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What are the best credit card deals for February 2018?

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UPDATE – MAY 2025:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly directory of the top UK travel credit card offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Credit Cards’ menu above.  Thank you.

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.

Keep up to date with the latest UK credit card bonuses by signing up for our free daily or weekly newsletters.

It is time for our regular round up of what is coming and what is going in the world of UK airline and hotel credit card sign-up deals.

Our directory of the 15 main UK travel credit cards can be found by clicking the ‘Credit Cards’ tab at the top of the site or – for email, Flipboard, Apple News or mobile readers – by clicking here.

What is new?

The market continues to be very static since MBNA culled its line up in October.

We have covered two major bits of credit card news in the last month:

There are rumours coming from the Brighton call centre in comments to callers – but denied by the Amex press office – that aggressive changes are on the way to American Express sign-up bonus rules.  Whether you will in future have to wait one year, two years or until the planet is engulfed by an exploding sun before you can get the bonus again on the same card is not clear.  The little we know is in this article.

The Curve Card launched its public version (it was theoretically only available to self-employed people before).  This turned out, surprisingly, to be a debit card that recharged all your purchases to a Visa or Mastercard credit card.  This has huge potential for earning points when paying HMRC, council tax etc.  Curve is free and, even better, they will pay you £5 for trying it out if you use a referral code.  Full details, and a referral code, are in this article.

American Express Rewards Credit Card

What else is going on?

Not a huge amount:

There is still no word on the new Virgin Atlantic credit card.  We expect them to be back in the market with a new non-Amex product within the next few weeks.  Virgin Money will be the issuer.

HSBC Premier is giving away a free hotel night if you move your current account over to them.  This would allow you to take out the HSBC Premier World Elite credit card which is the most generous Avios Mastercard or Visa product.  Details are in this HfP article.

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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

General

Comments (92)

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

  • Daniel says:
    6 Feb6 February 12:14

    I am seeing an offer on my Amex Gold account page to ‘upgrade to Platinum’ and earn 20,000 MR points.

    I don’t recall seeing or hearing about this before. Is it standard or a limited offer that i should jump on?

    • S says:
      6 Feb6 February 12:17

      It comes and goes.

    • Grimz says:
      6 Feb6 February 12:29

      Get on it 20k points for 1k spend! 18k referrals once you have card

      • Daniel says:
        6 Feb6 February 13:02

        Do they automatically cancel and refund the Gold card fee if i ‘upgrade’ like this, or is it treated as an additional card?

        • Alan says:
          6 Feb6 February 13:52

          I believe that it gets credited against the higher Platinum card fee

        • Sue says:
          6 Feb6 February 21:45

          Yes i did this recently. The gold fee was refunded pro rata and then couple weeks later the £450 was billed

  • Jon says:
    6 Feb6 February 12:16

    Just looking at this afresh as I have a monthly employer’s HMRC payment that could go potentially go through Curve Debit Card for a significant spend (not to mention cashflow advantages). Anyone else had any luck with this? Do you think Curve would have any problem with doing this provided transaction limit is high enough?

    If this does work then I guess I’d want to use a long-term credit card dedicated for this purpose rather than churn (gotta pay the taxman on time every time and makes the accounting easy!). What would be the best suggestion for this? Would be around 4k/month spend.

  • Alan says:
    6 Feb6 February 12:57

    Has sadly been like this for years (in fact the earnings rate on Gold use to be even higher!) – with the lack of competition cf the USA and the low interchange fee environment I can’t see it changing much anytime soon.

  • JohnW says:
    6 Feb6 February 13:31

    With regards to the 10k bonus for spending £15k on the Gold card… do you only receive this bonus as and when you renew after 12 months? Or do you receive the bonus straight away?

  • David says:
    6 Feb6 February 13:46

    Do Amex PRG supplementary cardholders also get two free lounge passes? The website is unclear, but I think the phrase ‘share the benefits’ implies that they won’t get additional passes.

  • MrZee says:
    6 Feb6 February 15:29

    Above info is brilliant thanks all. I got the companion credit card links from above but I cant find Marks comments from yesterday re amex strategy. Can someone please send a link/copy and paste?

  • Genghis says:
    6 Feb6 February 16:08

    Do you get credit checked from Amex for each application? Not sure if a credit check on the Gold/Plat credit cards is worth 5k MRs. I normally look for at least £100 of benefits for each credit check.

    • Jeff says:
      6 Feb6 February 16:47

      Why so high?

      • Genghis says:
        6 Feb6 February 16:58

        Because of the options available. I receive MSE’s emails saying “free £30 with M&S card” etc but ignore. What are other people’s minimums?

    • mark2 says:
      6 Feb6 February 16:48

      I have no idea. Being old I am extremely unlikely to borrow money again except credit cards. We seem to get accepted despite having very little income.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      7 Feb7 February 00:10

      From what I can tell I haven’t been credit checked for a while by AMEX despite applying/cancelling various cards

      Might well change now I’ve posted this though lol

  • Alex W says:
    6 Feb6 February 19:42

    I currently hold the Plat card. Have heard about getting bonus MRs for applying for supplementary cards. Is this targeted or general? Is there a special link?

    • mark2 says:
      6 Feb6 February 20:02

      You usually get 5,000 MR for Platinum supplementaries, although it is not advertised (had it last week). Remember that 2nd and subsequent supps cost £170 so best not to order them on initial application.

      • Polly says:
        6 Feb6 February 22:48

        Would we get to for the green supp? Even if its free…was not aware…

        • Polly says:
          6 Feb6 February 22:49

          Meant 5k!

        • mark2 says:
          6 Feb6 February 23:42

          not for Gold, so not for green

        • Alan says:
          7 Feb7 February 08:17

          Has the 3000 MR points for Gold supplementary cards ended then?
          By Gold and supplementary I am meaning a second card (for spouse etc) on the Gold Charge card.

          Thought I should clarify as I’ve been confused by the accompanying Gold credit card recently!

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

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