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

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• mark2 says:

  9 Feb9 February 10:26

  Apologies; I was not able to try that. I have put a correction above.

• mark2 says:

  9 Feb9 February 10:27

  CORRECTION: the ‘Everyday Offers’ only works if you have a Lloyds Bank current account.

• Rob says:

  9 Feb9 February 10:35

  At £800 you are ‘quits’ on the £24 fee compared to using a normal credit card. Compared with, say, the Post Office or Halifax cards, you need to spend around £2,000 abroad for it to be better. £2,000 would earn you 2,500 Avios which covers the £24 fee. Avios earned from further foreign spend is therefore bonus.

  Of course, if you’re willing the pay the £24 fee simply to get your hands on the upgrade voucher then you can ignore the calculation above.

• RT says:

  9 Feb9 February 11:06

  Is it possible to churn and earn with these cards?

  • mark2 says:

    9 Feb9 February 11:10

    A couple can invite each other and get 9000 Avios each.

  • Rob says:

    9 Feb9 February 15:14

    No. Lloyds have even been known to refuse a bonus on the Avios cards to people who had the old Air Miles cards six years ago, even though that was a totally different product.

• RT says:

  9 Feb9 February 11:10

  Actually – the £140 card offers a companion voucher too on £12k spend?! I never knew that!!!!

  • mark2 says:

    9 Feb9 February 11:42

    but economy only, so take care that the £140 charge plus taxes and fees does not exceed the cash fare.

  • Rob says:

    9 Feb9 February 15:13

    Upside – usable on Eurostar, Aer Lingus etc as well as BA
    Downside – economy only

    • RT says:

      11 Feb11 February 12:32

      Is it possible to use the 241 on Econ then use the upgrade voucher to upgrade to Premium?

      • Rob says:

        11 Feb11 February 15:32

        No, because the upgrade voucher is NOT an upgrade voucher. That is what they call it, but in reality what happens is that they sell you a ticket in the higher class for the miles of the lower class. Will not therefore combine.

• BigAl says:

  9 Feb9 February 11:42

  A few queries:

  1. Does anyone know the answer to Polly’s question about whether the upgrade vouchers can be used for BA flights ex-UK? The T&Cs specifically exclude ex-LCY, which to me implies it needs to be from LHR or LGW, but does anyone know for sure?

  2. Has anyone compared the actual exchange rates of this card against eg BAPP to make sure their don’t have a stealth fee? 0% foreign transaction fees may not seem so great if the exchange rate’s 2% higher…

  3. I take it that the website is generally a bit more budget than Amex in that it doesn’t show you how far you have progressed towards reaching your target etc? (I realise you can do this manually but just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing a trick).

  4. Interesting about the companion voucher for the £140 – surely makes it a better option than keeping BAPP..?!

  Thanks!

  • mark2 says:

    9 Feb9 February 11:48

    re point 1 the exclusion of LCY implies to me that any other start point is allowed, but get it in writing from Lloyds if this is important to you;
    re point 3: a lot more budget from my experience;
    re point 4, the companion voucher can only be used in Economy.

    • Mick says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:07

      I think the caveate here is the Ex EU question …. This would defo be a deal maker/breaker for me …. Ide like to know the actual routes allowed on other airlines including aer lingus …. Think I shall call them after work.

      • Polly says:

        9 Feb9 February 13:48

        I have been through their t and c s today like a fine needle, and cannot find any exclusion re ex EU. It’s not even mentioned, so I think this is fairly naive avios collecting here. All very basic. And you have to go through avios, not BA. The fact that their companion ticket is allowed ONLY for Economy might work after the changes end of April. They seem to not be aware of the ins and outs that we can actually achieve, with a bit of planning, as we HforP are used to doing. Their SOLO upgrade to CLUB is definitely worth pursuing though, If flying alone. My hubby can use this for work trips, so just fine for us. Otherwise the only companion ticket to aim for in the business is the amex 241. So oyou need a few 1000 more avios, but at least we can fly First. The Ex EU is definitely the underlying question here! Then we can start planning….

        • jason says:

          9 Feb9 February 14:00

          Hi Polly

          Excuse my ignorance, but why is Ex EU so important for these flights?

        • Polly says:

          9 Feb9 February 14:18

          We don’t have to pay APD, on ex EU flights. eg ex BRU to SYD minimal taxes, just RFS to get to BRU, usually save a £300 to £400 in taxes. Which you can then spend in Brussles enjoying a European city each end of the flight, instead of paying it to her majesty’s gov! Just check out some previous articles of raffles which shows how we can save. Also recently a BA sale had flights to HNL. Hawaii ex Dub for around £1200 instead of over 2k from LHR, so it’s a big part of avios flight planning.

        • jason says:

          9 Feb9 February 14:32

          Thought it might be APD, but couldn’t see how that would tie into a BA flight redemption.
          I’m looking to get to our destination, the most luxurious way and the most direct way, with 2 young children. Adding 4 flights, on, wouldn’t go down too well. However I see your point in your circumstances.

        • Mark says:

          9 Feb9 February 20:58

          I think there is some confusion here. The upgrade vouchers can only be used with BA, hence the question of whether you can use them ex-EU is a definite no (flights to London aside).

          It is the companion voucher that can be used on limited other airlines, but that is economy only.

  • Rob says:

    9 Feb9 February 15:12

    The FX rate always goes off the MasterCard / Visa / Amex interbank rate so no problems with that.

• richie says:

  9 Feb9 February 12:35

  whatch that this actually posts though. it didnt for us

• Martin says:

  9 Feb9 February 13:33

  I’ve got a grump on about this card.

  I applied and got declined and have no idea why. As far as I know I have a perfect credit history, and managed to get an Amex Platinum without them even doing the “we’ll think about it” bit, but Lloyds dont want to love me, whcih is fine, as its now mutual :o(

  Humph.

  • Matthew says:

    9 Feb9 February 13:57

    I think Raffles has said in the past that they have a history of declining people with perfect credit scores. Some companies don’t accept you if you pay off your balance in full each month, simply as they wont make money from you with no interest charges being levied. Maybe you have quite a number of cards already? I’m not sure what is classed as normal but including the ‘double pack’ cards, I have 8 which is prob enough! I may need to ditch one before my next application.

    • mark2 says:

      9 Feb9 February 18:09

      I have just got one of these cards although I have paid off all of my credit cards in full by direct debit. I am now retired and have very little income but I have been granted cards by Amex, Barclaycard, Tesco and Lloyds in the last few weeks. I only wanted the welcome bonuses but they did not know that.

  • Blenz101 says:

    9 Feb9 February 16:19

    If I had to guess, your current lines of available credit VS declared annual income are not something Lloyds wish to risk extending further.

    If Amex (plus others) have already given you generous limit(s) then you could see why another bank would be hesitant to offer you even more – the computer won’t be considering that you are only in it for the miles.

    Reduce some existing limits down and try again in 6 months.

    • Martin says:

      9 Feb9 February 18:04

      I only have 2 cards, one is the plat and one is BA which I reduced the limit on to £3000, a fraction of what they gave me. I guess I need to accept that not everyone falls for my charms. “Leave it, son, they’re not worth it” as they might say on Albert Square.

  • MattK says:

    9 Feb9 February 16:21

    I’ve applied for the Hilton Barclaycard and been rejected every time (March 2013, October, 2013, January 2015). At the time of the first application I only had one other credit card. I’ve never been turned down for any Amex or other credit card.

    I have no idea what their approval process is but I clearly don’t meet their requirements somehow, I presume Lloyds may have a similar picky process.

    • danksy says:

      9 Feb9 February 17:05

      Clearly your money is too good for them!

  • Matt says:

    9 Feb9 February 21:01

    Lloyds use current account information to assess applications so it is notoriously difficult to get accepted for their products if you don’t have a current account with them. Still possible but the bar is much higher.

    • Jason says:

      9 Feb9 February 22:16

      My wife was accepted instantly last week and we bank with HSBC.

    • JQ says:

      9 Feb9 February 23:43

      Well it’s more like Lloyds are too stingy to pay Experian when existing customers apply, so they automatically accept most of their own customers, while non-customers need to meet an unknown set of criteria before Lloyds will even bother to credit check them.

      • joe says:

        10 Feb10 February 09:10

        To give Lloyds credit, they actually called me to discuss my application as there was some inconcistency. We cleared it up over the phone and a human made the decision to accept me.

        The credit card company I work for rejected me with ‘ computer says no ‘. Oh well.

        • Rob says:

          10 Feb10 February 10:14

          My wife constantly fails to get Amex Gold yet they are happy to accept her for credit cards – and she earns the sort of money that you would expect from a senior City banker. There is no logic to these things.

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