Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: full list of new HMRC credit card fees, £10 Amazon voucher with Azimo currency transfer

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News in brief:

Nutmeg / Avios offer extended to the end of April

Nutmeg is an innovative online wealth management service which offers a fully managed, discretionary, investment service at a far lower cost than its competitors.  If you are using St James’s Place, Hargreaves Lansdown etc then the Nutmeg fee structure of 0.3% – 0.95% should be of interest.

Using exchange-traded funds, Nutmeg offers no set fees, no transaction fees, no trading fees, no exit fees and no commission.  You only pay your annual management fee.  Your Money voted them the ‘best online Stocks and Shares ISA provider’ for 2015.

Nutmeg recently launched a partnership with Avios which is outlined here.  This can earn you up to 10,000 Avios for opening an account.  The reason I mention this again today is that the deal, which was meant to be a short term promotion until the end of the last tax year, has been extended to 30th April.

Full list of new HMRC credit card charges

I wrote recently about how, from 1st April, HMRC has slashed its credit card fees to roughly 0.4%.  This means, if you have the right Visa or MasterCard, that you can generate miles and points VERY cheaply.

In that article I gave a couple of fee examples based on cards I own.  Reader Elizabeth has now sent me the full list of card fees levied by HMRC which are basically ‘interchange plus’ ie the 0.3% EU mandated fee plus HMRC’s handling charge:

VISA Personal Credit Card 0.415%
MasterCard Personal Credit Card 0.386%
MasterCard World Premium Credit Card 0.374%
MasterCard Signia Premium Credit Card 0.606%
MasterCard Elite Premium Credit Card 0.606%

VISA Business Credit Card 1.508%
VISA Corporate Credit Card 1.744%
VISA Purchasing Credit Card 1.755%
MasterCard Business Credit Card 1.973%
MasterCard Corporate Credit Card 2.248%
MasterCard Purchasing Credit Card 2.406%
MasterCard Fleet Credit Card 2.134%

You can now clearly see the gulf that has opened up between corporate credit cards, which are not impacted by the EU fee caps as long as the bill is settled by a business, and personal cards.  I am intrigued as to how MasterCard is retaining premium fees for its Signia and Elite cards.

£10 Amazon.co.uk gift card with first Azimo currency transfer

Finally, if you need to send some money abroad soon, online money transfer group Azimo is offering a £10 Amazon.co.uk gift card for new customers.

You need to use voucher code AZIMOGIFT when processing your transfer.

Azimo is especially good value for sending money to more ‘obscure’ countries which other online transfer firms do not cover.  For mainstream transactions, compare their prices with TransferWise who are their main competitior.

The promotion is not featured on their website.  In order for the AZIMOGIFT code to be accepted, you need to meet the following criteria:

  • Be a new customer
  • Excludes SWIFT, mobile top up, transfers made with a credit card and transfers from Euro to Euro or GBP to GBP
  • Minimum £50 transfer required
  • Amazon.co.uk gift card will be sent within 60 days
  • Offer ends 30th April

The Azimo site is here.  You won’t see any indication of this offer on the site, but those readers who took part when a similar deal ran at Christmas will confirm that it works OK.

Comments (27)

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  • Daftboy says:

    Just to follow up on the Nutmeg point, I had my Avios credited today (20th April), having invested with them on 4th April. Quite impressive (I was going to invest with them anyway, the Avios were just a bonus)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.