PayperWIZ

Best credit cards in United Kingdom, by what they actually pay

Every card in the United Kingdom catalogue, ranked by what it genuinely returns on each kind of spending — after the monthly cap, and after the minimum spend some cards require before any bonus rate applies.

29 cards · catalogue v101 · 6 of 29 read from the issuer's own terms

The best rate here with nothing attached to it

Marriott Bonvoy Amex pays 1.60% on everything else with no monthly cap and no minimum spend to unlock it — which is rarer, and worth more over a year, than most of the larger numbers in the table below.

The 6 United Kingdom cards read off the issuer

Every rate on this page came from somewhere. These ones came from the bank's own published terms, read by a person on the date shown, with the cap and the minimum spend that the comparison tables leave out. Each has its own page.

Every category in United Kingdom

In the order people spend, not biggest number first. The highest rate on a card is routinely the one that means least, so what limits it is shown beside it.

Best published return per category in United Kingdom, from 29 cards. The headline rate is one that covers the whole category; where a bigger rate covers only part of it, that is shown underneath with what it covers.
Spending onBest returnCard
groceries1.00%or 2.40% (Sainsbury’s), with Sainsbury's Bank Nectar Credit CardNatWest Reward BlackNatWest · GBP 84 a year
dining0.75%or 3.00% (year 1), with Santander Everyday Credit CardPlatinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
fuel0.75%or 3.00% (year 1), with Santander Everyday Credit CardPlatinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
supermarkets0.80%M&S Rewards Credit CardM&S Bank
online and delivery0.75%Platinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
travel1.00%or 3.00% (year 1), with Santander Everyday Credit CardNatWest Travel RewardscheckedNatWest · GBP 0 a year
phone and internet0.75%Platinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
entertainment0.75%Platinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
pharmacy0.75%Platinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
education0.75%Platinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
government0.75%Platinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
rent and property0.75%Platinum Cashback Credit CardcheckedAmerican Express · GBP 25 a year
everything else1.60%or 4.80% (spend at Marriott Bonvoy properties), with Marriott Bonvoy AmexMarriott Bonvoy AmexAmerican Express
How these were worked out. 6 of the 29 cards here have been read against the issuer's own terms line by line and are marked checked in the tables below. The rest come from each issuer's published material and have not been checked that way. Every rate is converted to what the card actually returns — points and miles are valued at the redemption rate the programme publishes, using the rate anyone can take rather than the best one available after a transfer. Where a card's programme publishes no redemption value, the card is left off this page rather than listed at a number that would be a guess. Caps and minimum monthly spends are shown because they are usually what decides whether a headline rate is real.

This is a table. Your wallet is a decision.

PayperWIZ holds the cards you actually own and names the right one at the till — after the cap you have already used this month, and after the foreign-currency fee. It works offline and needs no bank connection.

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Other markets

The same working, for the other countries in the catalogue.