Credit cards that also collect points

Does anyone know of a good German credit card with travel points?

You can get a Visa card from Lufthansa which gives you a "Miles & More" point for every Euro spent. It costs 60 Euros per year for the basic one. Have a browse on lufthansa.com for more info.

Or you can get a Payback card. One Payback point for every €4 spent and if you spend your money in a Payback partner shop you get more points too.

Have a look at: www.payback.de

citibank gives you a free credit card. all you need to do is deposit €2500 in a (free) current account.

I recently ordered a VISA from Deutsche Bank, since I opened an account with them anyway. It has an annual fee with it which I typically try to avoid. Also, in USA I'm used to using a credit card that is associated with either a hotel brand (Hilton, Marriott for example) or with an airline (Delta, United, etc) and you get points for each dollar you put on the card.

Can someone please tell me what's a good deal for a credit card in Germany that has this type of point system and has NO annual fees with it? The use of the EC card is great but since everything gets taken straight out of our bank with that, we get no points at all for some of the big purchases we are making since moving to Germany.

Any help is appreciated.

Topics merged by admin

NH, you can get credit cards through airlines, such as Lufthansa. I think you'll find that very few credit cards here offer no annual fee; there's just not the competition among banks here as there is in the US for credit card customers.

Depending on your job, you might automatically get a card from your company that you can also use for personal purchases. My husband's company issued him a Miles and More Visa card from Lufthansa, for example. It has an annual fee, which is reimbursed to him by the company. Purchases of any kind are automatically deducted monthly from our checking account, so it's not so different than EC card purchases. But hubby also uses it for company travel expenses, for which the company also reimburses him.

I think this is a pretty typical arrangement here for people who travel or have other company expenses.

Hey all,
Since this topic is a little old, I felt the need to revisit it. I'm looking to get a credit card. The priorities are (in order)

-No annual fee
-Independent of a bank
-Rewards
-Low Interest

I'm really just looking for something that I can use to securely purchase things online on occasion. So all I really care about is that I don't pay a fee. Rewards would be icing on the cake, and the interest rate isn't an issue since I'll pay it off each month.

I'd hate to go through the pain of changing my bank just to get a card.

[edit: low annual fee will probably have to be acceptable]

Any suggestions?

If you find one, let us know...

They probably wont last long..

Karstadt MasterCard is free.

Work it out yourself - here

This one is free, but you need to open a Giro account with the issuing bank (also free) to have one

Don't forget, the banks aren't charities. They have to make money somewhere, so you might not be able to satisfy all your needs.

There used to be a search facility of the Focus Money website which is how I chose my credit card.
It's free over a certain spend, they waive the non-Eurozone charge for the UK.
Cosmos Direkt in Saarland somewhere. When I once had a problem, it got sorted out quickly.

"Free" stuff like airline miles and insurance on purchases you pay for in other ways.

My "work it out yourself" link is to the Focus comparator.

Great minds think alike YL6.

Yet they manage to make money in the US or the UK, and they offer all these things. I even had a credit card in the UK that would give me back 1.5% of the money I put on it.

Banking in Germany sucks.

UK credit card companies are pretty hard on the retailers and since "Chip and PIN" devolve most of the risks onto them. The German companies seem softer on on the retailers. I'm not sure it's German banks that suck, but banks in general. I've had as many, albeit different arguments with both

Except the UK banks are increasing unhappy about how they are making no money, indeed losing money on credit card customers that whore around for such deals and are cutting them back.


There's a different attitude towards credit that comes from society.
The UK is one of the worlds biggest debtors for personal credit and Germany one of the countries with the largest personal savings.
In the "how can I treat my customers like shit" stakes, the UK high street banks are pretty much champions.

Try getting an Amex Blue-Card. You can collect bonus-Points (1 Point for every 2 EUR) and there is no annual fee if you surpass a certain amount of money spent with the card.
http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif/cda/p...41,18092,00.asp

Try finding anywhere that will accept it in Europe!
It's spurned by MANY retailers becasue the charges are too high.

There are a couple of credit institutions in the US now that gives you money back for every purchase you make on the Credit Card. They simply round the amount you spend up to the next dollar and put that rounded up amount into a savings account.

The amount we have been spending lately I reckon I could have a world cruise saved up for in two months...

But AmEx is not a credit card - it's a charge card.

Yeah, I agree about the Amex.. it is already difficult to use, I'll just probably get the AA miles card and cough up the 75 euros a year

JAYSUS, WHY ?

Get a German Visa card from the links above innit.

i thought the way they did it was that if you spent $49, 60, they charged your current account $50 and put 40cts in your savings account. I didn't think they actually 'gave' you any money.

oh and another thing, you can actually purchase the Lufthansa Miles&More credit card with miles, so need to actually 'pay' for it.

Karstadt or payback card - only thing I'm not sure about is the interest rate, as I've always paid mine directly from my GIRO. Both give "Rewards" in form of points/digitis for their own store and partners - and with Payback one of the partners is Lufthansa, so you can get travel mile (although that was actually somebody else's request)

Bank of America has a 'keep the change' program. They do give you the 40 cents and deposit to your savings account. Most "cash back" cards simply give you a percentage of your purchase back at the end of the year, it is usually 1-3%