Credit Building > American Express Nectar credit card review

American Express Nectar credit card review

Wollit Team3 minute read · Updated 29th June 2024

The American Express Nectar Credit Card is a rewards credit card with Nectar points for everyday purchases. In theory, this can help you build good habits and improve your credit score.

Let’s have a look.

How does the American Express Nectar rewards program work?

The American Express Nectar Credit Card offers a rewards program that allows cardholders to earn Nectar points on their purchases. Here’s how it works:

You earn 2 Nectar points for every full £1 spent on the card.
As a new cardholder, you can earn a welcome bonus of 20,000 Nectar points when you spend £2,000 in your first three months.
Nectar points can be redeemed with various Nectar partners for various offers and rewards. For example, 20,000 Nectar points are worth £100-200 in Nectar partner stores. In other words, you’re getting about 0.5-1% cashback.
This card also lets you convert your Nectar points into Avios points. The same 20,000 Nectar points can be converted into 12,500 Avios through the Nectar-Avios partnership. If you’re a frequent flyer, this sounds like a pretty good deal.

To get the most value out of this, you’ll need to use the card regularly and redeem your Nectar points wisely at the stores you actually use. Nectar points can be earned and redeemed at major UK retailers like Sainsbury’s, Argos, eBay, and more that partner with the Nectar program. You should also keep in mind that this is only one of the many cards offered by American Express.

How much does the American Express Nectar card charge?

Like most premium rewards cards, the Amex Nectar Card does come with some annual fees and higher interest rates:

A yearly fee of £30;
A representative APR is 37.8%, variable from year two onwards.

The good news is that it doesn’t charge a foreign transaction fee; the annual fee is also waived in the first year.

Who is eligible for the American Express Nectar card?

Being a more premium rewards card, the Amex Nectar card has more stringent eligibility requirements:

You need to be an existing Nectar member;
You need an existing UK bank account;
You need a permanent UK home address;
And you also need to have no history of bad debt.

This means the Amex Nectar card is not a traditional credit-building card despite its higher APR. The high-interest rate is just the trade-off for its lucrative rewards program.

Of course, you can use it to improve your credit score, but because of its eligibility criteria, it’s mostly aimed at those who want to move from a “good” to an “excellent” credit score band.

What do customer reviews say?

American Express has quite bad reviews online. On Trustpilot, one of the largest customer review websites in the world, it only received a rating of 1.5 out of 5 from over 4,000 customers.

These reviews are spread across several countries since Amex is an international company. Looking only at the reviews from the UK that mention the Nectar card, however, we found a pretty even mix of 5-star and 1-star reviews.

On the one hand, most happy customers praised the excellent rewards program, the flexibility of its customer service (for example, during the COVID-19 cancelled flights era), and the generous credit limit.

On the other hand, disgruntled customers complained about confusing promotional offer terms, the bad mobile app and website experience, and the fine print on its rewards program.

Worst of all, we’ve also seen reviews complaining about the credit limit being reduced without the customer ever missing a payment. This could have easily resulted in the credit card being accidentally maxed out, with extra fees and a hit to the credit score as a result. Other reviews mentioned payment holidays being reported as missed payments to the credit reference agencies and also payments not going through due to technical glitches.

Is American Express Nectar worth it?

It depends on whether you shop often at Nectar partner stores and fly often, especially if you’re not looking at making a major credit application—like a mortgage.

This is because the reviews mentioning poor customer service regarding items that may impact your credit rating are quite concerning.

However, if you’re looking to improve your credit score, you might want to look for a credit card with better customer reviews and service.

You might also want to look into an alternative, such as a credit-building app.

One such app is Wollit. Unlike a credit card, Wollit helps you build your credit history by reporting your fixed monthly subscription fee as a loan repayment to credit agencies. This lets you improve your credit score without unexpected fees, maxed-out credit limits, or high APR.