Best credit card for Air Miles (or similar)?

Legacy_user

http://www.lloydstsb.com/credit_cards/airmiles_duo.asp

Something like that.

noah271007

Tesco Mastercard CC can be converted into Airmiles 4 times the value of Clubcard points.

As far i am concerned, Tesco, Lloyds TSB and Shell are the only credit cards to be linked to Airmiles scheme.

chattychappy

Consider BMI Amex, at least for the very generous welcome bonus:

http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/diamond-club/credit-card/credit-card.aspx

BMI are part of Star Alliance which a number of airlines belong to. So it works particularly well if you fly with one of those airlines.

See http://www.staralliance.com/en/

Best value can be had if you can add some miles to the welcome bonus and then add cash to take a long haul business class flight.

This is the best site for discussion of BMI's Diamond Club:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-diamond-club-486/

dylanuk

There's an article that compares the different point values here... http://www.choose.net/money/guide/articles/credit-cards/tesco-ba-airmiles-rewards.html

bmi is the best air miles credit card in terms of how much value you're actually earning, and then Lloyds TSB airmiles duo comes in a close second.

It does largely depend on who you fly with the most though, as if that's BA or Virgin Atlantic for example - you'll earn considerably more miles for actual flights with the airline.

The Lloyds TSB Airmiles Duo is slightly more a travel reward credit card as the various airline / travel partners are much more general, so probably the better choice for yearly holiday-makers in contrast to frequent business flyers.

Have you considered just earning cash back? American Express Platinum is the best card for this.

System

Thanks for the replies.

Oh, it's not that I travel a lot, but I just recently found out about Air Miles (yes, it was from the film, "Up in the Air" )

I was just thinking, if you're going to spend money anyway, why not get rewarded with free stuff.

Is BMI the best then? The only problem is it's Amex, and a lot of companies don't accept it do they?

Would it be better for me just earning cash back then?

I saw on the website for the BMI card, you get 20,000 points when you join and spend £250 in the first 3 months (which is two economy class return tickets to moscow), and then if you spend £500 a month for a year you get 29,000 points.

What's the catch (if you pay all of your bills on time)?

cliffeliamatt

Watch Out. I have 30000 miles on my BMI Credit card and i cant sepend it, because its choices of flights are VERY!!!!! Limited. In fact you can only fly to some obscure places like, Tehran, Russia. AND- that's if any flight are available. Because I treid searching for a flight to Brussels 12 months in advance and 0, Zilch, Zero seats available. I tried other airports in their limited choice, and still 0, Zilch, Nil, Zero seats available. I am just wondering whether this is a con just to get you to sign up to the card with no promise of any flights.
I am fast thinking of paying my card in full and cancelling it. Tesco Points card - is better, since my vouchers paid for a ferry journey from Glasgow to Belfast.

Any

I've worked it through and I personally opted for Tesco credit card. You earn 1 point for every £4 spend and it works out better when then converted to Airmiles as any other scheme. It is 250 points = 60 Airmiles (£1 spend = 0.24 Airmile)
BUT - if you also shop or fuel up at Tesco the points balance adds up really quickly AND you can opt to exchange your points for any other rewards... IE 250 points is £10 for restaurants (Pizza Express, Prezzo and few others) or what ever.

Lloyds has 2 cards. American express - 1 point for every £10 spend and normal card (not sure whether Visa or Maestro) and that one is 1 point for every £50 spend!!! So you would have to spend £3000 to get the same points as for Tesco's £250 spend..

This is calculation for the Airmiles (yellow logo) scheme, didn't look into the BMI credit cards...

dk7

Any wrote: »

I've worked it through and I personally opted for Tesco credit card. You earn 1 point for every £4 spend and it works out better when then converted to Airmiles as any other scheme. It is 250 points = 60 Airmiles (£1 spend = 0.24 Airmile)
BUT - if you also shop or fuel up at Tesco the points balance adds up really quickly AND you can opt to exchange your points for any other rewards... IE 250 points is £10 for restaurants (Pizza Express, Prezzo and few others) or what ever.

Lloyds has 2 cards. American express - 1 point for every £10 spend and normal card (not sure whether Visa or Maestro) and that one is 1 point for every £50 spend!!! So you would have to spend £3000 to get the same points as for Tesco's £250 spend..

This is calculation for the Airmiles (yellow logo) scheme, didn't look into the BMI credit cards...

Any - been looking at this myself today and have to say your maths is flawed.

If you spent £1000 a month on your tesco card (£12k pa), you'd earn 3000 tesco points. This would buy you 12 (=3000/250) lots of 60 air miles = 720 airmiles pa.

Each pound spent only earns you 0.06 of an airmile, or in other words you'd need to spend £16.67 on your tesco card to earn an airmile.

The Lloyds Amex offer is clearly better if all your concerned about are airmiles as you also get one airmile per pound for your first £1500 of spending.

Have to say though overall these reward cards aren't as good as straight cashback after the initial bonus. I plan to get 1500 airmiles with lloyds then revert to my standard cashback card at 1% on all spending.

Any

dk7 wrote: »

Any - been looking at this myself today and have to say your maths is flawed.

If you spent £1000 a month on your tesco card (£12k pa), you'd earn 3000 tesco points. This would buy you 12 (=3000/250) lots of 60 air miles = 720 airmiles pa.

Each pound spent only earns you 0.06 of an airmile, or in other words you'd need to spend £16.67 on your tesco card to earn an airmile.

The Lloyds Amex offer is clearly better if all your concerned about are airmiles as you also get one airmile per pound for your first £1500 of spending.

Have to say though overall these reward cards aren't as good as straight cashback after the initial bonus. I plan to get 1500 airmiles with lloyds then revert to my standard cashback card at 1% on all spending.

Oh God, I couldn't find the flaw. I knew it worked out around the same when I've done the calcs some 6 mths ago, but now when I wrote it out I couldn't spot the flaw so I assumed that I've messed up the last time...

I am not having a good day today.

Thanks

insurgente

apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but does anyone know if airmiles are transferable? MY mum has some on her Tesco Credit Card she'd like to give me and I could really use them..... I just got a Tesco CC myself and have probably built up about 5 miles so far, I'm guessing they can't be combined?

Any

Do you both live at the same address?

If yes, you can combine the two airmiles accounts. If not - the only way to use her airmiles is for her to have the full amount of airmiles needed and ring up and order the flight/whatever for you.

The owner of the airmiles account can buy a flight for anybody, but it has to be the owner of the account who rings up.