BA Blue Amex vs. Lloyds Duo Avios

Lazyloki wrote: »

High fees can be avoided with a bit of planning by going ex-EU, especially if you can make use of Reward Flight Saver destinations.

Lazyloki wrote: »

Are you talking about the Lloyds card specifically?

Lloyds have been very sneaky in the past about giving out the bonus Avios. The marketing blurb states that you have to spend £500 per month for the first three months on the Amex card (spend on the other one doesn't count towards this target).

The problem is that nowhere do they specifically state how they define a 'month'. i.e. is it calendar month, statement month or from the date of account opening.

The one that counts, in fact, is the month from the date on which you were approved for the card. Now this is very sneaky of Lloyds as there is no way of knowing the date you were approved for the card. Sure, you could call and ask them but, frankly, I wouldn't trust their response.

The accepted method of ensuring that you get the bonus, therefore, is:

Month 1: Make a note of the date on which you applied for the card and ensure you spend the £500 before that date next month. For example, say you applied on the 1st of September and your card arrived on the 14th. You might have been approved for the card at any time between those dates so it would be best to assume the worst and make the £500 spend before the 1st of October.

Months 2 and 3: Again, without knowing exactly which date you were approved it's safest to make the £500 spend between the date on which your card approved and the date on which you applied. i.e. make the month 2 spend between 14th October and 1st November and the month 3 spend between 14th November and 1st of December.

This shouldn't be necessary but there have been many people who have been caught out by Lloyds and their fairly underhand tactics as far as bonus avios goes. If it were me, I'd get the card, operate it as above for 3 months (without spending more than I had to) to bag the bonus and then close the account (obviously make sure the avios have been posted to your Avios.com account before you cancel!)

I understand that some people may struggle to make the £500 spend in such a small window so I would suggest simply buying £500 worth of gift vouchers for places you would be spending money anyway (for example Tesco or whatever supermarket you use). That way you hit the spend bonus and can use the vouchers in lieu of cash/credit cards until the next month.

Hope that makes sense.

zerog wrote: »

Raffles' account is http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/member.php?u=180586

I got Amex gold when I was a student, and not working!

zerog wrote: »

Well, Lloyds wouldn't give me the avios card (or was it airmiles at that time, can't remember). I applied about a year after opening 3 vantages and maxing them out, so they should have seen I had some money. I wasn't credit checked either.

Later on Lloyds offered me a preapproved 0% balance transfer, which I accepted only to be met with a £1000 limit - which was pretty useless for the £6000 I wanted to transfer.

When I applied for Amex my partner was working, and I also had an income from investments, not that they asked. But I put down a reasonably high figure for the income. I had several other cards at the time so they could have seen a positive repayment history too.

I guess you could legitimately put working full-time on the application, but it may look bad if you just started your placement. But for Amex you won't get rejected just because you're a student, unlike MBNA. I dunno if a referral increases the chance of being approved (I was referred by Raffles) but I'm happy to refer you if you like, now that there is a limit of 5 per year which I'm sure he's reached