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The Commute · 19 April 2026

Fund your next phone upgrade on the coffees and dinners you'd buy anyway

The Pret, Deliveroo and date-night spend that quietly pays for your next iPhone.

By the A1 Desk19 April 20266 min readFree to read
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Caffè Nero
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There's a category of spending that almost every young professional pretends isn't happening: the Costa on the way to the office, the Deliveroo on a Tuesday because the fridge is empty, the Wagamama with friends on Thursday. It's not rent, it's not bills — it's the life-admin fuel that keeps the week moving.

It also happens to be the most-rewarded category of spending in the whole gift-card catalogue. Restaurant and takeaway cards regularly earn 6–12% back as A1 Tech Deals store credit, which is comfortably the fastest way to fund a new iPhone without cutting out anything you actually enjoy.

How the loop works
01

Buy the gift card

Pick any brand and pay as you would for tech. The code is sent straight to your email.

02

We reward you

A1 Tech Deals credits your account with store credit — funded by us, not the brand.

03

Spend it on tech

Use the credit at checkout on anything at a1techdeals.com — phones, laptops, accessories.

The numbers on an average week

The math
Monthly eating out spend
£380
Avg cashback on eating out cards
12.7%
Monthly store credit
£48.38

That's £581 a year of store credit — more than enough for an iPhone 16 upgrade.

The other side of the loop

The phone the dinners are paying for

The rate here is the real story. Grocery cards pay around 5.8%; restaurants and dining-out cards average around 12.9%. On a normal month of eating out and grabbing food on the go, you're looking at enough credit to cover a new phone every 18 months — not a cheap Android either.

Cards that punch above their weight

Two everyday-spend setups

A case study

The office commuter

Nina grabs a Caffe Nero most mornings (£70/mo), orders Deliveroo twice a week for the WFH days (£120/mo), and goes out for dinner with friends every other Friday (£160/mo).

£70 × 11% + £120 × 6.75% + £160 × 13% = £36.60/mo = £439/yr

£439 toward an iPhone 16 upgrade — with change left for a new case and AirPods.

A case study

The date-night couple

Jake and Sofia do one nice meal out a week (£320/mo) and a Deliveroo on Sundays (£80/mo).

£320 × 13% + £80 × 6.75% = £47/mo = £566/yr

£566 in credit — more than enough to cover the iPhone upgrade AND a new Apple Watch.

Questions readers ask

What people always want to check.

Not at all. Buy cards as you go — a Costa, a Caffe Nero, a Pret. You can stack several brands over a month and the credit sits in your A1 Tech Deals account regardless.
The next step

The fastest route to the next iPhone

Restaurant cards earn some of the highest cashback in the catalogue. Credit lands in your A1 Tech Deals account automatically.

Keep reading

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