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All MBNA airline credit cards withdrawn – what are your alternatives?

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Last week I ran this article suggesting that you should act immediately if you wanted to apply for any of the MBNA airline credit cards.

It was good advice.

All eight MBNA airline credit cards were pulled on Monday evening.  Slightly surprisingly, this included the new American Airlines card which is only a few months old and which did not have an American Express element.

These are the cards you can no longer get:

Lufthansa Miles & More

Emirates Skywards

Emirates Skywards Elite

Virgin Flying Club White

Virgin Flying Club Black

Etihad Guest

United Airlines MileagePlus

American Airlines AAdvantage

You should NOT assume that these cards will return under a new issuer.

We know that the two Virgin Atlantic cards will return shortly under the Virgin Money banner.  However, I know from some discussions I have had that you should not necessarily expect the other cards to return.  If you think that they are all primed to relaunch next week, you are very wrong.

Two linked events caused this.  The core driver was the European Union cap on interchange fees.  This restricted the fee that payment processors could charge retailers for accepting credit cards to 0.3%.   It is very difficult to run a successful mileage card on this basis.

The second driver was American Express being caught up in the 0.3% cap, even though it was originally expected to be exempt.  American Express decided to pull all of its licensed cards from the market, which means that MBNA, Lloyds, TSB and Barclays had to stop issuing Amex-branded products. 

I am a little surprised that the American Airlines card was pulled.  This had already been relaunched without an American Express element.  It combined a chunky fee (£70) with a very high earning rate (1.25 miles per £1 on a Visa).  I thought this might prove sustainable but MBNA clearly had other ideas.

So, overnight, one third of the UK airline and hotel credit and charge card market disappeared.

What are my alternatives?

If you currently hold these cards (I have the Lufthansa ones, my wife has the Virgin ones) they will continue to operate for a while.  Whether that is weeks, months or years I don’t know.

If you had been planning to get one of these cards but never got around to it, here are your options:

Lufthansa Miles & More / American Airlines AAdvantage

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold or American Express Platinum (points convert 2:1 into Starwood Preferred Guest, then 1:1 – or 1:1.25 for larger amounts – into Miles & More or AAdvantage)

or

Starwood Preferred Guest American Express (best choice – points convert 1:1 into Miles & More or AAdvantage, or 1:1.25 for larger amounts)

The only half-decent Visa / MasterCard option is via the IHG Rewards Club Mastercard (0.2 miles per £1, assuming you convert 10,000 IHG points into 2,000 airline miles) or, with the £99 IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard, 0.4 miles per £1.

Emirates Skywards

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold or American Express Platinum (points convert 1:1 into Emirates Skywards)

or

Starwood Preferred Guest American Express (points convert 1:1 into Emirates Skywards, or 1:1.25 for larger amounts)

The only half-decent Visa / Mastercard option is via the IHG Rewards Club Mastercard (0.2 miles per £1, assuming you convert 10,000 IHG points into 2,000 airline miles) or, with the £99 IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard, 0.4 miles per £1.

Etihad Guest

You can use the Amex Gold, Platinum or Starwood Amex options as per Emirates

or

HSBC Premier Mastercard (0.5 miles per £1) or HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard (1 mile per £1) – these cards are only available to HSBC Premier current account holders

You can also use the IHG option for a Visa / MasterCard (0.2 or 0.4 miles per £1).

Virgin Flying Club

You can use the Amex Gold, Platinum or Starwood Amex options above as per Emirates

or

Tesco Clubcard Mastercard (0.31 miles per £1) or Tesco Premium Mastercard (0.62 miles per £1)

or

you can also use the IHG option for a Visa / Mastercard outlined above (0.2 or 0.4 miles per £1)

or

wait for new Virgin Money-issued Virgin Flying Club credit cards

United Airlines MileagePlus

You can use the Amex Gold, Platinum or Starwood Amex options above as per Lufthansa / American.  However, because Starwood has a poor transfer rate to United, you should move your Starwood points across to Marriott Rewards and convert from there.  The exact rate will depend on the amount you transfer.

You can also use the IHG option for a Visa / Mastercard (0.2 or 0.4 miles per £1).

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Category

American Express Membership Rewards, Emirates and Emirates Skywards, Etihad and Etihad Guest, Lufthansa and Miles & More, United Airlines and MileagePlus, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (160)

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

  • Lev441 says:
    8 Nov8 November 07:56

    Another example of EU meddling… I still don’t see how this ruling has helped anyone but the people at the top of the tree… it certainly hasn’t helped the consumer

    • Alan says:
      8 Nov8 November 08:01

      Considering the UK pushed for it and it’s happened in Oz I’d disagree – the cost to the economy of Brexit is going to dwarf any of these elements.

    • Lemeng says:
      8 Nov8 November 08:06

      Lev441, another post has already pointed out that it’s the UK that promoted this move, in the interests of the many consumers who aren’t savvy about card benefits or don’t use credit cards at all and end up helping to pay for the benefits that you and I receive from cards. The good news for you is that if we leave the EU, our mobile phone providers will be able to stop us use roaming in EU countries within our mobile phone contract packages. Doubtless we would discover many other great “benefits” of Brexit too.

    • mark2 says:
      8 Nov8 November 08:08

      Unfortunately our own politicians and civil servants can do even more damage than the EU.

    • Rob says:
      8 Nov8 November 08:44

      If you reduce costs for retailers it contains price rises …. common sense.

      • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
        8 Nov8 November 08:48

        If you reduce costs for retailers..

        Just the big guys on interchange plus winning at the moment.

        • G-bit says:
          8 Nov8 November 09:09

          As I small business I can say we have seen some benefit. The price we pay the bank has dropped from around 1.2% to 0.65% for CC processing . It’s actually the only business cost that has reduced over the last 12 months!

      • lev441 says:
        8 Nov8 November 17:07

        Can’t say i’ve had any decreases in credit card fees since the interchange cap was introduced.. prices tend to only go one way…..

  • Zoe says:
    8 Nov8 November 08:01

    I have just reached a year with the Virgin Black card. I stopped spending on it last month, where will I see the upgrade vouchers? As soon as I can see them I will cancel to save the yr 2 fee. Meanwhile I’m glad I got the White card a few weeks ago.

    • Third Passport says:
      8 Nov8 November 09:28

      They will appear in your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account statement. Keep checking.

      • BM says:
        8 Nov8 November 10:15

        I’m interested to see what happens here, in the past they have been slow to credit the rewards, and i have found even when the trigger values were reached each year they only credited them at the end of your personal ‘card year’ when the next year’s fee came out of your account. I am 8 months into my ‘card year’ and have triggered all three benefits, yet to see anything on my virgin flying account.

        • Third Passport says:
          8 Nov8 November 11:29

          I cancelled my card in June, so my experience is fairly recent but not sure if it’s representative of how it should work. I’ve read contradicting comments in the past.

          Nothing appeared on my account when I crossed the £5K threshold for the first upgrade voucher. After reaching the £7.5k threshold the companion voucher appeared on my VS account a few days later. Reaching the £10k threshold nothing happened. A few days BEFORE my membership year anniversary both upgrade vouchers appeared on my VS account. I called MBNA and asked them if I would lose the vouchers if I closed my credit card account. They confirmed that as the vouchers have appeared on my VS account I wouldn’t lose them. I went ahead and cancelled my credit card account.

        • Mark says:
          8 Nov8 November 12:56

          The companion ticket voucher credits on the first statement after the target is hit. The PE voucher(s) at the end of the card year (in my case about 2 weeks before the renewal fee was due.)

  • Alan says:
    8 Nov8 November 08:03

    Wow pretty shocked they were pulled en masse like that!

    I’ve got 4 MBNA cards at present (incl one applied for at the weekend) – do you have any contacts in MBNA that you could sound out about likely timescales for existing cards, Rob?

    Also shouldn’t the Lloyds cards get a mention given still available for applications?

  • Mike says:
    8 Nov8 November 08:30

    Usually the fact that the cards were pulled is not a good sign and means the airlines and MBNA could not reach an agreement on a new lower benefit – which is all MBNA could afford in a lower interchange world. For instance, post regulation Barclaycard re-negotiated the Hilton Visa card. I would suggest this cards may have another 12 months and that’s it.

  • Brighton Belle says:
    8 Nov8 November 08:32

    It’s Rob I feel sorry for. All those card reviews he’s written are trashed. Now he’s got to write another lot without much hullabaloo about them. VISA Numpty? meh…. M/C Banal? Meh

  • Paul Bitkett says:
    8 Nov8 November 08:34

    I have a Lloyds Duo Avios American Express card which comes with a separate Lloyds Duo Mastercard. Is the Amex version being withdrawn?

  • Natalie says:
    8 Nov8 November 08:57

    Do we think the Virgin Money replacements will offer the same mileage rate as the current MBNA set?

    • Rob says:
      8 Nov8 November 12:55

      There won’t be an Amex – whether the Visa/MC rate matches what is currently on offer I don’t know.

  • Andrew says:
    8 Nov8 November 08:58

    More than anything, I feel sorry for the MBNA staff in Chester.

    It would have been so much better for them and the market in general if there had been an MBO or public float of MBNA. With the considerable attrition of card types issued, you can be sure it won’t be long until all the work is migrated to KY99 or other Lloyds locations.

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