best airmiles credit card?

p5x

Just wondering which the best card would be to collect airmiles.

And do they work out better than a standard 1% cashback card?

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

p5x wrote: »

Just wondering which the best card would be to collect airmiles.

And do they work out better than a standard 1% cashback card?

I thought that Airmiles no longer existed.

Roger1

Correct about Airmiles, 'air miles' is used as a generic description.

To the OP, I'd ask how long is a piece of string. So much depends on your own circumstances, existing travel pattern, how much you're likely to spend on cards etc etc.

As a general comment, unless you regularly earn miles by flying or staying in hotels, it's unlikely that it would be worthwhile collecting miles on cards alone.

There have been plenty of similar topics on MSE. A search could probably locate them.

Also for a one off flight, MSE can tell you which cards offer what.

cinereus

Is there any one article that compiles the top 5 cards? Or is it just not possible to earn ridiculous rewards with credit cards in the same way as in the States?

p5x

Roger1 wrote: »

Correct about Airmiles, 'air miles' is used as a generic description.

To the OP, I'd ask how long is a piece of string. So much depends on your own circumstances, existing travel pattern, how much you're likely to spend on cards etc etc.

As a general comment, unless you regularly earn miles by flying or staying in hotels, it's unlikely that it would be worthwhile collecting miles on cards alone.

There have been plenty of similar topics on MSE. A search could probably locate them.

Also for a one off flight, MSE can tell you which cards offer what.

Thanks.

Sorry, I think the new term is avios. I was trying to compare spending, say £10000 year on a 1% cashback card which would return £100 cashback versus using an avios card which would give 15000 miles.

Is there any one article that compiles the top 5 cards? Or is it just not possible to earn ridiculous rewards with credit cards in the same way as in the States?

I came across this article which is quite useful in summarising the cards available.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/airline-credit-cards

cinereus

Thanks - looks like airmiles in the UK is pretty much useless compared to the US cards. I'll go for cashback instead...

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

cinereus wrote: »

Thanks - looks like airmiles in the UK is pretty much useless compared to the US cards. I'll go for cashback instead...

I think that's probably wise. I have a Virgin Atlantic AmEx/Visa duo from MBNA. I mainly use it for booking Virgin Atlantic flights (where they award double points) and for other Virgin family benefits. Otherwise I opt for a cashback card.

egpx

cinereus wrote: »

Thanks - looks like airmiles in the UK is pretty much useless compared to the US cards. I'll go for cashback instead...

It really is quite difficult to assign a cash value to an Avios and therefore compare it with a cashback card. In your example you get either £100 from the cashback or 15000 Avios. Actually it would be 10000 on the normal card which is enough to get you a return flight to a near European destination with BA, though you would have to pay £27 in cash as well. It is possible that you could buy that flight for £127 if you book in advance but I suspect it would ba a bit more and a lot more if you booked it closer to the date.

However, if you do your weekly grocery shop at Tesco and pay for it with the Avios Amex then you will get more than those 10000 Avios in a year and if you are quite canny with their special offers you could possibly double it and get two flights though of course you would have to pay £27 each.

If you get the premium card you will get 15000 Avios but you will have to pay the £150 fee. Once you have spent £10000 though you get a companion voucher which basically means you can get a second ticket which doesn't cost you any Avios at all (you still pay the taxes though). On the normal card you have to spend £20000 to get the companion ticket. That's pushing it a bit for an Amex which is not universally accepted.

You can also use the Avios to upgrade to a higher class. On long haul upgrading from Premium Economy to Business can be a good deal as you get half your Avios back. In fact I'm doing that just next week and it the upgrade cost 25000 Avios but thanks to paying for the ticket on the Avios card and the Avios earned by booking a premium economy ticket the actual cost will be something like 10000 Avios. Therefore those 10000 Avios that are worth £100 on a cashback card have bought me £2000 worth of upgrade.

Of course you might not think that an upgrade like that is actually worth that much so that's another thing to factor in. As I said, it isn't simple but on balance I'd take the Avios card.