Obscure Avios partners – mytrainticket.co.uk

This is the first of a series of posts looking at some of the low-profile companies who partner with avios.com (the old Air Miles site).  If you are a BAEC member, you will need to have an avios.com account to collect from these companies, and then use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move them across.

mytrainticket.com is an Avios partner, full details here (EDIT: deleted as link now dead).  Basically, you earn 20 Avios for every £10 you spend on train tickets via their site, which is accessed via the Avios e-store.

Now, train tickets are fundamentally commodity products, but the various booking sites have got very crafty recently when adding extra fees.  mytrainticket adds £1.60 to receive your tickets by post (free for station collection) plus 2% for using a credit card.  This is substantially better than thetrainline.com (with a shocking £3.50 credit card fee plus a mandatory £1 booking fee).  However, newcomer redspottedhanky.com has no booking or card fees at all.

It is also important to remember that some train companies offer exclusive discounts on their cheapest tickets for booking via their own website – East Coast, for examples, deducts an extra 10% from its cheapest seats, and has a loyalty scheme worth 1% cashback.

mytrainticket.com also offers 2% cashback if you go via Quidco instead of via the e-store.  This is probably a better deal than taking Avios, because you only earn Avios on every multiple of £10 – a £19 ticket would only earn 20 Avios.

So, my verdict on earning Avios via www.mytrainticket.com is FAIL.  Cheaper tickets may available from the train company directly, and you can avoid the credit card fee by booking elsewhere.  Even if you want to use the company, I would go via Quidco instead.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.