Avios/fly club credit card

[anonymous-user]

Evening, first time poster in here so appologies if it's been covered. Looking to take out a credit card purely to earn some kind of flight miles. Is there a benefit to avios over the flight club virgin push? Any recommendations on the best card to achieve this also appreciated. Thanks

[fellatthefirst]

I use AMEX (a business credit card) which pays 1 avíos point for every £1 spent. They soon rack up! Only problem with AMEX is that not everywhere accepts it. But avíos points can be widely used on all major airlines and for various other vouchers etc

[bad company]

I get 1.5 Avios per £1 with the BA black card.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-clu...

Also 9000 points each if I referred a friend. Pm me if you want to do that.

[HOGEPH]

I opted for the paid for BA Amex card. Well on my way to a companion ticket.

[GT03ROB]

I use the BA Amex. It's taken in a lot more places now. I don't know how much you put through a card annually or where the spend is, but it can take a lot of time to earn anything of consequence. If however you do travel with BA you can find you can rack them up pretty quickly. As an example say I booked a holiday direct with BA...….I get the following Avios credits:

1) Base Avios for the AMEX spend (1 Avios/pound)
2) 50% up lift for having the premium card
3) 100% uplift for AMEX spend with BA
4) BA Holidays Avios (1Avios/pound)
5) Avios for the flight

With all of this I can get over 10 Avios /pound spent. If you then use an Amex 2-4-1 voucher, which you get annually you can effectively double this. The Avios you earn flying in the premium cabins or as FF card holder, dwarves what you get from the cards. In my example above item 5 can be double items 1-4 put together.

[bad company]

I’m using points and my 2 for 1 voucher for Mrs BC and to fly to LA this week.

[The Leaper]

Been an Amex holder for almost 40 years, and also Avios and before that BA Miles member since they started. Used these and companion vouchers every year, excellent facility. Since retiring I don't fly so much, so accumulate less, but have many thousands banked.

As for Amex not being widely accepted, that was maybe the case but I find that there's very few, maybe smaller businesses that still refuse, so for me the card is fine especially for major purchases, weekly shopping, car fuel etc.

Can be an issue using Avios for specific BA flights but being date flexible and booking well in advance usually means all is OK.

Also can earn more Avios per purchase via Gate365.

R.

[KhabibSmesh]

Interesting. What's the best way to use the points? To me it seemed like buying a flight direct was quite expensive (points wise) so I thought maybe using the points to upgrade instead would be a better use?

I have ~40k Avios points

[NickCQ]

KhabibSmesh said:

Interesting. What's the best way to use the points? To me it seemed like buying a flight direct was quite expensive (points wise) so I thought maybe using the points to upgrade instead would be a better use?

I have ~40k Avios points

Short haul reward flights are pretty cost-effective. You have a huge choice of return destinations for about 10k avios plus £40 for taxes etc. If you load on all the extras that you don't get on Ryanair / Easyjet (i.e. exit row seat for free, priority boarding, lounge access, LCY or LHR rather than Stansted or Luton) it's compelling.

Long-haul you really need to be BA Gold before anything interesting shows up on avios. If you call them you can secure seats for double avios that are otherwise not available online.

[Maxf]

I've collected Avios for a few years now and have a few hundred thousand and generally have 2 companion vouchers to use (Ive lost loads through not using them!)

The big gains to avios are through doing all of your online shopping through the website, so you get your 1.5per £ for using AMEX, plus whatever the website is offering - so maybe 12 per £ for shopping at selfridges, or 4 for John Lewis. They really mount up.

Ive cashed some in for flights to the US (premium once and first to Boston). However, I'm a bit jaded by it now and am thinking I'll probably change to the John Lewis credit card and collect their vouchers instead. I find it incredibly hard to find avios redemption tickets to anywhere I want to go, so you end up looking at holiday destinations just because you can get avios flights there, which feels a bit inverse to me!

[GT03ROB]

NickCQ said:

KhabibSmesh said:

Interesting. What's the best way to use the points? To me it seemed like buying a flight direct was quite expensive (points wise) so I thought maybe using the points to upgrade instead would be a better use?

I have ~40k Avios points

Short haul reward flights are pretty cost-effective. You have a huge choice of return destinations for about 10k avios plus £40 for taxes etc. If you load on all the extras that you don't get on Ryanair / Easyjet (i.e. exit row seat for free, priority boarding, lounge access, LCY or LHR rather than Stansted or Luton) it's compelling.

Long-haul you really need to be BA Gold before anything interesting shows up on avios. If you call them you can secure seats for double avios that are otherwise not available online.

Short haul using Reward Flight Savers are good value.

On long haul forget economy fares, with the taxes value is crap. Business & 1st is where the value is if you have enough miles. If you are flexible enough finding what you want in these classes is possible. But don't try to get 1st to Sydney in December!

[farmergiles80]

bad company said:

I get 1.5 Avios per £1 with the BA black card.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-clu...

Also 9000 points each if I referred a friend. Pm me if you want to do that.

To avoid confusion, I think you mean BA Amex Premium Plus card, rather than 'Black card'?

I'd certainly recommend the Premium Plus card - the 2-for-1 vouchers are excellent, providing you can either plan a long way ahead or have a lot of flexibility as to where you want to travel.

[bad company]

farmergiles80 said:

bad company said:

I get 1.5 Avios per £1 with the BA black card.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-clu...

Also 9000 points each if I referred a friend. Pm me if you want to do that.

To avoid confusion, I think you mean BA Amex Premium Plus card, rather than 'Black card'?

I'd certainly recommend the Premium Plus card - the 2-for-1 vouchers are excellent, providing you can either plan a long way ahead or have a lot of flexibility as to where you want to travel.

You’re correct, the card is black tho.

[farmergiles80]

bad company said:

You’re correct, the card is black tho.

Dark Grey

[Lozw86]

I use the BA American Express card

Another good tip: shop online using the BA store (hundreds of retailers including John Lewis, Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges etc) and you can get upto 10 Avios points for every pound spent

I do all my spending on this card, including most of my bills and monthly PCP car payment. It rewards fairly well

[bad company]

Lozw86 said:

I use the BA American Express card

Another good tip: shop online using the BA store (hundreds of retailers including John Lewis, Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges etc) and you can get upto 10 Avios points for every pound spent

I do all my spending on this card, including most of my bills and monthly PCP car payment. It rewards fairly well

Fair comments, I do the same.

It’s not the card to use overseas though as there’s a 3% (2.99) forex fee. I’m flying to the USA Wednesday and will be using a different card.

[silobass]

I have the Virgin Atlantic paid card which works out well for me. It's a Mastercard now so will be accepted everywhere that takes cards although it's generally only small businesses that don't take Amex. Miles build up pretty good, 1.5 miles per £1 spent which is the same as the BA one. If you want to go to the US, it's a great card but you can't get reward flights to Europe that I assume you can get with the BA on.

[farmergiles80]

silobass said:

I have the Virgin Atlantic paid card which works out well for me. It's a Mastercard now so will be accepted everywhere that takes cards although it's generally only small businesses that don't take Amex. Miles build up pretty good, 1.5 miles per £1 spent which is the same as the BA one. If you want to go to the US, it's a great card but you can't get reward flights to Europe that I assume you can get with the BA on.

It used to be very different, but Amex is accepted a lot more widely these days.

[bad company]

silobass said:

I have the Virgin Atlantic paid card which works out well for me. It's a Mastercard now so will be accepted everywhere that takes cards although it's generally only small businesses that don't take Amex. Miles build up pretty good, 1.5 miles per £1 spent which is the same as the BA one. If you want to go to the US, it's a great card but you can't get reward flights to Europe that I assume you can get with the BA on.

That’s all good but I think you also have to pay 3% forex fee? In which case you need another card to use abroad.

[1878]

Lozw86 said:

I use the BA American Express card

Another good tip: shop online using the BA store (hundreds of retailers including John Lewis, Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges etc) and you can get upto 10 Avios points for every pound spent

I do all my spending on this card, including most of my bills and monthly PCP car payment. It rewards fairly well

How do you put your PCP payments onto a card? This sounds like a handy boost.