What Can You Earn with a Reward Credit Card in the UK?

What is a Reward Credit Card? and Who Are They For?

Reward credit cards offer you rewards – such as loyalty points, cashback or airline miles – on your everyday spending. If used strategically they represent an opportunity to earn back on your spending as you go, simply by being selective about the payment method you use. However, they aren’t necessarily for everyone, so thinking about how you might use one and – if appropriate – which card(s) make most sense is important. This blog post is based on my experience of using cards and aims to highlight some points to consider.

Note: This is an independent blog created for information and entertainment purposes. My posts are based on personal experience and nothing here should be interpreted as financial advice. It is your responsibility to research which products make sense for your own circumstances.

Put simply, in my opinion a reward credit card might be worth thinking about only if you:

• Intend to pay off your balance in full each month – i.e. you do not intend to actually borrow any money (because a reward credit card is very unlikely to offer the best interest rate).
• Expect a good proportion of your normal outgoings to be transactions that you could pay for via a credit card, such as groceries, travel, fuel, etc. (because you should aim to earn rewards on money you spend anyway and not increase your spending to earn rewards).

As you might guess from the focus of my blog, I often carry multiple reward credit cards in order to maximise my perks, returns and referrals. However, I am fairly organised in my approach – including keeping a spreadsheet of transactions and planning travel spending carefully.

What Cards are Available?

Reward credit cards typically come under a few key categories:

• Cashback cards – e.g. American Express Cashback Everyday Card or Santander Edge Credit Card
• Airline cards – e.g. British Airways American Express cards or Virgin Atlantic Credit Cards
• Hotel point cards – e.g. Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card
• Other loyalty points cards – e.g. American Express Nectar Credit Card or HSBC Rewards Credit Card

It is worth noting that there are also examples of reward debit cards, which may offer a lower risk option if you’re not sure about a holding a credit balance. For example, there are two Hilton Honors Debit cards and an IHG Revolut Rewards Debit card is expected soon.

How Much Can You Actually Earn?

One of the key criticisms I’ve heard about reward credit cards is that they are a lot of effort for what can be a return of <1%. Depending on the approach, this may be partly true – however, firstly if you keep it simple, a 1% return should be able to be achieved with minimal effort – and secondly, a 1% return ignores the potential for increased value (particularly as a new customer) through welcome bonuses, referral bonuses and card offers.

Many cards offer welcome bonuses, which can significantly enhance the return in year 1. This is perhaps where the effort bit comes in – because it’s true that earning >1% can involve some planning and potentially switching once the bonus period is up.

To illustrate, let’s look briefly at £10,000 spending on the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card for a new customer as an example (Important this focuses simply on reward points, uses current May 2026 offers and assumes all balances are paid in full and only the first year is used)

• Card fee – free in first year (£195/year if not cancelled thereafter)
• Card spending – 10,000 American Express points – (£10,000 @ 1 point/£ spent)
• Welcome bonus after £5,000 spend in 6 months – 40,000 American Express points (May 2026 offer)
• Referral bonus (Amex refer a friend link) – 5,000 American Express points

Total points earned: 55,000 points

If we take a floor value of 0.45p/point (which is the value of points are used as an American Express statement credit) these would be worth £247.50. A more generous value of approx 1p/point when converted to airline points would give a value of £550. Based on a £10,000 spend this means a return of somewhere between 2.4% and 5.5% on that spending (For additional context see my post regarding American Express points value).

Note – there is also a 5,000 points bonus for spending £10,000 in a year, however this assumes the card is renewed, meaning the annual fee of £195 would then apply.

If I wanted to maintain >1% I might not prioritise spending on the same card in year 2 though. For example, I might move to the Virgin Atlantic Credit Card and work towards the welcome and referral bonus there.

Planning Your Welcome Bonus Approach:

Given the welcome and referral bonus can significantly increase your return in year one, it’s always worth thinking about this before applying. In most cases you’ll only get the welcome bonus as a new customer, so you’ll want to maximise this. This means looking at which card or option from any given provider makes the most sense to you (for example, how much do you need to spend to earn the bonus and is there an annual card fee).

For example: You apply for the American Express Rewards Card, meet the spend requirements and get the 10,000 points welcome bonus. You then decide you’d like to upgrade to the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card (first year free) for increased perks. However, you won’t then be able to benefit from the 20,000 points bonus on that card, so would have been better off opting for that in the first place. This is because American Express rewards card welcome bonuses typically only apply if you have not held a card within the past 24 months.

It is also worth watching out for enhanced welcome bonus offers whilst you’re thinking about potential options. It is not uncommon for providers to have periodic temporary offers with increased welcome bonuses – for example, at the time of writing, both the Virgin Atlantic Credit Cards and the American Express Rewards cards have enhanced bonus offers.

What Should You Watch Out For?

There are a few key things to consider when applying and spending on a reward credit card:

• High APR – as above, if you don’t pay your balance in full, then APR will typically be higher on a reward credit card than on other credit cards. As a result, charges will often then cost you more than the value of the rewards you’ve earned.
• Foreign Exchange and cash advance fees – in many cases it won’t make sense to use a rewards card abroad, because the fees will outweigh the rewards. There are exceptions (for example the Virgin Atlantic credit cards have 0% fees within the European Economic Area)
• Fees – when researching cards, factor in any annual fee when working out your potential rewards return.

Should you Pay for a Reward Credit Card?

A number of Reward Credit Cards have a fee free or fee paying option. This includes both the Virgin Atlantic Credit Card and British Airways American Express. The fee paying option will typically have a higher bonus and/or reward rate. When making a decision it’s therefore important to check the potential rewards you’ll earn and factor in the fee – this will involve calculating the bonus on your potential spend (similar to my calculation above) and comparing rewards and fees. For example, there is little point £160/year for the Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Credit Card, if you don’t expect to earn at least £160 more in rewards than you would on the free  card.

How do I Organise my Spending?

As per the examples above, I typically move my spending between cards to ensure I am earning the maximum possible return. In most cases I am no longer eligible for welcome bonuses, but I also hold some legacy cards – including the Hilton Honors Barclaycard – through which I maintain Hilton Honors Gold Status by spending £10,000 per year. Thereafter I simply do the calculations in terms of potential returns on each card – particularly prioritising the flexibility and transferability of American Express Rewards Points.