Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get a 40% discount when you buy SAS EuroBonus miles

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I don’t write much about SAS EuroBonus, although it is an American Express Membership Rewards partner. It is also a member of Star Alliance, which gives you a lot of flexibility when redeeming.

It does not have the cheapest award chart, though, which may account for its lack of popularity.

Europe to the US in business class, for example, is 110,000 miles plus taxes. Frankfurt to Dubai on Lufthansa would be 90,000 SAS miles in business, compared to just 60,000 Lufthansa Miles & More miles.

It takes a good offer to get me to make space for EuroBonus, and this is decent. Until 15th November, you can buy SAS EuroBonus miles for a 40% discount.

It is rare that loyalty programmes actively discount their miles – they usually just give you a bonus on top. That said, at €27 for 1000, even after the discount, these are still not cheap. However, if you want to top-off an SAS account and you don’t have an Amex Membership Rewards account, this seems a decent deal.


best credit card to use when buying flights

How to maximise your miles when paying for flights (April 2025)

Some UK credit cards offer special bonuses when used for buying flights. If you spend a lot on airline tickets, using one of these cards could sharply increase the credit card points you earn.

Booking flights on any airline?

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold earns double points (2 Membership Rewards points per £1) when used to buy flights directly from an airline website.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points. These would convert to 20,000 Avios or various other airline or hotel programmes. The standard earning rate is 1 point per £1.

You can apply here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

Buying flights on British Airways?

The British Airways Premium Plus American Express card earns double Avios (3 Avios per £1) when used at ba.com.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Avios. The standard earning rate is 1.5 Avios per £1.

You do not earn bonus Avios if you pay for BA flights on the free British Airways American Express card or either of the Barclaycard Avios Mastercards.

You can apply here.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

Buying flights on Virgin Atlantic?

Both the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard and the annual fee Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard earn double Virgin Points when used at fly.virgin.com.

This means 1.5 Virgin Points per £1 on the free card and 3 Virgin Points per £1 on the paid card.

There is a sign-up bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points on the free card and 18,000 Virgin Points on the paid card.

You can apply for either of the cards here.

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Comments (1)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Koshka says:

    Whilst RFS means that I usually prefer Avios there are a couple of decent ways of using EB points. One is their occasional route discounts where they offer up to 50% off e.g. returns between major Scandinavian capitals are 10000 instead of 20000 between mid-November and mid-December. These aren’t as good as they used to be as sometimes the discounts are much lower than 50%. My main of way of using them is for domestic Swedish flights. We’re taking a short skiing break in Åre in March and our preferred flights times from Stockholm would have cost about £410 for two adults and a 5 year old. Instead we’re using 25000 points and £60. Children up to 11 only pay 50% of the points required so these are particularly good value. To give this some context, an adult London return is 30000 points plus a lot of taxes and charges.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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