Good CC for building Avios Points?

TractorFactor

I wonder whether the free American Express card would be best suited to us.
Not a huge intro bonus, no but no fee and we'd spend on it through the years building up points - every little could help in this case.
Could "invite" my partner and get another 4000 points too.

lr1277

There are 2 Avios earning Barclaycards. One with a fee and the other is free, but with a lower earning rate. I don’t know the minimum salary required for the free card. Might be worth investigating?

Marchitiello

OP, as others have said already, you are better off to first further research it on one of the specialist sites before getting to your conclusion. There are free cards that earns you Avios (both basic Barclaycard Avios and BA Amex -blue card- have no fee and earn you 1 Avios per £1 spent for example, but also few other options via Amex or other Avios conversions) but, being fully invested in Avios and some other frequent flyer schemes myself, I have to warn you that it does need some commitment/earning strategy otherwise they won’t suit most people. Simply put, if you spend £10,000 per year that can be put on.a CC, with the sign up bonus you are referring to, you would get 15,000 Avios in year one, and 65,000 Avios in total over 6 years. Using these for a cheap EuroTraveller (BA Economy Short Haul) trip  may not actually give you a great return. Using it on Qatar (Avios is actually the “AirMiles” currency for BA, AirLingus, Iberia, Vueling and Qatar Airways) may give you slightly better return, but again 65,000 is still not a great number. My own earning objective per year within the household, via several earning opportunities (not only CC spend), bonuses, business spend etc) is 100,000-200,000 Avios per year, and redeem this for Premium long haul flight (also using BA 2-4-1 vouchers)

TractorFactor

Marchitiello said:

OP, as others have said already, you are better off to first further research it on one of the specialist sites before getting to your conclusion.

Simply put, if you spend £10,000 per year that can be put on.a CC, with the sign up bonus you are referring to, you would get 15,000 Avios in year one, and 65,000 Avios in total over 6 years.

Using it on Qatar (Avios is actually the “AirMiles” currency for BA, AirLingus, Iberia, Vueling and Qatar Airways) may give you slightly better return, but again 65,000 is still not a great number.

Well on that basis, it seems there's little point in bothering as it's too much effort for not much gain really.
Although I have come here research as well as using websites.  The difference is, websites don't talk back...

WillPS

TractorFactor said:

QrizB said:

TractorFactor said:

Is there a good CC for building Avios points?

If you can meet the spending requirements (£3k in the first 3 months), the Amex Gold Rewards card has a 20k points bonus - and Amex points can be converted 1:1 into Avios.

I think this is the issue.

I'm not sure we'd spend £3000 in three months as that's a pretty tall order and I can't think of any major purchases we need to make (we're actually trying not to spend money!).

I'm not bothered about points being devalued or the scheme closing in 6 years.  My current CC (Halifax Clarity) gives me nothing in return so I may as well try and get something.

The important thing for us is cheap / free flights.

The Barclaycard one would have been great but I don't earn £75,000 (although we do combined).  Shame as my mortage is currently with them - I guess they wouldn't back-date points.

I'm just wondering if it's just too complicated.
I don't have a BA.com account, but having to sign up there, to sign up to a special credit card - we rarely fly anywhere - I think it's just a bit too much effort and after the annual fees and things, probably barely worth it.  Although I'm sure I did see a fee-free AmEx card...  but then there's having to worry it won't be accepted everywhere (probably just supermarkets, Amazon, ebay, fast food outlets - I can't think of many other places we actually use cards regularly).

There is no £75k minimum income for either of the Barclaycard Avios cards.

If it's free flights you're after then you'll probably be disappointed to learn that they largely don't exist; there's typically hundreds to pay in "taxes". You're also often very restricted on availability even when plenty of seats are available for cash. Unless you're flying in upper classes you're very unlikely to be saving money vs cashback and just buying well priced flights (shopping around is a luxury you forfeit or severely limit yourself with by 'buying in to' Avios).

Honestly, if I were you I'd get the free Barclaycard and see how it goes. Worst case, so long as the Nectar partnership endures, you can just transition the Avios points to Nectar and use them at Sainsburys, Argos or Ebay. The effective 0.66% earning rate is far and away the best rate you'd get on a non-Amex fee free card.

lr1277

On a pedantic point, don't dismiss your Halifax Clarity card by saying it gives you nothing.

It gives you forex free transactions across the world.

Most rewards cards expect you to pay a forex fee.

Only the Virgin rewards cards give you rewards but also allow fee free forex spending in parts of Europe. Not sure of the exact countries where fee free spending is allowed but you can research if you are interested.

I say this as somebody who lost my fee free forex card based on decisions made by 2 companies. And due to a change in my income I can't get a fee free forex card now. I urge you to value your card whilst you have it.

Btw I think Virgin is now linked with Air France and KLM. So any Virgin points collected can be used on Air France/KLM. And if you go to one of their European destinations, then you could use your Virgin fee free card in those destinations.

For example I looked up travelling from LHR to Paris in late September coming back early October. On the Virgin Atlantic site you can book for 1 passenger for 16k points plus £115 in taxes and fees.

As noted earlier if you get the Amex gold, you get an extra 2500 points for every 5k you spend.If you spend £10k on the card within a card year, then you get 15k in Amex MR points. This can be trasnferred to Virgin and get you 15k Virgin points which could be used on the flight to Paris.

It has been noted by users of HeadforPoints, that Virgin tend to charge more for taxes and fees than compared to BA. The downside is that the Amex gold card has a fee after the 1st year.

If you choose to make Virgin your rewards scheme of choice, I suggest you read this article on this HeadforPoints (HfP) site:

https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/03/16/what-is-best-virgin-atlantic-credit-card/ 

TractorFactor

That's the first thing that sort of put me off.
If BA charges more for flights, then we'll be stuck with them (because if the Avos points) instead of using Virgin airlines.

We have a Chase card, which gives us free foreign exchange rates and as using a credit card doesn't give us any more protection than a debit card these days, I see little need in keeping it in regular use.

There is the argument of keeping unused credit cards to you have access to a large amount of credit vs closing old accounts you don't intend to use again but I can't see us using the Clarity CC again. 

WillPS

TractorFactor said:

That's the first thing that sort of out me off.
If BA charges more for flights, then we'll be stuck with them (because if the Avos points) instead of using Virgin airlines.

We have a Chase card, which gives us free foreign exchange rates and as using a credit card doesn't give us any more protection than a debit card these days, I see little need in keeping it in regular use.

There is the argument of keeping unused credit cards to you have access to a large amount of credit vs closing old accounts you don't intend to use again but I can't see us using the Clarity CC again. 

If your spending falls within the £1500 monthly limit, and the aim is to get away as cheaply as possible, then honestly you're probably better off sticking with that. Avios (and most Air Miles) are designed in such a way that they offer the best value for high end redemptions. Outsized value in economy isn't impossible but it's harder and when all is said and done if you're happy flying with any airline and in economy I think overall you are better with 1% cashback and finding a better cash fare.

It also moves you outside the scope of an airline suddenly devaluing their miles, which can and does happen.

MrFrugalFever

Hi Op,

From what i've read so far it seems as though you may be expecting an awful lot for not a lot of effort, unfortunately when it boils down to the crux of it, you'd need to be spending £Thousands each year, looking for bonuses and additional points where possible to even make such a thing work. It is then only really beneficial for longer haul flights (IMO).

Personally, if you're on a bit of a 'no spend mission' then i'd look down the route of stoozing, savings rate chasing and cashback (such as TopCashBack), set up a separate savings pot for all monies earnt from interest and cashback etc and utilise that in 6 years to pay for some/most of your flights?

@lr1277 you mention about not having access to a forex fee free CC because of your income....have you tried both Zopa eligibility checker and 118 money? Both are CC's which are forex fee free.

Kroo bank (soft credit search currently) is also a FX fee free current account (app only).

Just come back from Las Vegas and saved a fair bit utilising these 3 accounts.

Marchitiello

MrFrugalFever said:

....have you tried both Zopa eligibility checker and 118 money? Both are CC's which are forex fee free.

Kroo bank (soft credit search currently) is also a FX fee free current account (app only).

Just come back from Las Vegas and saved a fair bit utilising these 3 accounts.

Did you not get a Chase account? You would not only have saved “a fair bit” but made some money on top, aside of offering you free ATM withdrawal at US Chase ATM.