The Rate Tart

Let me start by saying that everyone's circumstances are different. With that disclaimer firmly in place, let's talk turkey.

Say you spend around £1,000 a month on credit cards, and you can afford to pay off this amount in full every month. Over a year, a cashback credit card will leave you more than £100 worse off than a 0% on purchases card.

Here's the maths. A yearly spend of £12,000 on a typical cash back card would earn me 4% cashback for 3 months and 1% for 9 months. Assuming I pay off the total debt each month, that would give £210 cash back.

The same spend on the Natwest 0% credit card paying a minimum of 2% of my balance each month would mean that I need to make payments of £1,236. At the end of the 12 months, I'd need to make a final payment of £10,764 to clear the outstanding balance.

So, instead of paying in £12,000 over a year, I can pay just £1,236 and invest the rest in high interest savings account. Assuming I used the IceSave account at 6.30% AER, this would earn me more than £300 over the next twelve months and make me more than £100 better off.

Of course, this is a more risky strategy and means I have to be on the ball with my repayments. Equally, I have to avoid the temptation to withdraw cash, use credit card cheques and overspend because if I did, I'd end up paying fees and charges. And that would quickly overtake my £100 saving.

It's tempting to think that by just using your rewards credit card, you will earn back something you would otherwise have to pay money for.

But its worthwhile thinking carefully before you pick a card.

Rewards cards tend only to make sense if you pay off your balance in full each moth. Otherwise the interest charges and fees will mean any reward you get is quickly outweighed by the penalties.

Equally, rewards are typically only offered on purchases made on the card, and not on cash withdrawals or on credit card cheques - so as well as being an expensive option, this will also not build your rewards.

It's also worth thinking about how often you will use your card, and the amount of money you are likely to spend on the card. Rewards cards work on the principle that the more you spend, the more rewards you are offered. But if you don't spend much on your card, you may find that a 0% on purchases card would give you a better deal in the real world.

Finally, the amount of cash back, air miles, money off in store and other rewards offered by each card varies. So it always pays to shop around.

The Westminster Standards Watchdog is reportedly considering a complaint by a BNP politician over Speaker Michael Martin's use of air miles on flights for his family.

The air miles were earned on official business but used to fly members of Martin's family between London and Glasgow for a new year holiday. Whilst the Speaker has not broken any rules, Members of Parliament are advised to use air miles to offset the cost of future flights if possible.

If you think this all sounds more like political opportunism than genuine corruption we doubt you are alone. Is it really a valuable use of tax-payers money to investigate how an air miles credit card is used?

Think about it. If you travel for work, do you really expect to use the air miles gained to save the boss some expenses or do you treat it as a nice perk? If you pay expenses on a cash back credit card do you deduct the cash back from your expenses claim.

Thought not.

So how about we all get a bit less hysterical and focus the resources of the police and parliament on genuinely dodgy dealings. And don't even get us started on the BNP trying to claim the moral high ground...