Free cash (up to £600), freebies, state pension and inheritance tax too!

This week, Martin’s diving into one of his favourite topics: free money. From bank switching bonuses to cashback stacking, it’s packed with practical tips that could put cash back in your pocket. First though, Martin starts with a straightforward back-to-basics guide to Inheritance Tax, explaining who pays it, when it applies, and some of the key rules and myths everyone should understand. Then it’s on to one of the hottest money-making opportunities around right now: bank switching. With some banks offering up to £600 in incentives, Martin breaks down exactly how switching works, who can qualify, what you need to do to get the cash, and whether opening and closing accounts could have any impact on your credit score. Sticking with the theme of boosting your finances, Martin reveals how to become the ultimate cashback king or queen. He explains how savvy shoppers can maximise rewards by combining cashback credit cards, cashback websites and cashback apps, turning everyday spending into a money-saving machine. In this week’s Mastermind, Martin tackles an issue affecting millions: the State Pension. He explains how the triple lock works, what it really means for pension increases in the years ahead, and why understanding it is more important than ever. And, as ever, there’s time for something a little lighter, as Martin gives his verdict on one question many listeners have been asking: would he ever take part in Celebrity Traitors? Free cash, pension facts and plenty of money-saving know-how - it's all in this week’s episode of The Martin Lewis Podcast. If you want to ask Martin a question, you now can! His Question Time podcast lets you ask Martin absolutely anything and everything (within reason!). So, if you’ve always wanted to know what he likes in his full English breakfast, what his thermostat’s set to, or you have a very complicated question about your finances, email it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 1:48Speaker 02

  These are my five need to knows about inheritance tax. It's worth just me running through the best buys. Free cash. Free cash! Yes. So we've gone from a triple lock, we haven't gone to a double lock, we've gone to a 2.5 times lock. There's a lot more I's to dot and T's to cross, but this is your big picture. Have I made sense? You have made sense.

• 2:05Martin Lewis?

  Hello, I'm Martin Lewis and this is the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our big topic episode where each week we lead on one main subject to help you save. Now, usually most of it comes from my BBC Radio 5 live show with Adrian Charles, but there's also bonus money-saving tips and tricks just for you lucky, lucky podcast listeners. And today's episode, well, I'm calling it Free Cash, Freebies and the State Pension. Though, we'll be starting with a quick back-to-basics guide to inheritance tax. Then it's on to the first of the free cash. There are lots of banks right now willing to pay you up to 600 quid to switch to them. I'll go through all the practicals, how it works, the pros and cons, the accounts, the impact on your credit score and more.

• 2:50Martin Lewis?

  Then on to how to be a cash-back king or queen by combining cash-back credit cards, cash-back websites and a cash-back mobile app. And mastermind this week is an important one. It's all about how the changes to the state pension triple lock will actually work. Play the theme tune.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  What do you make of the big story today about it turns out we hardly eat any peas anymore? I'm absolutely shattered by it, I am.

• 3:32Martin Lewis?

  Oh, well, I don't want to pee on that story, but I certainly do eat a lot of peas. My, my daughter and I, we have big bags of frozen peas and sweet corn. So it's a combination, it's not necessarily peas by themselves, but frozen peas and sweet corn. And we have them, you know, it's always if we're having something that isn't the healthiest meal, it's like, let's have a bowl of peas and sweet corn alongside a big, you know, proper, full. I love peas. They're one of the best green vegetables.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  And you're bogging in anything as well.

• 3:54Martin Lewis?

  Well, the thing is, when I was a kid, I didn't like green veg, but the one green veg I would eat was peas. The sort of, they don't, they're not, now I love my broccoli and my spinach and all that, but I know you were a child, broccoli and spinach, but peas? No, peas, they're the, they're the peas knees. Sorry.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  The, I mean, it's rich, it's rich territory for ponners.

• 4:13Martin Lewis?

  Yes, I've just.

• 4:14Speaker 04

  And I know you love a, you love a pond, don't you? I mean, David's got the best one so far, and that's not an invitation. The, the competition's now closed, okay? David's won. He says this topic deserves a podcast.

• 4:25Martin Lewis?

  Oh, oh, I like that.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  That's good. I knew, I knew you.

• 4:28Martin Lewis?

  That was very clever. I wish I'd write stuff like that.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  I knew you'd like that. Any, any other business or shall we?

• 4:35Martin Lewis?

  No, I've had a really busy morning because I've just launched a very big new initiative that unfortunately, due to compliance reasons, because I am not actually allowed to mention on this show, but I did it on Five Live Breakfast this morning and it's absolutely everywhere. And it's a really big new thing. Maybe people take a look at my social media or something because I can't say what it is.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Does it contribute to the Martin Lewis Retirement Fund?

• 4:56Martin Lewis?

  Absolutely not. In fact, it's actually the opposite. It's just £175,000. So there we go.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  All right, okay. Well, I'll, I'll look forward to finding out more about that.

• 5:07Speaker 04

  Inheritance tax has been in the news this week. Explain what's been announced.

• 5:13Martin Lewis?

  Well, what's been announced is effectively the Conservative policy would be that if you give your house to your main descendants, that will be totally tax-free and it won't come in your inheritance tax allowance, and also upping the generalised limits too. So it's probably useful because I think that all sounds very good and I don't want to get engaged in the debate of whether it's good or not. You know, it all depends how you want to shift the money around. But I think inheritance tax is perhaps one of the most fundamentally misunderstood taxes out there. It applies, depending on the stats, to about 5% to 6% of estates. You could argue you might double that because many people, as I'm going to talk about in a moment, when you leave it to your spouse, it's inheritance tax-free, so it's only on the second death. So you could argue that maybe 12% of estates, up to 12%, are actually eligible for it.

• 5:58Martin Lewis?

  And once pensions come into it, that's going to increase, you know, so probably a few more percent as well. But it is fundamentally hated as a tax. Either, I suspect, a combination because people don't understand it and think they'll pay it when they won't, or because people have the idea, what happens if I do get the money and I'll feel it's, you know, it's double taxation. And people hate double taxation, although it's absolutely all over the place, double taxation. You whenever go buy something in the shop, VAT, you've already paid tax on that income. You pay VAT on it, on, on top of it as well. So it is a really interesting one psychologically. People hate it, the death tax, they just hate the idea of it. Of course, the reason it's there is both to raise money for the exchequer, but to stop perpetuated inherited wealth going on generation after generation.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  And it's interesting, you get, it's the most where the avoidance of it. And I mean, that's not to imply this is illegal, but the.

• 6:48Martin Lewis?

  No, avoidance is legal, evasion isn't.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Of course. But the avoidance of it is sort of out in plain sight. I mean, you, you know, there are Sunday supplements have special editions, you know, how to avoid inheritance tax special.

• 7:00Martin Lewis?

  I mean, the two, if I were to sum up how to avoid inheritance tax in two easy tips, spend it or give it away.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:06Martin Lewis?

  If you're going to be paying inheritance tax, you want to spend it or give it away before you go. You do that, there is no inheritance tax. But let's go through. These are my five need to knows about inheritance tax. There's a lot more I's to dot and T's to cross, but this is your big picture. Rule number one, anything and everything you leave to your spouse is exempt. Spouse means you must be married to them or civil partners, not cohabiting. So if you do that, even if you are Bruce Wayne and you leave £2 billion to your spouse, not a penny of inheritance tax is payable on that. First thing to remember. Second thing is the nil rate band, basically your tax-free allowance, is £325,000.

• 7:48Martin Lewis?

  So if your total assets, your estates, your house, everything that you own is less than £325,000, doesn't matter who you leave it to, there is no inheritance tax to be paid. Next rule, there is another allowance for your primary property. You get another allowance of up to £175,000 just for your primary property, as long as you're leaving it to direct descendants. So that's step, adopted children, your own children, obviously, step, adopted grandchildren. They count in that sort of lineal descent. If you leave it to them, you get another £175,000 if you're leaving them your property. So let's now take that and call it, while it isn't exactly, if you don't have kids or lineal descents, it isn't, but many people have £500,000, including their property, they can leave tax-free.

• 8:33Martin Lewis?

  Then we get to the big one, and the one that I think people don't realise. I think people know if you leave it to your spouse, you're fine. But what they don't know is that your spouse also gets your unused allowance. So if I were to leave or I, well, let's, we've done this before. Shall we get married again?

• 8:54Speaker 04

  Yes, let's get married again.

• 8:55Martin Lewis?

  Adrian, we're married. So we're married, we're married. We happen to have purely technically, and everything's joint because in a loving relationship like ours, why wouldn't it be? We have exactly a million pounds of assets between us because that's going to help me explain my son.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:09Martin Lewis?

  I die first and you're going to be really gutted. I mean, you should go wither away, probably, I suspect.

• 9:16Speaker 04

  There'll be compensations, but.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  I'm not just financial.

• 9:21Martin Lewis?

  Cruel, cruel. No more mastermind.

• 9:27Martin Lewis?

  So I die, I leave everything to you, right? You then leave everything to our imaginary children. How gorgeous they'd be. I mean, just very, very beautiful boys and girls that we have. So you then leave everything to them, including the house. Because you're leaving it to direct descendants, that's the 500,000. But you get my unused allowance. We've got a million pounds, you're leaving them a million pounds, including the property. There's no inheritance tax to pay because between us we get a million pounds. Now imagine the same scenario, it gets really complicated to work out. So I'm not going to do the numbers exactly. I leave everything to you. We're not married, but we've been living together as a couple, right? I've just used up my 500,000 pounds, leaving it to you.

• 10:11Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, now some of that tax will be taken out of the estate. So the estate might reduce to say 900,000, not doing exact numbers. You then leave 900,000 to the kids. Well, you've only got 500,000 allowance, does 400,000 roughly, roughly, roughly? That's taxable at 40%. You know, so that's 160 grand of tax. That's the impact of marriage or civil partnership compared to just cohabiting. And so that is a really, really big impact. Final rule number five is where I started, give stuff away. Gifts out of sustainable income, any gifts out of, if you can, out of your income, not your wealth, not your money in the bank. The income you've got coming in. If you can sustainably prove that you can give somebody a gift, you want to give someone a thousand pounds a month.

• 10:54Martin Lewis?

  If you've got the money and can prove it, can give it to them and you're doing it regularly, that is not in an inheritance tax. Because inheritance tax about gifts out of wealth. Anything you give and you live seven years afterwards is not inheritance taxable as long as it's a genuine gift. And even if you die a few years before, then the inheritance tax is lower. You can give 3,000 pounds exempt from inheritance tax each year as gifts. You can give 250 pounds per person, separate to the 3,000 pounds, can't give it to the same people. To individuals as gifts each year. And then there are special exemptions for wedding, depending on your relationship. So start with, spend it below the threshold or give it away. They're the best ways to do it. But as you can see, for many married couples who've got a property and children. It's only above a million pounds you're looking at in inheritance tax.

• 11:39Martin Lewis?

  For single people who've got a property and children, it's above half a million. For those who don't have children and who are single, it's 325,000.

• 11:50Speaker 04

  Shall we move on to the big topic?

• 11:53Martin Lewis?

  Indeed, yes.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  And this would be free cash.

• 11:56Martin Lewis?

  Free cash?

• 11:57Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:58Martin Lewis?

  So I wanted to do something on this because effectively what sparked it at the moment is we've been having a bit of a war going on in the bank account market for giving you free cash to switch bank accounts. And I thought that I would expand that and talk about other types of free cash, specifically cash back credit cards and debit cards. When you spend on them, you get paid on them. And there's also a little cash back app for if you have mobile phone bills, which is quite good as well. But if we start with the three banks, which is, now you've got loads of questions on this, haven't you? But I think probably it's worth just me running through the best buys to start with. One pulled last night, which is a bit of a shame. So the new one out this week is Barclays Bank Account that is paying you 300 pounds for free if you switch to it.

• 12:41Martin Lewis?

  And that's 150 quid at the start, then 30 pounds a month for five months. Now, interestingly, when it launched, its terms said the money must be received via backs from an employer. That what that means is it's saying you've got to pay in 2,000 pounds a month. So it's a salary of about 29,000 pounds going in, but it must be received via backs from an employer. Now I got back to them when I saw this and said, look, I like the offer, it's a great offer, 300 quid. But what about the self-employed? What about people on pensions? What about people who've got some benefit in income that tops them up? They got back, said, oh, we don't mean to exclude them. And I'm like, well, you do, your terms do. And they said, well, just help it. And I'm like, no, you've got to change your terms. They have now, Tuesday it was, they changed the terms at four o'clock. So now that does apply to most income you have, you can get Barclays at 300 quid.

• 13:26Martin Lewis?

  That's its main perk. Next, you've got HSBC, and remember, you have to be new to these banks effectively. They've all got slightly different eligibility rules to switch them. That's giving you 220 pounds for free if you join it, you're new there. Then my top all-rounder pick, First Direct. It's giving you 210 pounds for free at the moment if you switch to it. It's also number one rated for service in all the polls I do, over 90% rate it great. It's got a 7% regular saver, it's got a 0% overdraft up to 250 quid, and it's got a top debit card for spending overseas. Another sort of bigger package, Lloyds is giving 200 pounds for free. Plus you get a choice of rewards like Disney Plus for a year or magazine subscriptions or six free cinema tickets. And then you've got NatWest is giving 200 pounds for free, Nationwide is giving 175 pounds for free.

• 14:12Martin Lewis?

  So you can see that we have a plethora, a huge pot of different bank accounts willing to pay you at the moment. And one of the things to remember at the moment is of course, Christmas is coming. So if you switch right now, just to run through the dates that you would get it. Barclays, if you did everything as quickly as you need to do and you've got to check the eligibility, you could have that by the 27th of November. HSBC by the 17th of December. First Direct by the 22nd of November. Club Lloyds by the 29th of October. You could have all that free cash in time for Christmas.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  Okay, so bank switching, the practicals. Dr. Beauty says, for switching current account, is it mandatory to close the old one? My salary is linked to my current account. Do I need to inform my employer if I switch account?

• 14:57Martin Lewis?

  Well, let's do those two separately. Your old account will be closed. The only circumstances it tends not to be closed is if you have any form of overdraft. Because that can't be switched over and then you can talk to the old bank about not closing it. They may, you could always ask them to keep it open, but the general process is when you are switching. You go through what's called the seven day switching service. Now, it's actually seven working days, so in your head, think it's going to take 10 days to switch across. When you do that, they will close your old bank account for you. They will move over your direct debit, they will move over your standing orders. They will automatically forward any payments made to the old account will go to your new account. So if people are paying you, they should arrive and I hear very, very few problems.

• 15:39Martin Lewis?

  And if I'm hearing few problems, that means the problems generally aren't happening. The only thing that is not automatically moved for you are recurring payments. That's where you give the longer number on your debit card when you pay for something. Common with Netflix and, you know, Amazon Prime and subscription services. What will happen, well, if you don't manually switch that over, then that company will get in touch with you and say, your debit card's no longer working, you've just put your new debit card in, so it isn't a biggie.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  Okay, Pete, is there a risk the mortgage won't get paid? What happens if it does? My credit file will be toast.

• 16:12Martin Lewis?

  I wouldn't think so, you would just pay it from the new bank account. Or old payments are moved across for you, your old balance is also moved across for you. And you switch and one day it's your old account and then it's your new account. The money's in your account, you pay your mortgage. Your direct debit should be switched for you, but I mean, look, a couple of tips. This all, I get 87%, I think it is, people tell me it's easy and hassle free. And most of the rest say, it was a little bit tricky somewhere. I get very, very few reports of problems about payments. But what I would always do, I would always look, when my bank accounts are switched over, the first thing I'd do is check. I'd go to my employer and say, this is my new bank account deal. While the payment be auto-forwarded, that's your most important money coming in. Just do that one manually. And if you're paying your mortgage, I would go into your direct debit.

• 16:57Martin Lewis?

  Once it's set up on the new account, which should be as soon as it's opened, I'd go into the page that lists direct debits and standing order. And I would just check all the important ones are still in there and are being paid. And the payment dates are what you want and it should be absolutely fine. But I mean, that's belt and braces. Generally, it's all fine anyway.

• 17:12Speaker 04

  Andy, if I have a current account and multiple savings account with one bank, what happens if the new bank wants to close my old current account? How do I move money around my savings account with that bank? Or do I have to move those as well?

• 17:23Martin Lewis?

  So generally, savings accounts aren't linked to your current account. But there are some savings accounts that say that you must have a current account with us in order to move the money through. What you would generally, in those circumstances, I would probably suggest that you just go and open up. It's once your account has been moved across, you go and open up its most basic current account. And just have that as the place that the payments can be made into. You'd always double check, but most savings accounts are independent, but there are a few that aren't. So check whether they should, they should usually be independent, but I know there are some that aren't.

• 17:57Speaker 04

  Romeo.

• 17:58Martin Lewis?

  Oh, wherefore art thou Romeo?

• 18:00Speaker 04

  He's heard that a few times.

• 18:01Martin Lewis?

  It's new, that's just me.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  What will happen to the investments within my stocks and shares account if I switch? Does that mean payments from the stocks and?

• 18:12Martin Lewis?

  Well, I don't know, I'm sort of thinking this is the same question as before that someone has at stocks and shares in the same place that they have their current account and they think they're linked. I mean, I am not aware of any of those. It may be that you have to provide a new bank account detail in order for them to take the money account. But most stocks and shares transactions are completely separate to your current account. Look, the truth of all this is. Banks want you to think that the current account is the centre of all your financial products and they do that because the biggest measure of banking profitability is cross-sell ratio, how many different products we can sell you. And the absolute best way, if you are a bank, to cross-sell customers other products is for you to be the person that they have their main day-to-day current account with, which is why I've just gone through

• 18:57Martin Lewis?

  a list of how much they are willing to pay you to buy your current account custom because they then want to sell you other things. And that is the shimmering grey mist they want to have over these things. In the vast majority of cases, your credit cards, your stocks and shares, your insurance products, even if they're with the same bank, are not linked to your current account. You are not obliged to have your current account. The only main exemption is certain regular savings accounts where you can put up to 200, 300 quid a month and you get 7% interest, which are linked and you can only open if you have the current account. In those circumstances, you may well have the account closed down if you move your current account. But generally, this isn't an issue. But banks, of course,

• 19:42Martin Lewis?

  they would never say it, but there is this, as I say, a shimmering opageness of them wanting you to think it, because then, of course, they can cross-sell you other items and other products.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  If we're going with the questions, there's some bigger offers being advertised.

• 19:55Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, there are.

• 19:56Speaker 04

  Are they available to everyone?

• 19:57Martin Lewis?

  No. So you're quite right. So these are higher earner only offers. So you usually need, again, like the normal bank account switching, you'll need to switch a couple of direct debits across, you'll need to use their current account service. You've also got Barclays is the top payer there. For that, you need a minimum 75,000 pounds salary. It'll give you 600 quid and free Apple TV and possibly a 500 pounds 0% overdraft. If you earn over 100 grand, HSBC is paying you 500 pounds for free. It also gives you free worldwide family travel insurance. These are all fee-free accounts, by the way. All accounts are mentioned are fee-free. Worldwide family travel insurance and digital GP access, so you can have a GP, you can talk to any time for free. NatWest Premier Rewards is

• 20:38Martin Lewis?

  also 500 pounds free. That's a minimum 100,000 pounds salary and potential 7 pounds a month cash back. Lloyds Premier is 200 pounds for free, free digital GP access, Disney Plus, top overseas debit card, 1% cash back. So if you're earning over 75 grand, these aren't the packaged accounts where you pay, these are Premier accounts, where they're limiting the number of customers and they do pay substantially more. And, you know, 600 quid, we're still talking real money, 600 quid if you earn over 75 grand. Just to say, most bank accounts, you can jemmy the minimum pay-in if they have one. I mean, Club Lloyds has a minimum pay-in, Barclays has one you can't jemmy. What I mean by that is, let's

• 21:19Martin Lewis?

  say they say you've got to pay in 2,000 pounds a month and your take-home is 1,800 pounds a month. You can pay your 1,800 in, take out 200 and pay it back in. And now you've paid in 2,000 pounds in the month. That would work with some, it doesn't work with Barclays. Most of the others I mentioned before actually just want you to pay in a grand or so, or something similar, in the first month. You don't have to pay in each month. But with these high earner accounts, they're actually looking really to see that you are earning that. So if you have variable income, but you're earning over that in the year, you'll be fine. But if you earn 60, 50,000 pounds and you think, I'll take it out and pay it back in, they're much tighter on spotting that with the higher earner accounts. So I wouldn't do it unless you're properly at that income level.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  David, are there any switches that you can do with a joint account, if there is? Does the, you know, can't have an XXX account in the last XXX applied to both people or just the main applicant?

• 22:17Martin Lewis?

  That's a very interesting question. So let me answer the first bit first. Barclays bank account, no to joint accounts. HSBC, no to joint accounts. First Direct, yes to switching joint accounts. Club Lloyds, yes to switching joint accounts. NatWest, yes to switching joint accounts. So yes, you can switch joint accounts and you'll get the bonus. Now, let's go into it in a little bit more detail. Fascinating question. Santander, Club Lloyds and NatWest say if either of you has had the switching bonus before, you can't get the switching bonus on a joint account. For Nationwide, if one of you has

• 22:58Martin Lewis?

  had the switching bonus before, you can get the switching bonus on a joint account. But if you have had the switching bonus on a joint account before, you can't get the switching bonus on a joint account.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  Right, okay. Chris?

• 23:13Martin Lewis?

  I think I managed to get through all of them, yeah.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  Chris, bank switches, can it be done on a joint account, Mr. and Mrs. and a single current account, Mrs. and gain the rewards on offer?

• 23:22Martin Lewis?

  Sometimes yes, sometimes no, is the question. It depends on the bank. And I will be honest with you, I haven't got that detail to hand of whether you would be allowed a double bonus. Possibly, my guess is from the terms and conditions I did have to hand, maybe with Nationwide. Sometimes they allow it, sometimes they don't. So you are obviously better, by the way, you have a joint account, you're better to, you might keep your joint account where it is and switch your single accounts because then you're getting paid both of you. You know, if you've got two Barclays at the moment, in total, that's 600 quid. And if you're both higher earners, that's 1,200 quid.

• 23:54Speaker 04

  Andy M., can you really go round all the bank switching offers once, only once? All the T and C says can't have had a switching bonus before?

• 24:03Martin Lewis?

  They do. And the rules have been tightened up in recent years. So the serial switch is out there and there are many of them. We've talked about it before, people who earn thousands of pounds switching bank accounts. That's why, interestingly, I didn't mention it when I was going through it, but HSBC is the most interesting offer for me because HSBC is quite rare. I'll just read you the terms because HSBC and First Direct are sister banks, they're part of the same company. So the First Direct switching terms are you must be a new customer who has never had a First Direct product or opened an HSBC bank account since January 2018. But the HSBC terms are, you can do this even if you've had switch cash from HSBC or First Direct, as long as it was before 2023 and

• 24:47Martin Lewis?

  you're no longer a customer. So there's quite a big difference between the eligibility criteria because HSBC is much rarer at giving it out. With the others out there, Barclays said you can't have received a previous switch bonus from it or have held an open current account on the 1st of October, which is when it launched this offer. And Club Lloyds says you can't have received a previous switch bonus from Lloyds Halifax or Bank of Scotland since the 1st of January 2023. So what I suggest people do is if you're doing what I call the burner account system. So the burner account system is you go and open a bank account somewhere like Monzo or Starling or somewhere that you're not really going to use, you keep your main account, you then use that as your starter because they don't pay incentives and you use that as your switcher account to move to a new switcher. Yeah,

• 25:30Martin Lewis?

  you move to one of those that pays you. You've got to fulfil the minimum direct debits and the minimum income criteria and you do that. You do it to get the switch bonus and then you move again and again and again. And you do those and then once you're done, you close them down and then you cross your fingers that in three years' time or four years' time, you may be eligible again. I need to give you a warning, switching one bank account will have a minor short-term impact on your credit reference files, it's really minor, but I wouldn't do it in a month or two before I'm about to get a mortgage. If you're repeatedly switching, that can have a hit. So that's mainly for people who don't need to make a big application in the next year or two if they're doing that.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  Marty of Shinfield says, Adrian and Martin, I've just run NatWest and they're paying me 300 pounds to stay. Result?

• 26:14Martin Lewis?

  Marvelous. Go try that. I'd love to hear more of those.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  The Celebrity Traitors.

• 26:21Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 04

  Is that something you'd consider doing?

• 26:23Martin Lewis?

  Well, I've been asked to do both of them, if I'm honest with you. I was asked to do the first one and I wasn't watching Traitors at the time, so I said no. And then with my daughter, who's 13 and absolutely loves Traitors, I got into it. And then they asked me to do the second one and we actually, we got into conversations because things like, I said, look, if I'm doing it, I don't know whether you shut off, but I need to speak to my daughter every day. I'm not going anywhere where I can't talk to my little girl because, you know, she's daddy's girl. She wouldn't say that. I would say that's me who needs to talk to her. And my wife, obviously, as well. And then unfortunately, their filming time was when my live ITV shows were on. And so I was committed to do the live ITV shows and it's my show, so I have to do it and I enjoy doing it. And so I couldn't do

• 27:07Martin Lewis?

  it. So if there's a third one, I would consider it, certainly. But I would quite like to watch all of this one to see exactly what it is like. I've heard it was, they were filming for a lot of hours for this one and it was quite hard.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, interesting.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Just do the tell us. Tell us about the tell us.

• 27:26Martin Lewis?

  Well, sticking with the same theme as we've been talking about, what I wanted to know very simply is what's the best freebie you've ever legitimately got? And what's the story behind how you got it? And there are some quite moving ones and some really interesting ones here. Why don't you start?

• 27:39Speaker 04

  Philip, when I worked for Woolworths, my store was top of the company for mystery shops. I got no recognition for this. So when a director visited my store on some PR exercise, I challenged him on this. Brave. The result was that my area manager got a dressing down for failing to reward me. I secured a £50 a head night out for my team.

• 27:59Martin Lewis?

  Nice.

• 27:59Speaker 04

  This was back in the 90s. And I got the company Jaguar and a fuel card for a week. So

• 28:06Martin Lewis?

  You've misreading that bit.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  Well, there's

• 28:08Martin Lewis?

  We can paraphrase.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Okay, the number plate is one, was, one foxtrot whiskey whiskey, one F W W. So the W and the W stood for work for Woolies and the F will leave that to you.

• 28:25Martin Lewis?

  And the I stood, so it's I, something, work for Woolies.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  Brilliant. And he got the fuel card as well. So the car was delivered to the store. The local traffic warden said, park it out front all day and he wouldn't ticket it. I dropped the staff at home throughout the day, throughout the day at the end of their shifts, then booked the week off work and racked up over 1500 miles in a week. Nicely done.

• 28:47Martin Lewis?

  Nice. I'll do, I'll do a short one now. Michelle, my best freebies is a Coleman cow gravy pourer. To this day, I don't know how I got it. It just got delivered. It comes out every now and then, probably when you're having gravy, I think.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it's just something you have something that pours well. A lot of things designed for pour don't pour. I treasure some old bits of plastic.

• 29:10Martin Lewis?

  We have a water joke that it's almost like a game. If we have people and they try and pour the water, can you pour it without any spilling? It's impossible.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:16Martin Lewis?

  It's impossible. Yeah. But Lara likes it. So it goes out.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  So it stays.

• 29:22Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, it stays.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  And it's, it's poor functionality. You can't, you can't leave it alone. This one.

• 29:26Martin Lewis?

  But the thing about the freebie and that I think, I think that would just make you love it more. It's, you know, whenever, if I have a certain places I go for lunch and you have a loyalty card and if you get to eight, you get a free one and it, the free one just tastes better. Just, just like, this is great. This is my free one. And yes, I'm all very, very well aware of the psychology of it and have it with the loyalty retention bonus, but I'd be going there anyway. So it's, it works.

• 29:50Speaker 04

  Harry, I got two free concert tickets to my favourite singer in 2018. How I got them, I just happened to tweet that I wish I could go to a concert and some lovely lady offered them to me for free. I was there three days later. Doesn't, he's very unspecific about the favourite singer.

• 30:06Martin Lewis?

  Well, I know. I don't know. Maybe it's

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Somebody naff or something.

• 30:11Martin Lewis?

  Julio Iglesias.

• 30:12Speaker 04

  There's nothing wrong with him.

• 30:13Martin Lewis?

  No, nothing. I'm just picking someone that they didn't want to say. Tracy, as a kinship carer, it's tough. I was raising four children on my own. Two were my daughters, two and two were my kinship grandchildren. Money was and is tight. Timsons, the key cutters, offered up free holidays to foster carers at caravan holiday parks. They then decided to open it up to kinship carers as well. We were lucky enough to win one of the holidays. It was amazing. A whole week, all paid for, the passes, the static, all five of us actually got to have a holiday together and it was amazing. As kinship carers, we don't get paid as foster carers do. A lot of us are grandparents with limited funds or earning capacity. It

• 30:57Martin Lewis?

  really was the most amazing thing to win for my whole family. Big thank you to Timsons. I like that.

• 31:02Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 31:03Martin Lewis?

  Well done, Timsons.

• 31:04Speaker 04

  Enric, I once got a large Domino's Tandoori hot pizza free because the delivery driver was five minutes late. Still warm, enjoyed it even more. Small wins.

• 31:15Martin Lewis?

  Julie, I was really broke when I was recovering from cancer. No wages. I went into a coffee shop with my daughter, which I really couldn't afford, and they gave us our drinks for free. Such a small thing, but I could have wept.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  Okay. Mark, Mark did the sound for the European Cocktail Championship and got given the biggest bottle of special edition Bacardi you've ever seen. It was like three times the size of a standard bottle. Also, he used to do the Ken Dodd shows at the London Philharmonic Hall. Ken was like the Duracell battery of comedians. He'd just go on for hours. So the show started at 7.30, still going at 10.30, theatre manager told him to wind up. So this night he took it as a personal challenge. Theatre manager said he'd charge Ken £1,000 an hour. So Ken kept on performing till half three in the morning. Then the next night brought every one of the crew a good bottle of whiskey.

• 32:07Martin Lewis?

  That sounds right, Ken Dodd. I was trying to think of my favourite freebie. I've told a story about a free pool table, an eight grand pool table I got for free before. So I won't labour on that. But basically

• 32:14Speaker 04

  You're going to just give me an abbreviated version.

• 32:16Martin Lewis?

  I wanted a pool table and a mate of mine said, someone lives near him's got a, he's giving away a pool table. And I thought, well, I don't want to go. And he said, no, no, I think it's a really good pool table. So I called up and the guy said, come around, have a look. And I went around, have a look. And it was a proper full, you know, hugely heavy American pool table, eight grand table. And I said, why are you giving it away? He said, because it's going to cost me a grand to get it moved because it's so heavy. If you're willing to pay to have it taken out of here, you can have it. So I did, I got it rebased. It was absolutely beautiful. It was a really fantastic table. It cost me about a thousand pounds.

• 32:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know somebody who got a full size snooker table for exactly the same reasons. Big, heavy things.

• 32:57Martin Lewis?

  Incredible. You can't, you, you need, it's industrial job to move it. So you have to pay people to move it. But I was going to say, probably my favourite freebie. I'm a massive athletics fan. I was, before I got into stats on financial products, it was stats and athletics when I was a kid. I could name all of them. No coincidence, Jeanette Quatch is my co presenter on my ITV show. So I love it. And then I got talking to UK athletics and I got in with them and they talked about, we want someone to sort of, the thing to understand about athletics, most people are volunteers, a few people are professional. And we were talking about, they said, we'd like to come and do anything for us. And we said that they wanted someone who'd be there for the stadium, who people who don't go to the athletics that often would recognise and could talk to them about why athletics is so good. And so I put, so I did the World Athletics Championships in

• 33:40Martin Lewis?

  2017, right? And there was, Ewan Thomas was the professional stadium presenter and I was the volunteer, which is how athletics works. And I'd go around with a microphone on my head saying, look, the high jump bar, it's still another foot over me standing with a microphone. And for that, I got, and I would have gone to the event anyway, I got a free ticket every night inside the track and field, whenever I was, I only did about five minute long things a night. The rest of it, I sat next to the high jump bar, watching the high jump, two metres from the, the finish track for the 100 metres. And you, you've done lots of sports broadcasting, I've not. It was the best freebie I've ever had in my life. I had to do five minutes, which I enjoyed anyway, broadcasting. Amazing. That was mine.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  That's a beautiful thing. Do you know mine was? I went to the British Comedy Awards once. I found it very stressful. It went on forever. And there was a goodie bag, which you pressed into your hands as we left. I was so ready to go home. I was starving because there was next to no food. About one o'clock in the morning and I looked in the goodie bag and there was a giant pork pie.

• 34:43Martin Lewis?

  Okay.

• 34:43Speaker 04

  And I just

• 34:44Martin Lewis?

  Wouldn't have worked for me, but carry on.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  Wouldn't have worked for you, but just try, try and imagine something similar. And I just ate it like a, like an apple in the back of the cab. And it was, it was just, it was just the job. That was the best freebie ever.

• 34:57Martin Lewis?

  Probably my best perk, not quite a freebie ever, was I really, can't believe I'm telling this, but it's Lara's favourite story. I really, I'd really needed the loo once and we were at a tube station. And I asked the guy, is there a toilet I can use? He says, there's no toilets here, mate. He says, but Martin, you've helped me a lot. There's a staff one. And they let me use the staff loo. And at that moment, that's very similar to your pork pie. I mean, yours was input, mine was output. But it was really, really what I needed.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  The right thing, the right moment.

• 35:27Martin Lewis?

  Shall we read two more of these? Because there's a dotted line at the end. Let's get to those. Mike got an LG American style fridge freezer by agreeing to review it after I'd had it six weeks. Absolutely free of charge. I like the fact you got the freebie. I always worry about those review type things because I think it makes you review it not necessarily in an unbiased way.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Cecilia went to Harvey Nix for tapas and wine. And why not? Three out of the eight dishes were unavailable. Disappointing. Enjoyed our wine and other dishes. When he came to pay, the server announced the food is complimentary. We couldn't possibly charge you when our normal selection wasn't available. Fab service.

• 36:02Martin Lewis?

  And let's finish with Nilani. Years ago, I'd had some difficult news and was in a dark place. I walked into Starbucks and bought a coffee and sat there drinking it. I was visibly upset and I was gathering my thoughts. When I was leaving, I saw some takeaway mugs on sale, so I bought one. The gentleman behind the bar asked me to pick up a normal mug behind me that was just for sale, not on sale. I didn't know why I was asking, but I did it anyway and handed it to him. He just packed it up and said, it's for you. Never charged me for it. I still have the mug. And I actually find it's quite moving. And whenever I use it, it reminds me of the kindness a stranger showed me on a dark day. No words, no questions, just a gift to put a smile on my face.

• 36:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, sweet. I get it. Yeah. Amazing. What shall we?

• 36:46Martin Lewis?

  Do you know what? Because it's more important. I want to do cash back cards, but we might do those after. I think we should probably go to Mastermind now if the guys will play the theme tune.

• 36:54Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  I always find myself hoping they lose the theme tune, which means we can't do it. But they let me down every week.

• 37:03Martin Lewis?

  I think you should be more bullish, Adrian. Welcome to Money Mastermind. You've got 23 right and 44 wrong in this three option multiple choice quiz, which means, hurrah, you are back to

• 37:16Martin Lewis?

  Better than random chats. Someone did write to me about you the other day on social and they called you Adrian N B R C Child.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  I'll settle for that.

• 37:29Martin Lewis?

  So, anyway, Adrian has been worried this week about the news on the triple lock. Why does Burnham want my biscuits? As you may have realised, Adrian has confused a major public policy debate with his Bicky Tim protections from the other presenters in the Five Live office. His lock one is a bike D lock wrapped around it. Matt Chorley tries to get in every week? No chance. He's defeated every time. Nagger can get through that lock in seconds with a safety pin and her suspiciously bendy fingers, but she falls foul of lock two, Adrian's combination lock. Nikki Campbell can crack that quicker than Alan Choring on a tea break, but even big

• 38:10Martin Lewis?

  boy Campbell backs off when he sees lock three, guarded by a crocodile called Gary who hasn't blinked since 2019. Unbreakable. Or is it?

• 38:20Speaker 04

  No, he's got him.

• 38:23Martin Lewis?

  Nice hobnob, Adrian.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  You nicked my hobnob.

• 38:26Martin Lewis?

  Exactly. I've actually got a packet here, I bought them, I bought them fresh just for the pen there. Anyway, so, I really never, it's just like the first rule of broadcasting.

• 38:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. You didn't take that through, did you?

• 38:38Martin Lewis?

  No, I sort of did and I just thought I'm going to run with it anyway and I'm now doing it. So, when the change to the state pension triple lock comes in, as is proposed to happen in 2030, what is the most likely result of this scenario? You might need to write this down. Year one, CPI inflation is 3%, average earnings rise 2%. Year two, CPI inflation is 4%, average earnings rise 6%. Clearly, in year one, it will rise 3% because the highest of the figures is 3%, it's had an average earnings at 2%, it's higher than 2.5%, which is the third lock. How much would it rise in year two? A, 4%?

• 39:23Martin Lewis?

  B, 5%? C, 6%? In year two, remember, inflation was 4% and average earnings rise 6%. So, it's risen 3% in year one, and average earnings was 2% in year one. In the second year, inflation is 4% and average earnings rise 6%. Under the new system, well, do you know under the old system, under the current system, what it would rise?

• 39:47Speaker 04

  I can't, I can't say, I can't say I do.

• 39:51Martin Lewis?

  Well, just because I really want people to understand this, I will explain the current system now. The current triple lock says the state pension rises each April with the highest of 2.5%, so that's the floor effectively, or CPI inflation, or average earnings. So, that's the current triple lock. So, what would the situation be in the current triple lock?

• 40:14Speaker 04

  It would be the same, it would be 3%.

• 40:17Martin Lewis?

  3% in year one and what in year two?

• 40:20Speaker 04

  It would be 6%.

• 40:24Martin Lewis?

  CPI, correct. So, it would go.

• 40:27Speaker 04

  Average earnings, yeah.

• 40:28Martin Lewis?

  Average earnings. So, it would go to 9% compounded. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to do the, go.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  Well, over two.

• 40:33Martin Lewis?

  Over two years. So, it would 3% in year one, 6% in year two, total over the two years, 9% plus compounded.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 40:40Martin Lewis?

  Now, what I'm asking you is, under the new system, you've got in that second year, you've got inflation is 4% and average earnings 6%. How much would it go up? A, 4%?

• 40:51Speaker 04

  Over two years.

• 40:52Martin Lewis?

  No, how much would go up in the second year? It's already gone up 3% in the first year.

• 40:55Speaker 04

  So, we start count, I'm missing something here. We start counting from the end of the first year.

• 41:01Martin Lewis?

  The question is very deliberate.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  Go on.

• 41:04Martin Lewis?

  I mean, you need to know the first year amounts. Year one, inflation was up 3% and average earnings was up 2%. Year two, inflation was up 4%, average earnings was up 6%. So, how much will it rise in the second year, having risen 3% in the first year? 4%? 5%? Or 6%?

• 41:26Speaker 04

  I don't really understand, but I got, I don't think it's 6, I think it's, I think it's 5, but I don't.

• 41:35Martin Lewis?

  Why do you think it's 5?

• 41:37Speaker 04

  Because I don't think it's 6 and I've got to pick one of the other two.

• 41:41Martin Lewis?

  Okay. Play the hallelujah.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  Take it off me, I don't want it.

• 41:46Martin Lewis?

  You have it, you have it.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  No, I don't deserve it. No, I shouldn't.

• 41:49Martin Lewis?

  You've got, you've got the right answer, not necessarily for the right reason.

• 41:52Speaker 04

  This is random, this is random chance.

• 41:53Martin Lewis?

  Now, actually, I deliberately wanted to play that confusion out with you because many people are confused by it and I want to just take this really slowly. The way we think.

• 42:02Speaker 04

  So, you think, I need somebody who will definitely be confused.

• 42:05Martin Lewis?

  Well, no, everybody's confused. And it's complicated to understand, which is why I've played the scenario I have and I'll give you a different scenario in a minute. The way we think it will work and the I's haven't been dotted and the T's haven't been crossed yet, so this is the, the best guess of the way it will work, is under the new system, I think of it as a 2.5 times lock. So, we've gone from a triple lock, we haven't gone to a double lock, we've gone to a 2.5 times lock. What we know is each year, the state pension will rise by the higher of inflation or 2.5%. So, that would be a double lock. But they're also saying, over the long term, it would keep up with average earnings.

• 42:45Martin Lewis?

  Now, the main thought of how this would work is, from the year that the state pension new system starts, it must not fall behind average earnings. So, let's just play this scenario out and this is why I gave you both. In the first year, inflation is 3%, average earnings rise is 2%. So, it would go up by inflation because that's the highest. In the second year, inflation is 4%, average earnings rise is 6%. Under the current triple lock, it would go up 6%. In the second year, what we actually do, under the new system, is we say, well, first of all, let's look at inflation. So, inflation is 4%. If we rose it by 4%, we would be on 7. Yep, 3 plus 4.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:29Martin Lewis?

  But, it needs to keep up with the total rise in average earnings since the system started, which is what, Adrian?

• 43:37Speaker 04

  Eight.

• 43:39Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, 2% in the first year, 6% in the second year. So, because it needs to keep up with average earnings, in the second year, having risen 3% in the first year and it needs to be 8%, it would go up 5%. Because that's what keeps you up with average earnings. And that's why the answer is 5%. Now, let's, now, this doesn't count to mastermind, so you're all fine, let's do this scenario with a slightly different numbers. So, in this scenario, go with me. Year one, CPI is 4%, inflation is 4%, earnings are 2%. Which is higher?

• 44:13Speaker 04

  So, again, in year.

• 44:14Martin Lewis?

  Inflation is 4%.

• 44:15Speaker 04

  In the, in the second year.

• 44:16Martin Lewis?

  In year one, in year one.

• 44:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:18Martin Lewis?

  Inflation is 4%, earnings are 2%. In year two, inflation is 4%, earnings are 5%. So, in year one, clearly it goes up 4% because inflation was higher. In year two, earnings are higher than CPI, how much does it go up?

• 44:35Speaker 04

  In year two?

• 44:38Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  Well, it's, you said 4, it's 4 both times, isn't it?

• 44:48Martin Lewis?

  Inflation is 4 for both years and earnings is 2% in the first year and 5% in the second year. These are all.

• 44:54Speaker 04

  That's 7, well, that's 7.

• 44:55Martin Lewis?

  7.

• 44:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:57Martin Lewis?

  So, but, it always goes up, I'll explain the answer. In year one, inflation is 4%. So, it goes up 4%. In year two, inflation is 4%, so it must go up by 4% because it always has to go up by inflation. So, now we have a total over that two-year period of 8%. Now, let's look at the total of average earnings since we started, 2% in year one, 5% in year two.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  It's 7.

• 45:23Martin Lewis?

  It's 7. So, there would be no correction. So, in this scenario, even though average earnings is higher than inflation in the second year, it would only go up by inflation because since it started, the state pension has risen more than average earnings has over the two-year period.

• 45:40Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 45:41Martin Lewis?

  Does that make sense?

• 45:42Speaker 04

  It does make sense and, well, I'm sure there's a logic about it because most of the clever clogs.

• 45:49Martin Lewis?

  So, I'm going to try and give you a summary, which might help. Hopefully, if the numbers have confused you and I accept it is confusing, let me give you a summary.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 45:58Martin Lewis?

  It always goes up by the higher of inflation or 2.5%. If, in that year, that, but you also separately, you keep a tally of average earnings since, let's say it starts in 2030, since 2030.

• 46:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:14Martin Lewis?

  If the higher of inflation plus 2.5% for each year, you add up all the years that you've started, is lower than where average earnings are, then you go up by an amount that gets you to where average earnings are. If the total of inflation or 2.5% is higher than the total of average earnings since 2030, you just go up by inflation or 2.5%. So, the, it's like there's this catch that says, we'll always go up by inflation or 2.5% unless we're falling behind where average earnings have been since 2030, in which case we'll put it up that year by enough to keep up with average earnings.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 46:50Martin Lewis?

  So, you've effectively got, you've got a hard link to inflation and 2.5%. You've got a soft link to average earnings that isn't a year-by-year link, it's an overall longer time period link. Have I made sense?

• 47:02Speaker 04

  You have, you have made sense. You have made sense.

• 47:05Martin Lewis?

  The problem with it, as always, is actually it's a relatively clever system, whether it's worth it, whether it's worth it for social care, I ain't getting involved in that, that's for people to decide. But the fact it's this complicated to explain, I think, may cause some problems. Because I think people feel when they don't understand it, I'm being diddled.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  But what problem are they solving?

• 47:23Martin Lewis?

  What they're solving is, if you have a freak year of average earnings, so let's say you've had, let's do really, let's say inflation's 2% a year and average earnings has been 0 for four years.

• 47:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:33Martin Lewis?

  Right? And suddenly you have a 10% average earnings year after five years of no growth.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Right, so it smoothes it.

• 47:38Martin Lewis?

  Average earnings is still behind inflation, but in the current system, you suddenly get this 10% jump.

• 47:42Speaker 04

  Right, so it smoothes it out.

• 47:43Martin Lewis?

  It smoothes that out. It smoothes out freak and high years of average earnings and therefore, it doesn't rise quite as much, from triple lock to 2.5 lock.

• 47:53Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so welcome to our pod only section. I'm going to be talking through cash back credit cards for you in this bit. I've got with me, of course, podcast producer, Simon, PPS, how are you doing?

• 48:04Speaker 05

  Excellent, thank you. Delighted to be here. I got to feel like Martin Lewis the other day. I was away on holiday and my wife, Blinda, went to go and pay for something. And she came back and she was like, oh, they asked if I wanted to pay in euros or pounds. And I was like, you have to pay in euros. Martin Lewis always tells me pay in the local currency.

• 48:21Martin Lewis?

  Pay in the local, well done, because then that way your card is doing the conversion as opposed to the overseas machine, which is much less reliable and can be a different rate. Hopefully you've got a specialist overseas credit or debit card. But I won't actually ask you that particularly on air, rather than putting you on the spot as we go here now. But we have talked about that on the show, on the podcast before. So look, we, good week for Adrian, two in a row for Adrian on Mastermind, quite impressed. It was a complicated one today. Hopefully people managed to get through that. I just want to talk with you, the whole thing today was free cash. We actually spent a long time on bank accounts, so I didn't get time to do cash back credit and debit cards. So the point of these cards, quite simply, and some people make hundreds of pounds a year on them, is when you use them to do your spending, they will pay you cash back.

• 49:05Martin Lewis?

  Now, they fall into two categories, credit cards and debit cards. Generally, the credit cards are stronger. The credit cards are stronger because they give you more cash back. But of course, the golden rule with this is you should only do it if you pay the card off in full at the end of every month. And that's very simple. If you don't, you will pay interest and you won't just pay interest on the amount you haven't paid off, you'll pay interest on the entire balance. So the whole point of cash back credit cards, if you're going to use them, is you use them as a reward and you're effectively, you want to neuter your card's ability to charge you interest, which means don't withdraw cash on it, don't bust your credit limit, always repay it off in full. And if you do that, you're effectively turning your credit card into a debit card that just

• 49:48Martin Lewis?

  bills you each month and you pay it off in full, but pays your rewards on the back too. So top paying cash back credit cards at the moment, the obvious one to start with is the Lloyds Ultra card, which pays 1% for a year on all UK and overseas spending, or almost all, there's like gambling transactions and some stuff excluded. And it's 0.25% afterwards. It's also fee free overseas spending and ATM withdrawals, provided you pay off in full each month. So that would be a very good card, Simon, if you're spending abroad, because you'd also get cash back on it. After a year, though, it drops to 0.25%. Not the greatest rate, so you might want a new card. Or if you're in a trusted relationship, what you could do is one of you gets the card for a year, pays it off, gives the other person a second card holder, then the other

• 50:33Martin Lewis?

  one gets it for the second year. And as long as it's still around, you would get two years of it. Alternatives, American Express has just launched on its everyday card, which is a fee free card, 2% cash back for 12 months, up to a maximum £200 cash back and 0.5% cash back on the first 10K after that and 1% above it. So double the rate, really good. But on that, you've got to spend at least £3,000 a year to get any cash back. And it's not particularly good for spending overseas and it's got a £15,000 a year minimum income. So it's, you know, a better card for higher spenders. You've also got things like the Amex Preferred Reward Gold, which will give you loads of reward. You've got, again, you've got to be spending over £3,000 on this. That's a card with a fee, but there's no fee in the first year.

• 51:16Martin Lewis?

  So you do that for one year, then cancel it, or it's 200 quid a year. But with that one, it effectively converts your spending into points. And with the points you can get if you spend £3,000 on it in the first three months, so it's for higher spenders, get £115 worth vouchers to a variety of different shops that you can use them to spend on. You also get cash back on delivery orders and you get four airport lounge passes. So that's a quite good one. And there's one more that I would mention with everything that's going on with petrol prices and diesel prices at the moment. The Santander Reward Credit Card, which has a £10,500 minimum spend, is not a cash back card that gives you cash back on everything.

• 51:56Martin Lewis?

  It gives you 3% cash back worldwide on most travel fuel, so petrol and diesel, and dining in or out. So if you do a lot of petrol spending, you could get that one as well, as long as you've got a decent credit score and you're not applying for any big credit products. And you could combine that with a Lloyds or an Amex card for when you're going on your fuel. So that's sort of the main credit cards. Obviously, there's loads of these I could go through just to give you an idea. But of course, remember to pay it off in full.

• 52:22Speaker 05

  But what about if you're sort of worried about your credit score?

• 52:24Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, well, that's why it's lucky that there are debit cards too. The big advantage of debit cards is they're easier to get and many more people can get them. The two disadvantages are the payouts are better on cash back credit cards. And when you spend on a cash back credit card, you get section 75 protection, which means if something goes wrong anywhere in the world and it costs over £100 and under £30,000, the credit card company is jointly liable. With debit cards, you get a lesser protection called chargeback. But with both the two debit cards I'll mention, the way you get these is you apply for its bank account, which is an app based bank account that does not credit score you. It just does an ID check. So that's all it's doing effectively. So as long as you are who you say you are, you should be able to get them.

• 53:06Martin Lewis?

  You have Chase, which gives you 2% cash back on most UK supermarket transport and fuel spending, up to a maximum 20 quid a month. But to get it, you need to spend 15 times a month on the card and hold £1,000 in savings. And you've got Zopa Biscuit, which gives you, well, it's got various offers, but let's take this one, 3% cash back on up to £150 restaurant takeaway and bakery spend, which to be honest, is pretty narrow and would be a maximum £54 a year. So, I mean, the Chase one is probably my top pick among the debit cards if you're going to go for it. But it's nothing compared to 1% or 2% cash back on all your spending. Still, if you're going to be spending and you're not in debt, if you're in debt, it's different, then you may as well get a card that pays you to spend.

• 53:50Martin Lewis?

  And genuinely, there are people who make hundreds of pounds a year from doing this.

• 53:54Speaker 05

  Perfect. We did get some questions on it. Sally sent in, I've used cash back sites and credit cards for years. Should I be paying tax on this? I'm a higher rate taxpayer, if that makes a difference.

• 54:04Martin Lewis?

  No, there is, these are defined as rewards and incentives or discounts. The same applies on cash back websites, the same applies on all the cash back I'm talking. So, and the same about on bank account switching. In almost all cases, these are tax free incentives. They are just marketing incentives and you don't have to pay tax on them. You don't have to declare it, you're absolutely fine.

• 54:27Speaker 05

  And Kruti wants to know, can you please explain American Express card offers for new customers? It says on the website, if you currently have this card or have held this card or any other personal American Express card within the previous 24 months, you will not be entitled to the new card member offer. Does this mean any type of Amex card or particular card type?

• 54:47Martin Lewis?

  It means any type of Amex card, except unless you had it as a business card, so it was part of your business. So it's about the personal cards out there. Amex is particularly strict. Basically, you have to be a totally new customer in order to be able to get it with Amex, I'm afraid. So, and in fact, for almost all of these deals, these are all new customer incentive offers, you know, hence why Lloyds is for a year. It's always about bringing in new customers to do it. So that factors in there. So any more?

• 55:13Speaker 05

  No, no, you've covered it all.

• 55:15Martin Lewis?

  Okay, just a couple more quick cash back points then. It's worth knowing about cash back websites. These are sites that when you buy through them, they get paid a fee. So if you're going to a shop and you buy through them, they get paid a fee. Now, most sites that use affiliate links are providing content. So they provide information, including, I should declare, the way Money Saving Expert works is if affiliate links are possible, then you click through them and we will tell you that you're being so and we will get a fee. It doesn't change the product that you're getting. With the cash back site, the way they do it is just saying, here's a link, use our link, we get paid, we'll give you some or all of it. The two top pairs out there are Quidco and Top Cashback. My big rule on these things, never see the cash back as guaranteed. It is not guaranteed. Do not choose your product because of the cash back, because there can be problems in getting them to pay to you.

• 55:59Martin Lewis?

  If, choose what you want, buy the right thing, check where there's a link available through the cash back sites, use the link through the cash back sites and see any cash back you get as a bonus on top. But it can be very lucrative for people and you can use that on top of a cash back credit card. And then if you really want to be a king or queen of cash back, a final little nibble on top, there's an app called Airtime that tracks your spending at 200 plus retailers and pays 1% to 15% cash back, which you can redeem as credit on your mobile phone bill for O2 EE, Vodafone 3 and more. You can use Airtime on top of cash back sites and you can use cash back sites on top of cash back credit cards. So you could be trebling up the cash back if you do it properly.

• 56:45Martin Lewis?

  And that seems a good way to end.

• 56:49Martin Lewis?

  That's it for this week. We tend to put out a new episode every Thursday and Monday, which is our Question Time podcast, where you get to ask me absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. If you've enjoyed today's show, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast and why not subscribe and leave us a review? Then your pockets will be pleased with you and we will be too. And if you haven't enjoyed it and you've been listening this long, I mean, does the button not work? Do you not know how to click? What's going on?

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Martin Lewis is the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing [email protected]. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.

• 58:13Speaker 02

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• 59:33Speaker 05

  And an attack on Russian data centre started a rumour that all the evil disinformation bots had been deleted from the internet. But the truth might actually be a lot scarier.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  For our take, join me, Jess Maddox.

• 59:47Speaker 05

  And me, Thomas Germain, for The Interface.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.