Business Credit Card Advice...

[russy01]

Morning...

This has been done before, but things move on, hence new thread.

Currently bank with Natwest personally and business. They have me well covered personally, however for business we just use a non rewards bog standard commercial card.

AMEX have reached out to me asking me to sign up to their Gold or Platinum Business card to earn rewards with our spend. An interesting suggestion is to hook our eBay fees/Paypal up to the card...

I have had a quick look online and it looks like Amex points can be transferred 1:1 to Avios, thus giving you a good selection of rewards.

Id be looking at a spend of up to £500k PA on the card, so could clearly attract some nice reward points.

Can you suggest anything else, or should I go with the Amex option.

Thanks.

[anonymous-user]

russy01 said:

Morning...

This has been done before, but things move on, hence new thread.

Currently bank with Natwest personally and business. They have me well covered personally, however for business we just use a non rewards bog standard commercial card.

AMEX have reached out to me asking me to sign up to their Gold or Platinum Business card to earn rewards with our spend. An interesting suggestion is to hook our eBay fees/Paypal up to the card...

I have had a quick look online and it looks like Amex points can be transferred 1:1 to Avios, thus giving you a good selection of rewards.

Id be looking at a spend of up to £500k PA on the card, so could clearly attract some nice reward points.

Can you suggest anything else, or should I go with the Amex option.

Thanks.

If you are happy to restrict yourself to Avios, you would earn 50% more points if you sign up to the BA Amex Premium Plus card.

Will cost you around £200 per year, and it only earns Avios rather than Amex membership rewards, but at your level of spend you would earn far more points.

If you assume a point is worth around £0.01 it equates to around £2,500 worth of extra points vs the regular 1:1 accrual rate.

[russy01]

EddieSteadyGo said:

If you are happy to restrict yourself to Avios, you would earn 50% more points if you sign up to the BA Amex Premium Plus card.

Will cost you around £200 per year, and it only earns Avios rather than Amex membership rewards, but at your level of spend you would earn far more points.

If you assume a point is worth around £0.01 it equates to around £2,500 worth of extra points vs the regular 1:1 accrual rate.

Ok many thanks for your reply. I need to have a look at the Amex rewards and Avios - see if I would be willing to tie in. As you say its a substantial increase in points, but having not used Avios before I know very little about it.

One thing I do know is that we like to "holiday", so having it tied up in Travel rewards cant be a bad thing. Plus I get a good amount of rewards and all the usual benefits through my personal rewards card with Natwest.

[anonymous-user]

russy01 said:

One thing I do know is that we like to "holiday", so having it tied up in Travel rewards cant be a bad thing. Plus I get a good amount of rewards and all the usual benefits through my personal rewards card with Natwest.

Availability is ok with avios if you book well in advance. I would suggest getting a personal BA Premier Amex card as well, in addition to the corporate card version for your business spend.

You can then earn a companion voucher, which allows you to get a second seat for no extra points (although you do still pay the 'fees and charges', so longhaul business is still around £600 return)

I do also collect Amex rewards (for my business foreign exchange payments) but overall I prefer using Avios.

As an aside, if you get a BA gold card, BA will open up Avios availability if you pay double points. My card has just come through and it allowed me to book flights to Geneva for Feb half term next year for £50 each which saved a lot of money compared to paying the rather extortionate half term fares.

[fellatthefirst]

I was in the exact same position as you. I sell on eBay and AMEX approached me about a card. As they say you add the card to your paypal account and then pay your ebay fee's each month through paypal using the AMEX card. I'm spending just shy of £500k a year. I gt 1 avios point per £1 spent so have had over 500k avios points in the last year.

I've had some really good things from this too. Heavily discounted flights and a very cheap 5 star hotel stay in London. Also you can use the points to buy things on Amazon. If you link the card to your Amazon account, Amazon know how many points you have and convert them to £'s on Amazon so as you checkout you can just use that balance if you wish. It's an absolute no brainer.

I'm off to the Canton fair in October, myself and business partner and we've managed to get a Virgin Upper Class flight return to Hong Kong using avios points and it's cost us £550 each. This is flying with Virgin.

[DSLiverpool]

Is there not a personal tax liability?

[anonymous-user]

DSLiverpool said:

Is there not a personal tax liability?

Generally not

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employmen...

[russy01]

fellatthefirst said:

I was in the exact same position as you. I sell on eBay and AMEX approached me about a card. As they say you add the card to your paypal account and then pay your ebay fee's each month through paypal using the AMEX card. I'm spending just shy of £500k a year. I gt 1 avios point per £1 spent so have had over 500k avios points in the last year.

I've had some really good things from this too. Heavily discounted flights and a very cheap 5 star hotel stay in London. Also you can use the points to buy things on Amazon. If you link the card to your Amazon account, Amazon know how many points you have and convert them to £'s on Amazon so as you checkout you can just use that balance if you wish. It's an absolute no brainer.

I'm off to the Canton fair in October, myself and business partner and we've managed to get a Virgin Upper Class flight return to Hong Kong using avios points and it's cost us £550 each. This is flying with Virgin.

Cheers fella.

I’ve signed up today and had a look and found loads of services that we pay by DD which have a card option. So could well push 600-700k points PA.

It’s got to be worth a go...

[anonymous-user]

russy01 said:

I’ve signed up today and had a look and found loads of services that we pay by DD which have a card option. So could well push 600-700k points PA.

No doubt.... I couldn't believe google happily let me switch paying by direct debit to using an Amex card instead - I genuinely thought they would complain.

It sounds from your original post you like traveling, as do I. So whether you go for the Amex Rewards or Avois, I think you will do fine.

[Insurancejon]

I've been using AMEX for a couple of years, and as I rarely use BA, I prefer to keep my points fluid.

The good news is you can then swap (using the portal) from amex points to your preferred airline in 20-30 mins.

My top tip is to use the points to upgrade as opposed to buying flights as you get much better flights

i.e - recent ones for me

Manchester dubai emirates economy to business class upgrade = 36k points - the actual monetary value of the points was about £225 if spent normall
Manchester to JFK Virgin economy to upper class = 64k points

[russy01]

Insurancejon said:

I've been using AMEX for a couple of years, and as I rarely use BA, I prefer to keep my points fluid.

The good news is you can then swap (using the portal) from amex points to your preferred airline in 20-30 mins.

My top tip is to use the points to upgrade as opposed to buying flights as you get much better flights

i.e - recent ones for me

Manchester dubai emirates economy to business class upgrade = 36k points - the actual monetary value of the points was about £225 if spent normall
Manchester to JFK Virgin economy to upper class = 64k points

Ok, thanks. I'll have a look when I start earning a decent amount of points. However Im not really fussed about flying business/first - I always rough it and buy myself something tasty with the £'000's Ive saved!

But in fairness I could end up earning a lot of points at this rate, so might just have to adapt my attitude!!

How bad a deal do you get buying flights outright with points? Any examples?

[Tim330]

russy01 said:

Ok, thanks. I'll have a look when I start earning a decent amount of points. However Im not really fussed about flying business/first - I always rough it and buy myself something tasty with the £'000's Ive saved!

But in fairness I could end up earning a lot of points at this rate, so might just have to adapt my attitude!!

How bad a deal do you get buying flights outright with points? Any examples?

https://www.headforpoints.com/2019/01/09/british-airways-avios-redemption-pricing-by-route-2/


Have a look at this site which contains a table of points to various cities from London by cabin type. The best value when using avios is to travel in business or first as you still have to pay the taxes which make up the bulk cost of an economy ticket.
With the level of spend you mention, if you have a trusted partner you should refer them for the BA premium plus card so that you end up with two companion vouchers per year. Assuming you will fly at least twice per year.

[fellatthefirst]

russy01 said:

Ok, thanks. I'll have a look when I start earning a decent amount of points. However Im not really fussed about flying business/first - I always rough it and buy myself something tasty with the £'000's Ive saved!

But in fairness I could end up earning a lot of points at this rate, so might just have to adapt my attitude!!

How bad a deal do you get buying flights outright with points? Any examples?

You can't actually buy flights outright with points...you HAVE to pay the taxes on the flights in cash.

[Insurancejon]

russy01 said:

Insurancejon said:

I've been using AMEX for a couple of years, and as I rarely use BA, I prefer to keep my points fluid.

The good news is you can then swap (using the portal) from amex points to your preferred airline in 20-30 mins.

My top tip is to use the points to upgrade as opposed to buying flights as you get much better flights

i.e - recent ones for me

Manchester dubai emirates economy to business class upgrade = 36k points - the actual monetary value of the points was about £225 if spent normall
Manchester to JFK Virgin economy to upper class = 64k points

Ok, thanks. I'll have a look when I start earning a decent amount of points. However Im not really fussed about flying business/first - I always rough it and buy myself something tasty with the £'000's Ive saved!

But in fairness I could end up earning a lot of points at this rate, so might just have to adapt my attitude!!

How bad a deal do you get buying flights outright with points? Any examples?

The amount of points would generally buy the base ticket for those destinations.

The advantage of the upgrade is price difference between the base price and the higher class one.

Ie Dubai was economy is usually @£300 where business is about 1800-2200

[Insurancejon]

FYI - if anyone wants an amex referral link where you get more introductory points (35k) than if you apply organically, just drop me a pm