Direct Debit or Credit Card

Banking
1

I will admit, this idea started by me looking at how I could make it ‘less easy’ for my water company to be paid.

But, I have now gone down the hole of looking at if I could switch a reasonable amount of regular direct debit payments onto a credit card, and go all in for the reward points. I think I spent too much time on this!

So far, I have this lot that I could switch out - complicated by whether I can use AMEX or not.

Yes to CC incl AMEX:

  • Energy supplier
  • TV subscription

Yes to CC incl AMEX via PayPoint (the local coop accepts amex for PayPoint)

  • Council Tax
  • TV license

Yes to CC but no AMEX:

  • Water company
  • Broadband

There’s a few that can pay with CC but only annually, not monthly:

  • Home insurance (other providers may have other payment options)
  • Pet insurance

Then there’s a few others I just don’t know yet and would need to contact the provider.
Plus, there’s a few other bills I already pay monthly on credit card so could ensure I’m making the most of using a CC with rewards.

Anyway, based on some quick maths, if I switch what I can to CC payments, I reckon annual amounts for bills/subs are in the region of:

Total CC spend on bills: £13,500
AMEX only payment: £3500 (or £6,900 including PayPoint payments).

I have not looked at other ways to pay, like BillHop or Curve.

Wasted exercise and I should just stick with direct debits and keeping things easy?

2

Not wasted. I do this but more passively in that when something new comes up, I check if I can Amex it. Running through your list, I think I likely have everything that can be on Amex on it already. Thinking about some more insurances but, as you’ve found out, it’s mainly annual for CC payments.

3

Thanks for your experience with this, good to know! Think I will look at AMEX Preferred Rewards Gold card. Just need to time it to ensure I spend £3k in the first 3 months :slight_smile:

4

I’m too stingy to pay the £200. I’ve the free BA Amex. They sometimes do an offer of 25000 Avios on signup which is more or less a trip to Europe. If you can manage to spend enough to get the companion voucher, it’s two trips to Europe.

6

First year the AMEX Gold is free so will give that a go i think :slight_smile:

7

Yeah, I have been thinking of that myself but very unkeen on the fee after the first year.

8

The fee works out about the same as Netflix if you break it down over 12 months --just put £16 away every month into a savings account from day one and you’ll hardly feel it. :wink:

I guess the bigger question is whether you can make the perks work for you. I’d like one, but I don’t travel much at the moment so wouldn’t get much use out of them.

9

So you get £84 worth of lounge passes plus £120 of Deliveroo so slightly ahead if you use all those.

1 Like
10

You don’t get £120 of Deliveroo, you get 24 x £5 vouchers, staggerred monthly over a year and with a month or so expiration. One voucher per order.

It’s exceptionally hard to get £120 of genuine value from the benefit.

3 Likes
11

I’d be very determined :rofl:

1 Like
12

Not necessarily a wasted exercise - it’s better than watching the telly imo. However, feels like a lot of effort. What is the genuine value you get out of this?

13

Given that you have to be a frequent flyer and, at least 50% of aircraft at any given terminal are likely to be a Boeing, I’m not sure the risk/reward equation is going to be easily balanced. :rofl:

1 Like
14

Could be worse. You could be one of the two people sitting on top of a Boeing rocket yesterday. Like what could go wrong there? Well, apart from the odd door falling off?

15

Given the corner-cutting they’ve been doing with aircraft maintenance, the idea of a Boeing spacecraft is…unsettling.

There’s a really good documentary about them on Netflix at the moment.