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Avios changes – is the Lloyds Avios Rewards credit card now more valuable?

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The Lloyds Avios Rewards credit cards (my full review of the card is here) have not been hugely successful since they were launched by avios.com.  The poor customer service offered by Lloyds has disguised the fact that cards do have good reasons to hold them.

The lack of foreign exchange fees on the cards is almost unique in the UK credit card industry saving you 3% on every transaction you make on the card outside the UK.

What is GENUINELY unique is that you also earn Avios points on those transactions.  No other card in the UK offers zero foreign exchange fees AND rewards.

That isn’t what this article is about, though.  It is about one of the other perks of the Lloyds Avios Rewards credit cards – the upgrade voucher.

On the £24 version of the card, you receive an upgrade voucher for spending £7,000. On the £150 Premier version of the card, you receive an upgrade voucher for spending £5,000 – this lower target does not by itself justify the fee on the Premier card.

If you are a typically a solo traveller, the upgrade voucher may be more useful to you than the 2-4-1 voucher issued with the British Airways American Express card.

The vouchers are not, in fact, ‘upgrade vouchers’.  What they do is allow you to book a redemption in World Traveller Plus, Club World or (for short-haul) Club Europe for the Avios points of the class immediately below.

There does NOT need to be Avios availability in the lower booking class, only in the class you will be flying in.

The voucher lets you upgrade one return flight or two one-way flights. If you want to upgrade two one-way flights, they MUST be done in the same booking with both passengers travelling together. You CANNOT upgrade one one-way flight now and another flight next month as the voucher expires as soon as it is used once.

Whilst the voucher is only valid for 12 months, you only need to BOOK within this period.

How many Avios can you save?

At present, the mileage benefit from using the voucher is limited.  Taking London to San Francisco as an example, it would only save you 25,000 Avios points.  That is the difference between a Club World and World Traveller Plus return redemption.

Let’s remind ourselves of the new BA redemption chart from April 28th:

Redemption chart 2

California is Zone 6.

Off-peak, the Lloyds voucher would now save you 60,000 Avios points return.  A Club World redemption would be 125,000 Avios whilst World Traveller Plus is reduced to 65,000.

At peak times, the voucher would save you 50,000 Avios points return.  A Club World redemption would be 150,000 Avios whilst World Traveller Plus is 100,000.

Whilst best suited to a solo traveller, the Lloyds voucher would also make a decent dent in the Avios points required for a couple when used for 2 x one-way tickets on the same flight.

There is no rush to go out and get the Lloyds Avios Rewards card – you might as well focus on maximising sign-up bonuses and booking what you can before April 28th.  Once we get past that date, however, I may start to give the Lloyds card more coverage.

In particular, one thing we need to think about is this – for a couple, does it now make more sense in some scenarios to have two Lloyds Avios Rewards cards than one BA Premium Plus Amex card?  This is a topic to which I will return.

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earns points from credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – May 2025 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In 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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee 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

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (106)

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

  • MMc says:
    9 Feb9 February 08:09

    Rob
    I currently use the Halifax card abroad as it has no fees on transactions and only a v small rate, almost no fees, on taking cash out. Does this offer the same benefit?
    Thank you

    • Polly says:
      9 Feb9 February 08:16

      No, it’s not an avios earner.

    • Rob says:
      9 Feb9 February 08:32

      I am pretty sure there is a cash advance fee – it is worse than Halifax Clarity for that (and of course the Lloyds card has the £24 fee). The Avios earned on foreign purchases may outweight cash advance fees though.

  • avidsaver says:
    9 Feb9 February 08:28

    Am I right to assume that you can only use this voucher via an Avios.com booking and not BAEC?

    • Rob says:
      9 Feb9 February 08:30

      Correct, although as it is BA only it shouldn’t make any difference. A BA Gold would have access to extra Economy redemption seats via ba.com but that has no impact here because the lowest class you book is World Traveller Plus (for which you pay the Economy price).

      • Mark says:
        9 Feb9 February 20:50

        One implication of that though from a couple’s perspective is that you need enough avios in one person’s account to make the booking. That is unless you have an avios.com household account, in which case you can’t use Combine My Avios to transfer to and from Iberia or BA.

        Another reason to engineer BA.com bookings to consolidate the bulk of miles in one member’s account using CMA to temporarily transfer miles out of BA.com first if that is where you generally maintain your balance.

  • AmandaB says:
    9 Feb9 February 08:31

    I have the old free Lloyds TSB dual Amex M/card I keep it for the occasional Avios promo, generally, spend £200 for 3 consecutive months for a 4500 Avios bonus or similar.
    Is there an upgrade voucher available on this card? I have never spent more than the minimum requirement for said bonus so dont know. Please can anyone advise?

    • Paul says:
      9 Feb9 February 09:52

      Not on the free card.
      The Premier card offered a companion voucher.

      • Polly says:
        9 Feb9 February 13:32

        Yes but frustratingly You can use it only on an economy fare, for the same fee you can achieve First on BA, a much better option, albeit with about 50 k extra avios, but worth it in my opinion! But, If you are a solo traveller, and don’t mind Club, then this card is for you, for sure. Again, my question is can we do those upgrades from ex EU on BA, I went through their fairly vague t and c this afternoon, and cannot find any exclusions to Ex EU usage, but could be completely wrong! Ideas, anyone?????

        • Andi says:
          10 Feb10 February 17:40

          you say the Lloyds 241 voucher is only available to use in economy?

          • Rob says:
            10 Feb10 February 21:01

            Correct. (This is not the upgrade voucher we’re talking about.) Upside is you can use it on Eurostar, Aer Lingus, Air Malta etc as well as BA.

  • Roger says:
    9 Feb9 February 08:44

    I still have the old LloydsTSB card at the back of the drawer in case there are any spend promotions. I read that I can’t apply for the fee-payable card as an existing cardholder.

    Is this still the case? If I cancel the old card now, how long before I could apply for the new one? Has anybody successfully migrated from the old to the new card?

    • Polly says:
      9 Feb9 February 09:07

      Apparently you can, I have just been on their page, and it offers you an upgrade option, so worth a call to see if your card is included.

  • Moore1984 says:
    9 Feb9 February 08:52

    Good post. I downgraded my BA Prem Plus at the weekend on the back of the Avios devaluation.

  • Liz says:
    9 Feb9 February 08:56

    We took this card out recently and are currently getting the double points during the first 6 month period. We will trigger the voucher in April and hope to use it to book flights around Sept time for a holiday to the US in Sept 2016 for 2 people. We are thinking about flying into Chicago in TP and back from Houston in CW – this would be our first ever upgrade from economy so not sure how this all works – so how would we book this – would it have to be two one way flights – would we have to book the outbound leg 355 days out and then book again 3 weeks later for the inbound leg using the voucher to upgrade? Thanks!

  • brian says:
    9 Feb9 February 09:36

    Remember that this card awards 1.25 Avios per pound on the Amex, making it better than some of the other Avios-earning cards.

    • Jason says:
      9 Feb9 February 09:54

      Reading this, is just depressing me, having applied for the card last week because I paid a £95 fx fee to buy some Qatar flights ex EU! I only got the card to avoid the 2.99% fee and now I see all the other benefits I missed out on like, halfway to the reward voucher plus the extra avios earned in the first 6 months 🙁
      On a brighter note it will encourage me to apply for another card and put my Amex gold away whilst getting, 2.5 Avios/£, for those gift cards in tesco, if I can find them.

      • JQ says:
        9 Feb9 February 11:12

        You could have bought them via Amex Travel to be charged in GBP

        • Jason says:
          9 Feb9 February 11:53

          Never tried Amex travel, are there any other benefits to using amex travel using Amex cards?
          Just did a quick comparison and the flights were evenly matched between qatar and amex travel. I think the conversion rate would have been slightly better from Amex, than amex travel, looking at today’s current rates.
          But it would have been a better deal at the time, without a Lloyd’s Avios card.

          • mark2 says:
            9 Feb9 February 12:41

            There are sometimes offers where you get a statement credit if you spend a certain amount – £50 on 300 recently I think.

  • CV3V says:
    9 Feb9 February 09:46

    the link you gave is for activating a new credit card, not for signing up to offers.

    I tried the link within my credit card account and it states the offers are only available to those with a current account.

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