The Lloyds Avios Rewards credit cards bite the dust …. what now?

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• Andrew says:

  2 Mar2 March 08:42

  Ok. So where is Flybe going to go with this? I use them from time to time, all my Avios have posted correctly, and they are a handy little extra.

  I can’t help but think that they’d make a really good Star Alliance affiliate. Something to plan around Air Canada’s changes in 2020?

• Lev441 says:

  2 Mar2 March 08:49

  I wish I was into the air miles game when the duo card had the 25 points per £1.. I could have done some serious damage!

  • Rob says:

    2 Mar2 March 09:03

    The truth about that offer is even better. I knew Lloyds IT was rubbish. Most of the £40k I spent I refunded the following month. I expected Lloyds to just deduct 1x and not the 10x, but it was even better- they deducted nothing!

    This is because Lloyds treats UK and foreign spend separately. If you refund a foreign charge you only lose Avios if you have other foreign charges that month. Your UK earned Avios are not impacted. If you have no other foreign charges, you lose nothing.

    (This was all in the Avios Duo days, things may have changed.)

    • Alan says:

      2 Mar2 March 09:37

      This is also part of the problem if trying to trigger the upgrade voucher – refunds seem to be erratically deducted from the annual spend to date so you can end up triggering the voucher earlier than planned!

    • Lev441 says:

      2 Mar2 March 12:10

      Sounds like a win-win to me! Who knows, maybe we’ll see another crazy offer on day… although hfp readership was probably a lot smaller back in those days!!

  • RussellH says:

    2 Mar2 March 10:54

    I had the card – and still do, but this is the first I have heard of that offer!

  • Polly says:

    3 Mar3 March 05:44

    We did do some serious damage! Set us up with an amazing avios balance too. Got us well and truly launched. We jumped ship from Q miles so fast.And they cocked up on a return avios flight..put my daughter and l in F coming back but charging Y avios. Just couldn’t believe our luck!
    So yes l think those days are ending soon.
    However thank goodness for QR sales. Long may they last. Even tho their prices are creeping up ex EU now.

• daftboy says:

  2 Mar2 March 08:52

  I think I know the answer, but are there any credit cards (or charge cards) perhaps in the UK market that charge 0% FX or otherwise incentivise foreign spending? I know there are some debit card options, less interested in those.

  • Rob says:

    2 Mar2 March 09:00

    Tandem, and Aqua.

    • Colin MacKinnon says:

      2 Mar2 March 09:36

      Aqua has made no difference I can see to my credit rating – which in the top 10th having moved up significantly in the two or three years I have owned it.

      (Building a Grand Designs house on an airfield with a strange name and a weird address – i.e. no street name! – really hammered my credit rating at first!)

      The one issue with Aqua is that your balance sort of shows up as something different from the way it is displayed with other cards. So while all cards are paid in full every month by direct debit, it looks as though the Aqua card is carrying a balance!

      The other, of course, is a small – midway between 1k and 2k – credit limit. Though it did start at £600! But very easy to top up online with a debit card.

      Great for meals and drinks abroad, and low limit means not too many worries if it goes missing.

      • Roger I* says:

        2 Mar2 March 09:45

        Limits increase. Mine is now £5k, which is manageable for me.

      • simon says:

        2 Mar2 March 10:41

        Great house Colin. I enjoyed that episode.. Well done!

      • RussellH says:

        2 Mar2 March 11:11

        > a weird address – i.e. no street name! – really hammered my credit rating at first!

        An address without a street name is quite usual in rural areas. Streets names are things you get in those funny places called towns and cities.

        None of the smaller villages around here have any street names. This can cause problems with firms (Amex and Starwood come to mind) who use poor quality address databases, but should not affect a credit rating. My own postcode is particularly confusing for some. Everyone seems to believe that a number and a postcode uniquely describes an address – it does not. There are two addresses for my postcade that start with 1 and two that start with 2 (and one with 3 and one with 4), but they are not house numbers – they are the first character in the house name. More examples of badly designed IT.

      • Alan says:

        3 Mar3 March 13:11

        Ooh – will need to go see if that’s on 4od to watch 🙂

    • Roger I* says:

      2 Mar2 March 09:43

      An unmerited slur. 😀 As a non-ex-bankrupt, I’m not aware of any reputational damage when using my Aqua gold card. 🙂 True, I only use it abroad and online, but no damage.

      I’m looking forward to using my new Tandem MC.

    • RIccatti says:

      2 Mar2 March 09:53

      Aqua is a brand for New Day Ltd, who also have cards for Amazon, Tui, House of Fraser. Many people are likely to have one of those, granted they likely to be the same mid-to-low range cohort in terms of credit scoring.

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

      2 Mar2 March 10:29

      Underwriters are unable to see the identity of a creditor on a credit report. Most don’t care anyway (they just plug metrics like # up to date accounts into a risk model).

    • Callum says:

      2 Mar2 March 19:27

      I don’t think underwriters share the level of snobbishness some people here have, even if they could see you have an Aqua card – which of course they can’t.

  • Alan says:

    2 Mar2 March 09:37

    I’ve had Post Office MC for years – 0% forex

  • mark2 says:

    2 Mar2 March 11:14

    Halifax and Barclays Premium Travel (probably others).

• Prune says:

  2 Mar2 March 08:58

  If anyone fancies signing up for Billhop a referral bonus would be gratefully appreciated (have to pay schools fees soon)
  https://secure.billhop.com/r/b17e1

• Davide says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:01

  The end is nigh now I fell for those of us that do not have serious amounts going through our cards. I currently have the SPG and see that as a 2 points per £ card, owing to the 90k>168k avios transfer plus the hotel certificate. However, I am now certain that card will bite the dust soon….

• Neil says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:07

  Well thanks to a HFP reader, whilst the application link has been removed from the website, it still exists and still works. Just managed to apply successfully for the card. Got a confirmation email so hopefully all still works. If I don’t get the voucher (which I’d still hope for) the 2.5 Avios per £ is still pretty decent!

  • Daniel says:

    2 Mar2 March 09:30

    Would you happen to have that link..?

    • Julian says:

      2 Mar2 March 09:50

      As its clearly an IT department error that this orphaned Avios Duo application page has not yet been removed there still seems a rather high chance that the submit now button for the application won’t work or that Lloyds will write back to say that sadly the card is no longer available to new applicants…..

    • Rob says:

      2 Mar2 March 09:52

      The Duo card has not been available for 4 years.

    • Chris Palmer says:

      2 Mar2 March 10:32

      Worth a try nonetheless. I was just accepted.

    • Richard G says:

      2 Mar2 March 12:33

      Cheers. I just did this and the application went through, but annoyingly I need to go and prove my address as I’ve just moved house. Bah. I guess I’ll have to wait and see if I ever actually get the card.

    • flyforfun says:

      2 Mar2 March 16:39

      The link now seems dead.

    • Chris Palmer says:

      9 Mar9 March 10:24

      I received confirmation yesterday that I was accepted and will receive the card in the next few working days.

• William Kerr says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:24

  Rob are you saying that the BA American Express Credit Card 22.9% (no annual fee) will likely go ? If it does, will current card holders probably be eligible to hang onto and use their existing cards ? Or will the card cease to operate in your view.

  • Rob says:

    2 Mar2 March 09:32

    Here’s my logic. Moving to Visa would probably add £2000-£5000 per year to average billings, assuming you can suddenly pay council tax etc fee free. Some people would add tens of thousands if they are paying business expenses.

    That money is worth having. The added benefit for BA is that you would not need a 2ndary credit card. It doesn’t help BA if we all end up with a BA Amex and the new Virgin non-Amex in our wallets. It is actually possible that the new Virgin product is the catalyst to dump Amex.

    Moving from Amex would also allow, say, the 241 threshold to be increased or the earn rate to be cut, because OVERALL Avios card earning would not change if we were all doing another £2k to £5k.

    • JamesB says:

      2 Mar2 March 11:58

      Any idea how long the amex contract still has to run with BA? If BA ditches amex would they not be tempted to also ditch MR to stop people using the MR cards as de facto BA cards or would tgey prefer to keep a finger in both pies?

    • BLT says:

      2 Mar2 March 12:53

      Rob, although I agree it would increase billings by moving to Visa/ Mastercard, yesterday you said high spenders were a cancer for credit card companies. I’m not sure how the 0.3% interchange fee, the 1p per avios the CC companies allegedly pay allow it to be profitable and encourage greater spends. Seems to be a contadictions

      • Rob says:

        2 Mar2 March 13:05

        That is true, which is why there is no easy answer to any of this. An annual fee and a lowering of the Avios per £1 earn rate would push up the breakeven point substantially though.

    • johns says:

      2 Mar2 March 18:18

      I really hope BA keeps AMEX. I experienced some dreadful service from VISA/MasterCard CC’s whereas AMEX customer service is above outstanding. With now nearly universal acceptance of AMEX, I really hope BA will stick with them.

    • Thomas Howard says:

      2 Mar2 March 21:29

      Wouldn’t this mean the best earn rate would be similar to the Tesco Clubcard Premium – which I think is around 600 Avios per £1000? Although you might be able to increase this by another 50% to 900 per £1000 if paying off the credit card with a Tesco current account debit card.

• Vinz says:

  2 Mar2 March 09:31

  I’m very curious about the new BA visa /mastercard. Any idea what will offer? Companion vouchers? Point rates? Fees? BA Status?

  • Peter K says:

    2 Mar2 March 10:19

    It’s a rumour only at this point.

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