For whatever reason, NatWest and Air Miles have parted company. For years, NatWest was the bank where you could earn miles, certainly with the spend on a credit card and sometimes with the purchase of other products. This arrangement has now come to an end, NatWest do not offer Air Miles at all with anything (you can now get Air Miles with 'Lloyds TSB Airmiles Duo credit card' however, which I have reviewed for Ciao) and NatWest have launched a new scheme - NatWest YourPoints
NB I believe at the moment that NatWest YourPoints is only available to people who used to hold a NatWest Airmiles credit card - so don't be surprised if you can't get your hands on one yet - but I expect they plan to roll them out later.
**What is NatWest YourPoints**
YourPoints
is a loyalty scheme for NatWest, where spend on their credit cards earns you points in their scheme which can be spent on travel. Points are earned at the rate of 1 point for each £1 spent.
In simple terms, NatWest YourPoints is another 'loyalty currency' like AirMiles, Tesco Clubcard points, Nectar or any other. This does not help you much (how much are they worth?), so I will give a few examples below:
With YourPoints, you can book flights with easyJet, make any bookings through ebookers and can also travel with AmericanAirlines. The YourPoints brochure quotes some examples based particular prices in 2007 prices (which of course are subject to change):
Fly from London to Prague - 8,100 YourPoints (return) inc taxes or 3,500 excl taxes Fly from London to New York - 56,900 YourPoints (rtn) inc or 43,100 excl taxes
To translate, this suggests a spend of £8,100 to earn the tax-inclusive return air fare to Prague, or a credit card spend of more than £43,000 to earn a round trip seat to New York - or more than £86,000 spend for two (or £113,800 if you wanted taxes included).
A three star hotel in Prague is quoted at 6,300 YourPoints for a night - spend another £12,600 to earn the points to stay for two nights. In New York, a 4* is given as 42,400 points for a two night stay (and this is in July, which is low season).
Adding this up, you would have to spend £28,800 on your NatWest Credit Card to get a round-trip flight to Prague from London with two nights in a 3* hotel. For a little light shopping Manhattan style, you would need to spend a whopping £156,200 on your credit card to get this trip - phew!
**How do I earn YourPoints**
Once you have your card, you need to register at www.natwest.com/yourpoints or call the dedicated line on 0845 072 7629
You earn points when you use the card for purchases. The following transactions do not earn YourPoints:
Cash advances Balance transfers Money transfers Cheques or promotional cheques Transactions which are treated as cash or cash advances according to the terms and conditions
**Good or bad?**
NatWest does offer a 0% interest deal on balance transfers and purchases for 13 months. There is a 2.5% fee when you transfer a balance during the first three months from account opening, with a minimum fee of £5. You also get 0% interest on new purchases for three months.
Cards on offer include the Classic, with a typical variable APR of 13.9% (minimum age 18 years)
NatWest offers a Gold Card (minimum age 21 and typically earning over £20,000 per annum) which includes overseas medical and legal assistance as standard. This is also typical 13.9% APR.
For those over 25 years of age and earning at least £25,000, there is a Platinum card which includes travel discounts and complimentary travel insurance (13.9% APR)
There is also a Student card, which has an 18.9% variable APR.
The YourPoints brochure says you can collect YourPoints on any of NatWest's credit cards.
From what I have seen, these are mid market offerings - you can certainly do better on most counts if you want to
**Two more questions - who issues this card and why do I want YourPoints?**
NatWest is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, the 2nd largest banks in the UK (by cap) and one of the largest banks in the world.
As I said above, YourPoints is their new loyalty currency. If you deal with them much, this might be very attractive to you.
For myself, I have returned my card and closed my account. This does not look like a good enough deal to me.
Pictures of NatWest YourPoints Card
YourPoints
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Sep 27th, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
