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)
Yes to CC but no AMEX:
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?
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.
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 
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.
First year the AMEX Gold is free so will give that a go i think
Yeah, I have been thinking of that myself but very unkeen on the fee after the first year.
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. 
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.
So you get £84 worth of lounge passes plus £120 of Deliveroo so slightly ahead if you use all those.
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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.
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