Which credit and debit cards allow you to earn airline miles?

Choosing a card that earns you points

If you’re looking to leverage everyday spend for business-class (or economy or First) seats, you’re in luck. There are now more cards you can use to earn points than ever. As with all financial decisions, make sure you understand the costs and the impact of each option, and if you do choose to get a credit or debit card, then make sure you’re making the best decision based on your personal circumstances.

What does a points-earning credit or debit card do?

In short, they allow you to earn airline miles when you spend on the card. When you use your card to pay for something, then you will earn either points for an airline, or the card company’s own points.

Normally there is a set earn rate, for example 1 point for every £1 you spend. Sometimes cards will boost that earn rate; for example, on the BA Amex card, you’ll earn 3 points per £1 on transactions with BA itself. That means if you book a BA flight, and pay for it using your BA card, you’ll earn more points.

An example of earn rates on popular cards:

• The BA Premium Plus Amex card earns you 1.5 Avios for every £1 you spend, or 3 when you spend with BA.
• The Barclaycard Avios card earns you 1.5 Avios points for every £1 you spend.
• The Virgin Atlantic free credit card earns 0.75 Virgin points for every £1, or 1.5 Avios per £ you spend with Virgin.

The golden rule is to never spend more on a card just to earn points. Use the cards for regular, everyday spending you would have incurred regardless.

Tie-ups between airlines and financial institutions are becoming more frequent, and that’s positive for consumers as well as for the airlines themselves. It’s not uncommon for a bigger airline to earn hundreds of millions, or in some cases billions, of pounds via credit or debit card partnerships.

It’s fast becoming a significant source of revenue in an industry that – despite the cost of flights themselves – can struggle to maintain a good margin.

The UK market is dominated by American Express. Their tie-up with British Airways has been around for a long time, and their cards allow you to not only earn points but also companion vouchers. They allow you to fly and use half the typical number of points. Even then, earning Avios points for British Airways means that you can use those points across a whole range of airlines.

Not all points are created equally

Amex not only has co-branded airline credit cards but also has its own cards that earn its Membership Rewards currency. These can then be converted into airline points. This is the most flexible type of point to earn because it doesn’t tie you to one airline, although the transfer rate from MR points to the airline frequent flyer scheme can change, and when it does, it’s rarely in the customer’s favour.

Capital On Tap also allows you to earn its own points, which you can transfer to British Airways, Qatar and Virgin Atlantic. That’s not quite as many airlines as Amex, but it’s still very useful for the UK market.

Revolut’s Revpoints operate in the same way. You earn those points, and can then transfer them out. They have a wide choice of airlines, including BA, Qatar, KLM and Turkish Airlines.

Finally, HSBC’s Premier and Premier World Elite cards operate in a similar way. You collect HSBC points which you can then transfer to eleven airlines. However, to get this card, you need an HSBC Premier account, which requires an income of over £100,000 (paid into that account) or significant savings.

Avios isn’t just about BA

Earning British Airways Avios points through an Amex, Capital On Tap or Barclaycard doesn’t tie you in to BA. You can move those points to Iberia, Finnair, Qatar and more. You can also book more partner airlines through British Airways.

Avios points give you great coverage across the globe. BA have excellent US links, Iberia covers South America well. Qatar will get you to the Far East and Australia, and Finnair also have good long-hauls to places like Japan. Finally, Aer Lingus have solid US connections too (via Dublin). They really are an excellent currency to have, although you will always have the challenge of seat availability.

Current UK points-earning credit cards

Current UK points-earning debit cards

There are really only a small number of airlines that are useful to UK travellers. British Airways and Virgin are based in the UK, so naturally, they’re important to points collectors. Qatar, with its connections via Doha, is also important, but it uses the Avios currency, so any BA points can easily be transferred to it (or back again).

The case for having a Qatar-branded credit card got stronger recently. Rule changes have meant that you cannot book a Qatar reward flight for anyone but yourself unless you have either earned at least 1 Avios point via a cash booking, or 1 Avios point from a co-branded credit card. This is a significant change that makes it much harder to book flights if you travel as a couple or family.

Emirates is the outlier; they’re popular in the UK with flights from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow, but they do not have a UK credit card. They do have one in the US, run by British bank Barclays. The only way to get Emirates Skywards points from daily spend is to have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points, or to have an HSBC Premier credit card.

United’s card with Currensea is an interesting one. It’s been many years since I last flew United. They stopped their MAN to NYC flights, but they do have flights to London, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Of course they’re part of the Star Alliance, which has some excellent flight options across Europe, and into Asia (as well as to the US via United).

What about business cards that earn points?

There are also a variety of cards available to businesses. As with the personal cards, American Express dominates the market, but there are alternatives. Capital On Tap is highly competitive with Amex, and as it’s a Visa card it’s accepted in more places. The earn rate matches Amex, and whilst you don’t have as many transfer options, they do include BA, Virgin and Qatar, which are popular options for UK travellers.

Will the points from credit/debit cards be enough for a flight?

If you do some simple maths, then the answer is usually no. A business-class flight with British Airways to Singapore will require 121,000 points per person. Even at an earn rate of 1.5/£, that would require over £80,000 of spend on a card, which is significant and likely more than most people would spend on a card in a year.

The Amex companion voucher, or Barclays Cabin Upgrade voucher, will make a big difference by reducing the number of points you need. Still, that means £40k of spend on an Amex card to get to Singapore. That’s still a lofty goal.

This highlights the importance of earning points elsewhere, and in my experience that means the Avios Hotels and the Avios Shopping portal.

• You earn 10 Avios per £ you spend at Avios Hotels. The pricing on that site matches Expedia, and it has the same selection of hotels as any aggregator. We’ve earned hundreds of thousands of points from that site.
• The Avios Shopping portal allows you to pick up points on everyday spend, as well as insurance products, broadband and banking. These can be in the low hundreds, or for insurance it can run into the thousands. Multiply that by 20 or 30 transactions a year, and that’s a decent amount of points.
  
  

What are the best free cards?

Many of the cards listed above have a monthly or annual fee. There is no need to pay that, as there are some perfectly decent free cards to earn Avios. It’s usually better to start out with a free card.

In my opinion, the American Express British Airways Credit Card and the Barclays Avios Barclaycard are the two best free options. They both earn Avios at 1 point per £ spent (the premium, paid-for cards earn 1.5p/£).

Both cards allow you to earn either a companion voucher (Amex) or a cabin upgrade voucher (Barclays) by hitting a spend level. The Amex free card has a poor companion voucher thought: you can only use it in the Economy cabin. Barclays have a higher spend limit to hit on their free card, but you can use it to upgrade to Premium Economy or Business class.

Which card gives you the best range of airlines?

• Capital On Tap allows you to transfer their points to three different airlines
  • British Airways
  • Qatar
  • Virgin Atlantic
    
• American Express allows transfers to thirteen different airlines:
  • Air France
  • British Airways
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Delta
  • Emirates
  • Etihad
  • KLM
  • SAS
  • Singapore
  • Iberia
  • Qantas
  • Qatar
  • Virgin Atlantic
    
• The HSBC Premier Card allows transfers to twelve different airlines:
  • Air France
  • British Airways
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Emirates
  • Etihad
  • EVA Air
  • Finnair
  • KLM
  • Qantas
  • Qatar
  • Singapore Airlines
  • TAP

Which cards are best for US travel?

Firstly, BA have an excellent route network when it comes to North America. I wrote recently about all of their destinations in the US, Canada and Mexico. It is the strongest airline for both the breadth of destinations and the frequency of flights from Europe, meaning any card that earns you Avios, or points you can convert into Avios, will help with your US plans.

Virgin are also a good option. They not only fly from London to eleven US cities, but also from Edinburgh and Manchester. The latter has flights to Las Vegas, New York, Atlanta and Orlando. Edinburgh has flights to Orlando. That means the co-branded Virgin cards could be a good option, or Tesco cards that allow you to transfer to Virgin, alongside any Amex card that earns MR points.

The challenge with Virgin is that it can be difficult to redeem your points for flights. They use a dynamic approach to point pricing, making it more challenging to predict how many points you actually need. It’s generally easier to find flights to Atlanta because it’s a less popular destination. That could act as a jumping-off point to the South or Florida.

Which cards are best for travelling to the Middle East?

British Airways also has a good volume of flights to the Middle East. It has recently reduced its destinations a little, but it still flies to Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Bahrain, to name a few of the more popular cities. Alongside that, you have a lot of direct flights from UK airports to Doha with Qatar. Connecting onwards to other ME cities is easy from Doha, and Qatar have an excellent network of regional flights.

That makes Avios a great choice if you are travelling to the Middle East, and any Avios-earning card or any card that collects points you can turn into Avios. It’s possible to convert Amex’s Membership Rewards points into Emirates Skywards points, and Emirates flies from multiple UK cities to Dubai.

Etihad, sadly, ended its partnership with American Express. You can no longer convert MR points into Etihad miles. That’s a real shame, as we had managed to accrue enough to take a flight in their First Class cabin, which got upgraded to their stunning The Residence suite.

Which cards are the best for travelling to Asia and Australia?

Singapore Airlines has direct flights from Manchester and London. You cannot book these flights using Avios, as Singapore is a Star Alliance member. Instead, you can transfer Amex MR points or HSBC points to Singapore Krisflyer miles. That makes the non-airline Amex cards a good option for Singapore flights.

British Airways, Finnair and Qatar have great connections across Asia. They’re powered by Avios, making any Avios-earning card a good option for Asia. Utilising a BA card through Amex or Barclaycard does give you the ability to use the companion or upgrade voucher on Asia flights.

In short: which credit cards are best for earning points?

The answer to this question starts with another question: do you want to pay a monthly fee for a card? If not, then that removes a number of options.

If you do not want to pay a monthly fee for a points-earning credit card, the Barclays Avios or American Express British Airways card may be a good option. Both are linked to your British Airways Club account, but you can then move these points to other Avios earning airlines like Qatar, Finnair or Iberia.

If you do want to commit to paying a fee for a card, my first points earning card was the American Express Premium card. The annual fee has crept up quite considerably since I first got the card, and the perks (beyond the companion voucher) are quite limited. It is the one card that I am considering dropping, partly because we are flying British Airways less and less, which means that we are just not using the companion voucher. I am also finding that American Express’ customer experience is degrading over time too. What was once, in my opinion, best in class has become frustrating.

You may want to choose a card based on your current financial relationships. If you are with Barclays, it may make more sense to get a Barclaycard. Similarly with HSBC or Revolut.

The most important factor around choosing a card is not the perks, but the cost and how the card fits into your financial planning.