Nectar Connect is growing on me, because it doubles up with Amex cashback offers

Nectar has a ‘card linked offers’ programme called Nectar Connect.

This allows you to earn Nectar points (and therefore Avios) when you link your credit and debit card details to your Nectar account and spend at participating retailers.

What is good about Nectar Connect is that it doubles up with other deals, such as American Express statement credit offers. I am finding this increasingly valuable.

We wrote a long introductory article on Nectar Connect here. The reason we don’t cover it more is that, if you read the small print, you are required to give Nectar a huge amount of access to your financial data.

Nectar accesses the transaction history on your linked cards

To quote from the T&C:

“After you link your payment card account(s) to Nectar as part of Nectar Connect we receive between 6 to 36 months of your historical transaction data, depending on your payment card.”

Nectar will NOT just be using your card data to award you points from participating retailers.  It will be actively mining all of your credit card spending information to find ways of pushing new deals at you.

The only upside is that, under FCA rules for accessing such a level of data, you need to renew your permission every 90 days. If you connect your cards to take advantage of a one-off offer, you don’t need to worry about Nectar having access your spending data until you die (or your card expires).

If you are concerned about Nectar harvesting your financial data, you could register a credit or debit card that you rarely use. However, you’d be missing out because the real value – at least for me – is doubling up on American Express offers.

If you are not a Nectar Connect member already, you need to know two things:

• you cannot see your offers until you have registered a payment card, so you have to give up your financial history before you find out what offers you will get

• offers do not appear immediately after registration – you need to wait a couple of days for Nectar to analyse your card data first

(EDIT: Nectar Connect seems to be throwing up an error message today when people try to link new American Express cards.)

I got a good result with LNER last week

The reason I am mentioning Nectar Connect today is that I have had a good couple of weeks in doubling up with American Express cashback deals.

Last week I had to spend £201 with Grand Central trains. I booked this via the LNER trains website because:

• I had a 12% LNER cashback deal on my American Express Platinum card

• I was offered 10 Nectar points (6.25 Avios) for every £1 spent at LNER via Nectar Connect

Because I redeem 100% of my Nectar points at Caffe Nero, where I get 0.9p per Nectar point (350 Nectar points gets you any drink), I value 10 Nectar points at the equivalent of 9% cashback. This means that I got a total of 21% back on my LNER spend – 12% via Amex and 9% via Nectar.

The rewards have already posted on both cards: £24.12 from Amex and 2,010 Nectar points.

You can combine Nectar Connect with Amex offers, but not necessarily other payment cards

You can be certain, because of the way that American Express sets up its cashback deals, that you will always be able to double up an Amex offer with a Nectar Connect offer if there is one.

This is not necessarily the case with other credit card offers. If you have a cashback deal on your Virgin Atlantic card, for example, it may cause ‘offer clash’ with a similar Nectar Connect offer. Most of the schemes are run by the same company behind the scenes and a merchant will only pay them once on any transaction. This ‘clash’ is one of the biggest issues facing the card linked offers sector, because people are not being paid out for offers they think they are entitled to receive.

Use an American Express cashback offer alongside a Nectar Connect offer and you should be perfectly fine.

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Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.