What Flight Points Credit Card Is best?

fleetingmind

The In Laws have their own building company and pay allot of their bills for materials with personal debit cards. I have been on at them for ages to get something for their big spend like airmiles.

What would be the best card for them to get like Virgin, BA amex (free companion ticket?), Tesco (and convert clubcard points to BAmiles or Airmiles) or a Airmiles credit card. A annual fee would not be a problem but keen to know the best deal for them.

Same subject but for me. I currently have a Tesco Platinum card and spend casually and get all points converted to BA Miles. Am i doing the right thing or would a BA Amex standard card (No fee) get me more for my money spent or is Virgin or a Air miles card.

Many thnaks for any help.

dylanuk

Hi,

With regards earning Tesco Clubcard points and exchanging the vouchers for BA Miles, it depends whether the majority of your spending is at Tesco or not.

The Tesco Clubcard credit card earns you 5 Clubcard points for every £4 spent at Tesco (that's 1.25 points per £1 spent), but then just 1 Clubcard point for every £4 spent anywhere else (that's 0.20 points per £1).

BA credit card (without the fee) earns 1 BA Mile for every £1 spent - anywhere.

And the Lloyds TSB AirMiles credit card earns you 1 AirMile for every £10 spent - anywhere (on the AmEx card version = you get two, an amex and a mastercard, the latter only offering 1 AirMile for every £50 spent)

The Virgin Atlantic credit card earns you 1 Flying Club mile for every £1 spent anywhere.

I've done some rough calculations for you here...

1 Clubcard point = 1 penny worth of Clubcard Vouchers

£2.50 Clubcard vouchers (250 points) = 600 BA Miles
£2.50 Clubcard vouchers (250 points) = 60 AirMiles

So, let's say you spend £1250 (for roundness sake), you'd get:

On a Tesco Clubcard credit card:
250 Clubcard points (on non-Tesco spend) which would get you:
600 BA Miles OR 60 AirMiles.
- OR
1562 Clubcard points (if the spend was all at Tesco), which would get you:
3600 BA Miles OR 360 AirMiles.

On a BA credit card:
1250 BA Miles (worth approx. £9.00 - ref calculator form at: http://www.credit-card-comparison-online.co.uk/air-miles/)

On a Lloyds TSB Airmiles credit card:
125 Air Miles (worth approx. £9.13 - ref: as above)

On a Virgin Atlantic credit card:
1250 Flying Club points (worth approx. £8.88 - ref: as above)

All in all the 'frequent flyer' credit cards all seem fairly matched, so it comes down to who you fly with most: BA or Virgin, or if none in particular maybe AirMiles becomes the best.

As for earning Clubcard points and converting them - or earning the air miles straight away, it seems to come down quite considerably to how much of your spending is done at Tesco.

If you spent half at Tesco and half away, so £625 each way: you'd get approximately 906 Clubcard points (£9 worth of vouchers)... 2160 BA Miles OR 216 AirMiles, which is still way more - almost double - than on a branded airline card (- though you'd actually have to wait to get a round £2.50 of vouchers to redeem).

Also, bear in mind this doesn't include any of the additional miles you'd get if you flew with BA or Virgin and had their branded credit card - you usually get extra miles for the cost of the flight with the credit card, plus the miles for the distance as a member of the program).

I guess as you already have a Clubcard earning credit card - maybe you should stick with that, as for your in-laws, unless they're a regular BA or Virgin flyer - I'd say AirMiles is probably better - it's a bit more flexible in the types of rewards, and it's easy to clock up extra miles in places like Shell, HMV, Comet, Currys, etc...

Hope this helps!

ukdeebee

Hi i'm new to these boards and my brain is struggling to work out what cards would be best for me. I have recently applied for a BA Amex card after booking flights with them and receiving an invitation. Friends of ours frequently upgrade to clubworld using airmiles, and we are lazy and never bother collecting any points or using cash back schemes (hubby too busy working to look into such offers and me too busy spending his hard earned cash!!!) I plan to change all that now i have found this website!
Anyway i ordered the card that charges £120 fee per year (1.5 BA miles per £1 spent)and a copy of the card for my hubby but i had a change of heart and rang amex to change to the free card (1 BA mile per £1 spent) and got hubby to apply for his own free card that way giving us the opportunity to get 2 2for1 flight coupons per year (handy when you are a family of 4) and i know we wont have any problem spending the required amount to recieve the vouchers! I also noticed on the ba website that if i collect tesco's clubcard vouchers i can transfer these into ba miles so i have applied for a clubcard for myself and hubby and even though i am a waitrose shopper i am determined to now do the bulk of my shopping at Tescos (easily a £1000 a month) Now heres where my brain goes into meltdown! if i use my ba amex to pay for the tescos shopping i will get 1 BA mile per £1 plus 1 point on my tescos clubcard. But surely if i apply for a tescos credit card i will get 1 clubcard point per pound spent on the credit card plus 1 point on my basic tesco clubcard (am i right?) so for every £250 i spend i will get 2 club card vouchers (500 points) which can be converted into 1200 BA miles. But if i spent the same £250 on my Amex card i would get 250 BA miles plus 250 clubcard points equalling 1 clubcard voucher which can be exchanged for 600 BA airmiles making a total of 850 airmiles. So is my maths correct? if i am shopping in Tescos am i better to use a Tescos credit card than a BA amex card. Please pretend that you are explaining your answers to a four year old that way i might have a chance at understanding them!! (i apologise for my lack of braincells!!)

ukdeebee

Hi i'm new to these boards and my brain is struggling to work out what cards would be best for me. I have recently applied for a BA Amex card after booking flights with them and receiving an invitation. Friends of ours frequently upgrade to clubworld using airmiles, and we are lazy and never bother collecting any points or using cash back schemes (hubby too busy working to look into such offers and me too busy spending his hard earned cash!!!) I plan to change all that now i have found this website!
Anyway i ordered the card that charges £120 fee per year (1.5 BA miles per £1 spent)and a copy of the card for my hubby but i had a change of heart and rang amex to change to the free card (1 BA mile per £1 spent) and got hubby to apply for his own free card that way giving us the opportunity to get 2 2for1 flight coupons per year (handy when you are a family of 4) and i know we wont have any problem spending the required amount to recieve the vouchers! I also noticed on the ba website that if i collect tesco's clubcard vouchers i can transfer these into ba miles so i have applied for a clubcard for myself and hubby and even though i am a waitrose shopper i am determined to now do the bulk of my shopping at Tescos (easily a £1000 a month) Now heres where my brain goes into meltdown! if i use my ba amex to pay for the tescos shopping i will get 1 BA mile per £1 plus 1 point on my tescos clubcard. But surely if i apply for a tescos credit card i will get 1 clubcard point per pound spent on the credit card plus 1 point on my basic tesco clubcard (am i right?) so for every £250 i spend i will get 2 club card vouchers (500 points) which can be converted into 1200 BA miles. But if i spent the same £250 on my Amex card i would get 250 BA miles plus 250 clubcard points equalling 1 clubcard voucher which can be exchanged for 600 BA airmiles making a total of 850 airmiles. So is my maths correct? if i am shopping in Tescos am i better to use a Tescos credit card than a BA amex card. Please pretend that you are explaining your answers to a four year old that way i might have a chance at understanding them!! (i apologise for my lack of braincells!!)

ukdeebee

DUH!! i cant even post the thread correctly!!! SORRY

simongregson

If you look on https://www.flyertalk.com in the british airways
forum there is a thread about tesco points and about the BA AMEX card which should answer your questions.

dylanuk

Hi ukdeebee,

If you get a Tesco Clubcard credit card for your Tesco's shopping - you'll earn more Clubcard points to convert to miles than you would BA Miles at 1 Mile per £1 spent.

It actually works out at approximately twice as much for Tesco shopping.

I actually tried contacting Tesco about whether or not you can earn Clubcard points on a Clubcard credit card and additional points by also using a Clubcard loyalty card - their reply was pretty wooly and twice didn't give a confirmative answer one way or the other. I guess the test would be to go to Tesco with both cards and see what happens.

But if you spend £1000 at Tesco you'd earn:

Tesco Clubcard credit card = 1250 Clubcard points - converted to BA Miles = 3000 BA Miles

Or

BA credit card (no fee version) = 1000 BA Miles

So the Tesco Clubcard credit card for Tesco spending is "miles" better!

Also, considering you would actually earn 3 times as many BA Miles on a Tesco Clubcard credit card Tesco shopping - losing out on the free companion ticket is slightly null and void - as you'd have enough Miles to get two flights anyway.

The only downside would be non-Tesco spending, which would earn you (£1000 spend):

Tesco Clubcard credit card = 250 Clubcard points (600 BA Miles)
BA credit card (no fee) = 1000 BA Miles

It's not as much difference in that though - so the more Miles at Tesco with the Tesco credit card would still probably outweigh the difference (especially considering supermarkets are where most of us spend the majority of our salaries, after mortgages or rent!).