The best offers and promotions for credit cards from 0% interest through to introductory bonuses.
Used responsibly, credit cards can help you earn money on purchases, give you stronger consumer protections, make holidays cheaper, help you clear debts or spread the cost of a big purchase.
Everyone’s situation will be different, so these are just the best cards out there – you might have to settle for a shorter deal or lower rate of cashback.
This list is updated at least every month – check the published date to see when this last happened.
Some articles on the blog contain affiliate links, which provide a small commission to help fund the blog. However, they won’t affect the price you pay or the blog’s independence. Read more here.
The best cashback card welcome bonuses
When you’re opening a card, especially a cashback or rewards based card, it’s worth seeing if there’s a welcome offer. And even better, checking to see if it’s boosted.
M&S: £25 in vouchers when you open a credit card
If you apply for a new Marks & Spencer credit card, you can get a £25 M&S gift card.
You have to spend at least £250 across five or more transactions within 90 days of opening your account. Once you’ve qualified, you’ll receive your vouchers within 45 days. There is no closing date for this offer but the terms and conditions state it can be withdrawn at any time.
Asda Money: get up to £20 back in Asda Pounds
If you open a credit card with Asda Money by 13 May 2024 then you can get £20 in your Cashpot.
You have to spend £50 and set up a Direct Debit in your first 60 days. You also get 1% cashback on your Asda spend and 0.3% everywhere else.
This is only available for new customers and you’ll need to stay within the terms of your credit agreement to get the Asda Pounds.
Use our best buy tables to get the best rate on your savings.
Find out if you can get free cash for switching bank.
Best American Express welcome offers: Up to £125 cashback
I’ve more details on the latest offers in my dedicated guide to American Express offers, but here are the top picks for the bonus available for new cardholders.
Boosted Amex welcome offers
- Up to £25 extra via the American Express Platinum Cashback Everyday card
Get the best of our money saving content every Thursday, straight to your inbox
+ Get a £20 Quidco bonus (new members only). More details
Best 0% Purchase & Balance Transfer welcome deals
Before you get a 0% balance transfer card make sure you read my guide to how to properly use them to reduce the cost of debts.
Barclaycard: 0% interest balance transfer for 29 months plus £39 cashback (expired)
With the Barclaycard Platinum balance transfer card, you can get £20 cashback when you transfer a balance of £2,500 or more within 60 days of opening your account. This ends 8 February 2024.
Plus, if you go via Quidco, you can get an additional £19 cashback.
Barclaycard is offering 0% on balance transfers for up to 29 months, although you may be offered less than this if accepted. There’s a 3.45% transfer fee, so you’ll have to pay a minimum of £87.50 to make the transfer, but this could save you money if you’re currently accruing interest on your debt.
The representative APR is 24.9%.
If you’re new to Quidco, you could get up to £20 as a welcome bonus as well.
Bonus cashback: Up to £25
Cashback sites Quidco and TopCashback offer between £20 and £30 to successful applicants for credit cards from Tesco, TSB, HSBC and Barclaycard. Rates can change, so check out both sites.
For balance transfer cards this could work out better than the no-fee option. So for example, the Barclaycard Platinum transfer fee is 0.9%. Transfer £2,222 or less and the cashback wipes out the fee.
These rates can change so it’s worth checking each site to see which pays first.
New to cashback sites? Get an additional bonus of up to £20
Quidco new members can get £20 when they spend £10, while TopCashback new members can get £15 when they spend £10. Find out how to get these bonuses
Our podcast
Listen to Cash Chats, our award-winning podcast, presented by Editor-in-chief Andy Webb.
Episodes every Tuesday.
Best fee-free travel welcome deals
Most credit cards are expensive to use overseas, but a few are fee-free on transactions and withdrawals.
Halifax Clarity: £20 cashback (expired)
Sign up for a new Halifax Clarity credit card and make a transaction within 90 days to get a £20 bonus added to your card.
The Halifax Clarity won’t charge you for spending or using an ATM, but it will charge interest on cash withdrawals.
Best credit building credit card welcome deals
If you’ve got a poor credit rating then spending on a credit card and then clearing the debt completely each month can help boost your score.
I’ve written in detail about this type of card, so make sure you check it out.
Barclaycard Forward: £20 cashback
If you’re eligible for the Barclaycard Forward card then apply via Quidco or TopCashback to get £20 cashback.
Tesco Foundation: £25 cashback
You can get £25 cashback when applying for the Tesco Foundation card via TopCashback.
Get paid to switch bank
Check out the latest bank switching incentives, plus the current accounts with the best rewards, cheapest overdraft and highest interest.
Expired deals
John Lewis: £40 in vouchers when you open a credit card (ended)
If you apply for a new John Lewis Partnership card by 8 January 2024, you can get a £40 gift card to spend at John Lewis or Waitrose.
You have to spend at least £250 at John Lewis and/or Waitrose within 90 days of opening your account. Once you’ve qualified, you’ll receive your vouchers within 45 days.
Virgin Atlantic Reward+: Up to 22,500 bonus points boost (ended)
If you collect Virgin Points rather than Avios, this offer until 4 March 2024 will earn you double the usual points on spending for two months.
| Card | Fee | Requirement | Welcome bonus | Boosted points |
| Virgin Atlantic Reward+ | £160 a year | Spend up to £5,000 before 14 April | 15,000 | Up to 7,500 |
You’ll get 15,000 points with your first purchase with this card, and then double points (so 3 per £1 rather than 1.5 on most spending, or 6 rather than 3 on Virgin Atlantic/Virgin Holiday payments) until you reach £5,000 or 14 April (whichever happens first).
This means the additional points you can earn is capped at 7,500 and a total of 22,500. After this you’ll get the standard 1.5 points per £1 on additional spending.
It’s worth noting the card is fee free abroad if you spend in Euros, Swedish Kronor or Romanian Lei within the EAA or UK. It doesn’t apply to cash withdrawals.
You’ll be eligible for the offer as long as you’ve not held this Virgin Atlantic card in the last six months. If you have the free version of the card you will be able to get this offer.
The offer ends on 4 March 2024.
Is it worth it?
It’s a decent boost, but sadly this is lower than the 34,500 points available from a similar offer that ran late Autumn 2023.
I had a quick look for an off peak flight in November 2024, and those points would be enough to get you a return ticket from London to New York via Virgin Atlantic, though you’d need to pay taxes of around £281 on top. That’s instead of paying cash of around £574. So in this case the points would be worth around £300.
Bear in mind there’s a £160 annual fee, and you won’t get a refund if you cancel it after getting the bonus, so the flight in the example above would actually have cost you £460. But that’s still a saving of £115ish.
There’s also a upgrade voucher to Premium or a 2-4-1 companion voucher if you spend £10,000 across a year.
Of course these calculations will vary by route, date and availability, and you might be able to pay less if you shopped around for other offers.
If you don’t want to use these towards flights you can redeem them at the Virgin Red site, including for train tickets or gift cards at Costa, Nike and Pizza Express. You’ll get half a penny (0.5p) per point, so those 22,500 points will be worth £112.50.
You can also swap for things like Virgin Wine and Gregg’s sausage rolls!
Yonder: 6 months free (expired)
If you sign up for Yonder, you can get yourself 6 months free (usually £15 per month).
Yonder is a reward credit card that lets you earn points to dine out (mainly in London). Travel insurance is included. A nice draw is that it doesn’t necessarily check your credit report as it prioritises open banking data when making a decision on accepting or rejecting your application.
You don’t have to stick around after the free trial and cancel before the 6 months are up.
Sainsbury’s Bank: £40 boosted Nectar offer (expired)
Open a new Nectar credit card from Sainsbury’s Bank (it’s different to the Amex one) and spend £400 in the first two months at Sainsbury’s, Argos, Habitat or Tu to receive 8,000 bonus Nectar points, worth £40
Occasionally the offer is increased to 10,000 points.
When you first mentioned the M & S offer, the gift card for signing up was £40.00 was that an error on your part or have they since reduced it to £25.00.
It’s been reduced to £25
Looks like John Lewis may have extended their Triple Points offer. The landing page (still) says “Earn up to 3.75% in points ,,, for the first 90 days”. If that’s correct this, together with the 6 months interest free purchases, makes a decent 2nd installment in my stoozing campaign (following on from my 12 months interest free M&S card). Confusingly, if you click through to the terms & conditions, there’s a section entitled “Triple points offer 2022” but there’s no specified end date as far as I can see.
Llyods and Halifax don’t have the cashback cards anymore
Hello,
Re John Lewis new Credit card and triple points for first 90 days.
I applied for the new card (swopping over from the old John Lewis card), but I do not recall there telling me that triple points can be obtained. Don’t recall seeing it in any of their correspondence. I might have missed it of course.
Also, a word about the letters sent out. John Lewis will send you a letter containing a code for you to use to verify who you are. Prior to any online application.
This code does not always work. Did not for me, and I had to apply without using the code sent in the letter, going through more security checks because of it.
The additional checks worked, and I was awarded my new card. But people need to know that applying for this new card is not straightforward.
Thank you.
End.
Hi Andy, looks like there’s a new player in the Avios rewards credit card market which could become your top recommended. It’s also a Mastercard which has an additional bonus over Amex.
https://www.barclaycard.co.uk/personal/avios
Yep, going to write it up later this week and put a video on YouTube too. It’s got potential!
Not sure if you’re able to ask Barclaycard press office in time for your article whether the Welcome bonus rules on Barclaycard Avios are the same as Amex in terms of the 2 year waiting period between welcome bonuses. Their terms are unclear on this:
“3.2 We’ll only apply one Avios Welcome Bonus in relation to your card to your BAEC account during the lifetime of your card account. If you close your card account after you receive your Avios Welcome Bonus and then open another Barclaycard Avios card account within 2 years after you closed the original account, you will not be eligible for another Avios Welcome Bonus.”
For me, this is unclear – does it mean the 2 year waiting period starts from 2 years waiting period starts from a) the date I last earned the welcome bonus during the previous period of card ownership or
b) the date on which I cancel the card during the previous period of card ownership
I read this as the same as Amex. So you’d need to cancel and wait two years before you can get another welcome bonus.
The Amazon Card is now giving a 30 pond voucher
Thanks!