you have to be more thrifty with the cards you use & more vocal about the benefits. For example, at the extreme end if you and a partner utilised sign-up bonuses you could get 200,000 Avios or 250,000 Marriott points. Even if you only utilised the sign-up bonus of one or two cards you’d still make a chunk of extra points! More vocal about the benefits? Yes for every friend/family member who joins using your American Express referral link you will receive bonus points of up to 90,000 a year. How many points you will earn depends on which card you have, you can see the current referral rates for your card here – https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/benefits/refer-a-friend.html

Can I have an example…

For example, if you can put a maximum of £500 a month through a credit card you would choose a credit card with a sign-up bonus that requires £1500 or under in 3 months. If you choose the free British Airways American Express which requires £1,000 spend within 3 months you’d receive 6,000 points by being referred & meeting the spending target, an additional 1,500 if you spent £1,500 in those 3 months & 4,000 per referred friend/family member. So by meeting the target and referring a friend/family member you’ll have 11,500 Avios points. If they then repeated the same process and referred either you again or someone else you’d together have 23,000 Avios in 6 months. If you continued to spend £500 on one card you’d have 26,000 Avios in a year. This article will give you some ideas of what you can do with those points – https://pointsuncovered.com/american-express/where-can-i-fly-to-for-25000-avios-points/.

Obviously to keep up the earning rate above you’d need to keep referring or getting sign-up bonuses (you can do of course do this) but make sure you are aware of the sign-up bonus eligibility requirements. What a lot of couples do is…

This method would require you to put at least £1,000 a month on a credit card (between you if it makes it easier!) and to pay 2 annual fees of £195 (they are pro-rata refunded when you cancel)

1. Person A takes out the Gold card and gets the sign-up bonus of 22,000 membership reward points (if referred) by meeting the spending target and then refer Person B for a gold card for an additional 6,000 points. This with the 3,000 points from your spend to meet the spend target leaves Person A with 31,000 membership reward points.
   
2. Person B takes out the Gold card from Person A’s referral link and gets the sign-up bonus of 22,000 membership reward points by meeting the spending target and then refers Person A for a premium BA card for an additional 6,000 points. This with the 3,000 points from your spend to meet the spend target leaves Person B with 31,000 membership reward points.
   
3. Person A takes out the Premium BA Card from Person B’s referral link and gets the sign-up bonus of 26,000 Avios by meeting the spending target and then refers Person A for a Premium BA card for an additional 9,000 points. This with the 4,500 points from your spend to meet the spend target leaves Person A with 39,500 Avios. Once the points have transferred to your Avios account cancel your card for a pro-rata refund. If you kept it for 3 months you’d get a pro-rata refund of £146.25 and an overall outlay of £48.75
   
4. Person B takes out the Premium BA Card from Person A’s referral link and gets the sign-up bonus of 26,000 Avios by meeting the spending target. This with the 4,500 points from your spend to meet the spend target leaves Person A with 30,500 Avios. Once the points have transferred to your Avios account cancel your card for a pro-rata refund. If you kept it for 3 months you’d get a pro-rata refund of £146.25 and an overall outlay of £48.75

Over a year with no additional spend, it would leave you both with a total of 62,000 membership reward points (convert 1:1 into Avios) & 70,000 Avios. Converted it would be a total of 132,000 Avios for an overall outlay of £97.50. Not bad right?! 132,000 Avios would get you a return business class or first class to most locations that BA flies to! To see where you can check out our article here – https://pointsuncovered.com/avios/how-many-avios-does-a-flight-cost-in-2021/

In addition to this Person B could refer Person A for any FREE Amex card for an additional 9,000 points before closing their BA card. This would allow you to continue earning points but remember to reset the sign-up bonus eligibility you’d need to cancel your card for 24 months. If Person A or B decided to keep their BA card and reached 10K spend in a year they would earn a 2-4-1 voucher which means you and another person could fly business class/first class to most places!

Conclusion

As you can see although a little more work is required you can still earn great rewards as a low spender, predominately through manipulating sign-up bonuses and referring friends… although your spend will still add a steady trickle of points! Are you a low spender? What is the best redemption you’ve made that you’re most proud of?