Flybe has improved the sign-up bonus on their MasterCard credit card. Unfortunately it still isn’t great, but if you live in the regions you may find some value in it.
The Flybe MasterCard is issued by Sygma Bank. Sygma is part of Creation, who also operate the Marriott Rewards card and numerous retailer and football club credit cards. Creation may not be a familiar name but they are behind many store cards and are owned by a joint venture between French bank BNP Paribas and French store chain Galerie Lafeyette.
The representative APR is 18.9% variable.
The new sign-up bonus is two free return flights on any Flybe route to / from the UK and Ireland, excluding the longer routes to Spain, Portugal and Croatia. This is double the standard offer of one free flight.
Taxes and other charges are still due – this is a key problem, as we will see.
You will receive one free flight voucher when you spend £250 within three months of application and the second when you hit £500, as long as it is within six months.
Taxes are a problem with Flybe
The key reason that I don’t love this card is the high level of taxes and charges added to ‘free’ flights.
As a budget airline, taxes and charges make up a huge percentage of the fare. A random return trip from Birmingham to Paris, for example, was £109 of which £65 was taxes. This is based on a long weekend break from 21st – 24th November. You would therefore only be getting £44 of value from your free flight – and that is assuming that the flight was even available for a reward.
With Avios redemptions, taxes are capped at £35 with Reward Saver. This is not the case with Flybe and is a major problem with their Rewards4all scheme.
It can get even worse!
There is this interesting comment on the Flybe website: “Discounted web fares may occasionally be available at a lower cost (including taxes & charges) than equivalent reward flights“. This means that you may end up being asked for £100 in ‘taxes and charges’ to book your redemption flight, whilst a cash ticket for the same flight is available for £80!
That said, if you live outside London then Flybe may be convenient for you. Arguably even if you only ended up saving £50 per flight after offsetting the taxes required, the sign-up bonus would still have been worth £100 to you. Given that the card is free it is hard to say that this is a terrible deal.
If you want to find out more about the Flybe credit card and the Rewards4all scheme, I recommend you take a look at my full review of the card.
The offer expires on October 7th.
Disclaimer: Head for Points is a journalistic website. Nothing here should be construed as financial advice, and it is your own responsibility to ensure that any product is right for your circumstances. Recommendations are based primarily on the ability to earn miles and points and do not consider interest rates, service levels or any impact on your credit history.
(To see our complete list of all current credit card bonuses, click here to visit our ‘Credit Cards Update’ page or use the link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)
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For the reasons you outlined above, I find the ‘free’ flights completely useless.
However, I fly with flybe on a frequent basis, so do value the lounge access.
Lounge access is 35 Reward4All points, which would be achieved with 18 return flights. If you are a few flights short of this target, the credit card may be useful as you get 1 Reward4All point for every £250 you spend.
Unfortunately it is now 70 points for lounge access. I have found it near impossible to get a decent valued flight with these points, or even to find availability………
Presumably this increase in points is because they have ditched there own dismal lounges in favour of far nicer 3rd party lounges.
Just as an aside – if you’re flying from JER, eligible Flybe passengers now use the BA Terraces lounge which is pretty decent.
I had one of these cards for two years or so before ditching and made several unsuccessful attempts to find “reward” flights. My experience is that the condition
“Discounted web fares may occasionally be available at a lower cost (including taxes & charges) than equivalent reward flights“.
should begin “Discounted web fares WILL ALMOST ALWAYS be available at a lower cost than equivalent reward flights”.
Good airline but a rubbish scheme
Fair enough! I was a little kinder this time because I noticed that Flybe fares have been creeping up and so there was a gap opening up between the taxes and the headline fare. But if you can’t get the seats anyway ….
A big con, as far as I am concerned…mostly for the reasons outlined above. I could always find a better deal, and never did use the voucher, and then, I couldn’t be bothered to use their rubbish card either.
When I had the Flybe card, virtually every single redemption available was more expensive than paying cash. With 6 months holiday a year and a desire to visit anywhere, I still couldn’t find a plausible way to use the free flight voucher!
It’s almost impossible to find redemption options for 2 seats on the same flight with FlyBe in my experience.
Flybe have ditched their rewards program and are going to Avios ! http://www.flybe.com/avios/faqs/