Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

What are the best credit card sign-up deals for November 2018? – plus a news round-up

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UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.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 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and 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 16 main UK travel credit and charge 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.

Miles & More UK Mastercard credit card launched

What was new in October?

Lufthansa relaunches its Miles & More card with Diners Club

Yes, I know.  It’s weird.

Lufthansa has succeeded where Emirates, Etihad, American and United have failed and managed to get a new card onto the market following the closure of their MBNA credit card.

They did this by jumping into bed with Diners Club, the card that time forgot.  Luckily the card comes as a double-pack with a Mastercard.  The structure is weird though – the Mastercard is actually a pre-paid Mastercard (which means you can’t use it for deposits at hotels or car hire depots) and when you buy something, Diners Club immediately tops up the Mastercard in the background because the retailer sucks the money out.

Our full article – which is a very long and detailed one – on the new card is here.  The package is impressive for high spenders, and more importantly charging £1 to the card each month is enough to stop your Miles & More miles from expiring.  This is what you get:

Annual fee of £79

Sign-up bonus of 10,000 miles if you apply before 31st December (5,000 miles afterwards)

A free voucher, valid for 6 months, to visit a Lufthansa airport lounge if you apply before 31st December

1.25 miles per £1 spent on either card

No supplementary cards allowed

2.99% foreign exchange fee

It is a charge card, not a credit card, so you MUST clear your full balance each month

If you were another ex-MBNA airline cardholder and are looking for:

alternatives to the American Airlines credit card, read this article

alternatives to the Etihad Guest credit card, read this article

alternatives to the Emirates Skywards credit card, read this article

alternatives to the United MileagePlus credit card, read this article

Miles & More Diners Club credit card

Earn Virgin Flying Club miles with a Virgin Money savings account

Whilst not strictly credit card related, Virgin Money relaunched their Virgin Atlantic 1-Year Flying Club Savings Account last month.

The number of miles you earn has been increased and it now pays 1,600 miles for every £1,000 you save.

My article is here.  You can apply and find out more on the Virgin Money website here.

Curve prepares to relaunch with American Express functionality

Curve Card will be relaunching in November.  They have been teasing some of the new features on social media, but to be honest I don’t know how much of what I know is still meant to be secret and how much isn’t!

To be safe, I have been saying nothing.  However, the company has said publicly that American Express will return as a partner – allowing you to recharge Visa and Mastercard transactions onto a linked Amex card – so I feel happy repeating that.

There are going to be limits and restrictions which will be announced in due course.  However you think it is going to work, you are probably going to be wrong!  It is very interesting though, especially for readers of this site.

You can find out more about Curve Card here.  The card is free and they will pay you £5 for taking it out if you use my referral link.  You can apply here.

Curve Card accepts American Express

Flybe drops its UK credit card

With excellent timing, Flybe chose to close its UK credit card to new applications just 24 hours after we published our annual – and not very enthusiastic – review of it.

The card was issued by Creation.  It had made no sense for a long time, because it was still giving credit in Spend&Fly points whilst the airline had switched to Avios a few years ago.  My Flybe Mastercard review is here if you want to see what you missed.

Flybe UK credit card closed

Lloyds Avios Rewards accidentally gave out 2nd upgrade vouchers

A lot of Lloyds Avios Rewards credit card holders found that they had mysteriously been given another upgrade voucher in early October.  We wrote about it here.

Avios has admitted this is mistake but said that if you got a 2nd voucher, you can keep it.

Tesco Bank brought back the bonus on the Tesco Clubcard Mastercard

I spotted by chance over the weekend that Tesco Bank has extended the sign-up bonus on its Tesco Clubcard Mastercard.   The card is free and you will get 1,000 Clubcard points (2,400 Avios or 2,500 Virgin Flying Club miles) if you apply before 31st January.

The earning rate is not great but beats the Lloyds Avios Rewards Mastercard.  You earn 1 Clubcard point for every £8 you spend, but rounded down to the nearest £8, so a £7.99 purchase earns nothing.  Ignoring the impact of rounding down, this means you get 0.125 Clubcard points per £1 which converts to 0.3 Avios per £1.  You can apply here.  Our review, which will be updated this week, is here.

There is still no word on the relaunch of the Marriott Mastercard

Creation is meant to be running this, as they ran the old version which was closed to new cardholders two years ago.  It was due to launch in August but nothing has happened.

EVERYTHING you need to know about the BA American Express 2-4-1 voucher

Finally, if you missed this article last month, newcomers should read my guide to ‘everything you ever wanted to know about the British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher’ which you can find here.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 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 February 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

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.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

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

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

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

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

General

Comments (185)

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

  • sunguy says:
    5 Nov5 November 09:53

    I notice you mention the Marriott card – any news on the Hilton one ?

  • MDA says:
    5 Nov5 November 09:55

    I think its been 6 months since my last amex. Will customer service be able to confirm before i sign up? Its either this week or next week

    • Lewis King says:
      5 Nov5 November 10:01

      Yep! Just chat to them or phone them up.

      • David says:
        5 Nov5 November 13:14

        Although they are sometimes wrong – one agent told me I had to wait another 4 months, but I trusted my own calendar more and did indeed get the sign-up bonus as expected.

  • Matthew says:
    5 Nov5 November 10:20

    Another O/T. Anyone had the 9000 avios post from Iberia car rental yet? Had the normal 700 avios post from the rental but not the bonus 9000. Been about 10 days. The terms said upto 8 weeks but hoping it wasn’t that long!!

  • Tom Cook says:
    5 Nov5 November 10:54

    Still limited wins on the SPG game, another 50 points today 🙁

  • Adam Neal says:
    5 Nov5 November 10:59

    Is now the time to upgrade to Curve Black ahead of the return of Amex?

    • Rob says:
      5 Nov5 November 11:03

      Not clear because we don’t know how they will treat existing cardholders. There is NO CHANCE of getting ‘Black for life’ for £50 given the new benefits it will have.

      • Max says:
        5 Nov5 November 11:30

        Rob – you said before to upgrade to Black before the new rules come in.

        Are you now changing your advice?

        I am sure I am not the only one who spent £50 based upon your article encouraging this.

        • KevMc says:
          5 Nov5 November 11:49

          I seem to recall he suggested signing up for black for £50 in order to get 6 months of the new benefits guaranteed at a ‘value’ price, therefore suggesting that the fee is likely to be more than £100/year.

          What Rob is saying above is simply that your £50 Black fee will not get you all the benefits forever.

        • RTS says:
          5 Nov5 November 12:04

          Change in T&C/Fee – you are probably entitled to a partial refund.

        • Rob says:
          5 Nov5 November 12:42

          You will come out ahead, but there is zero chance that you will get the new package, for free, for life. It will be costing Curve £70-80 wholesale per yer to buy your benefits.

      • Will Avery says:
        5 Nov5 November 12:19

        Hoping I’m going to get some sort of reward for sticking with Black from the beginning. Primary reason is I couldn’t be bothered to deal with the admin and I like and use the freebie Tumi wallet all the time.

  • Nick says:
    5 Nov5 November 11:03

    RE: SPG Amex

    I know the SPG points automatically transfer from Amex into our SPG accounts.

    What happens if the transaction that took me over the bonus threshhold (£1000 spend) gets refunded? My other spend is now well above £1k in total, but hope my 33000 SPG points are not at risk?

    • Rob says:
      5 Nov5 November 11:13

      You’re fine if the points have been transferred across, you are at risk if Amex has not yet sent them.

    • Doug M says:
      5 Nov5 November 11:46

      I think maybe Rob replied too quickly, if you’ve spent over £1K after refunds, Amex won’t care what gets refunded and when. Amex are pretty relaxed about all of this stuff. Read the comments here and you’ll see there are people that churn continually and Amex just don’t seem to care.

      • Rob says:
        5 Nov5 November 12:40

        If you refund a transaction which triggers a sign-up bonus, the bonus is clawed back. That is a fact. If the points have already been sent off to a partner, they can’t be clawed back but your Amex account will show a negative points balance.

        • idrive says:
          5 Nov5 November 13:07

          and what about the BA 2-4-1?

        • Anna says:
          5 Nov5 November 13:25

          You don’t lose the 2 4 1 but your account will have a negative balance and you won’t start earning another one until you make that back up. I don’t know if you would be allowed to close the card in those circumstances.

        • nick says:
          5 Nov5 November 14:34

          My points for the transaction in question (2700) plus the 33,000 bonus points have all transferred to SPG.

          I am about to get a refund on the £900 spend – so just 2700 will be clawed back from Amex (as in the balance sitting in my Amex account will decrease by 2700 points only)??

          • Rob says:
            5 Nov5 November 14:47

            No, the whole lot (if your spend to date inc the refund is now under £1k).

    • RTS says:
      5 Nov5 November 17:19

      I once had £2k refunded for an Airbnb stay after I cancelled my Gold Amex – my account was showing -20k MR points lol as I had already banked them before i cancelled. I got the full refund transferred to my bank account no question asked…. the refund was completely unintentional as an FYI..

  • Alexey says:
    5 Nov5 November 11:46

    Question about Curve,

    I’ve got basic one with 10k limit, so was thinking that need to update to paid version

    1. Can I apply for additional curve on their site to get wallet as well? Or since I have basic already I can only request update, and get no wallet option?

    2. Amex would be definitely very useful option even if there are some limitations /small fee, any idea if they goint to add new card option with amex or existing cards will get that feature? Basically thinking if I should wait till announcement or it does not matter if would apply now?

    • Froggee says:
      5 Nov5 November 13:36

      I can only answer question 1 but I upgraded a couple of weeks ago (following Rob’s article!) and asked for and got the Tumi wallet. However I am still stuck at three curve reward partners. Have put in a help request to be able to add three more a couple of days ago but they are busy upgrading the old prepaid cards apparently.

    • Max says:
      5 Nov5 November 15:35

      You get the wallet when you upgrade. Pretty useless wallet – can’t hold many cards.

      Not worth worrying about.

      • Genghis says:
        5 Nov5 November 15:44

        I like the wallet. Been using it since the early days of Curve. Indeed it only holds a few cards but how many cards do you actually need on a day to day basis?

        • Max says:
          5 Nov5 November 16:22

          Quite a few (Santander for supermarkets, Amex, Hilton (where Amex not accepted), AA (for discounts), debit cards – curve only covers a few – and then there is cash.)

        • RTS says:
          5 Nov5 November 17:16

          Same here. Although mine is now in a bit of a state and needs replacing.

    • Graham Walsh says:
      5 Nov5 November 19:28

      I opened a support ticket and asked do I get the wallet when upgrading. They confirmed I would and just wanted the last 4 digits of the card to be charged.

      I also too can’t work out how to change reward partners, just takes me to the webpage when I select it in the app.

  • Liz says:
    5 Nov5 November 11:55

    OT: Last month my hubby’s Amex SPG pts transferred over for Aug and Sept like everyone else’s. Award Wallet shows expiry date unknown. I thought I would leave it to see if this months pts transferred over ok which they did overnight but the expiry date is still showing as unknown. Is anyone else having the same issue? AW is using his old SPG number after accounts were merged. His new number shows the same thing. Has anyone managed to get it to show an up to date expiry date.

    • Liz says:
      5 Nov5 November 12:03

      His account says no activity in the last 30 days so it looks like it is not acknowledging the Amex SPG spend as qualifying spend to reset the expiry date. The Amex SPG Card is not listed on their site as one of the ways to earn points. Does anyone have any further info.

    • KevMc says:
      5 Nov5 November 12:04

      What does it say when you login to Marriott? I have found that the expiry date has not been updated with the transfer over of the SPG CC points last month. I am hoping that this month will finally sort it out…

      • Liz says:
        5 Nov5 November 12:11

        That’s what I am saying – it hasn’t sorted it out and the account says no activity even though there is activity ie Amex SPG pts transfer. The Marriott account isnt registering the Amex spend as activity.

        • KevMc says:
          5 Nov5 November 12:14

          Hmm, I was going to contact Marriott if mine didn’t get sorted this month. I had put it down to the fact that the previous 3 months points had been manually added. Perhaps contact them and see what they say?

        • Liz says:
          5 Nov5 November 12:18

          Yes that’s what I thought too. But it clearly says no activity on your account for the past 30 days so it is not acknowledging the SPG pts. Drafting an email now but only to a generic email address. Will see if I get a reply.

        • Liz says:
          5 Nov5 November 12:21

          Actually they are showing as “Bonus” which is obviously making them non qualifying and won’t reset the expiry date. Rob do you now any more info about this?

        • Stu N says:
          5 Nov5 November 12:34

          I combined into my Marriott account. SPG Card point transfers show as “Bonus” but with a little star beside them which confirms they are qualifying and the expiry date is 2 years from the last transfer. It was taking a few days for detailed lines and expiry to catch up with the total points/ nights but that seems fixed too.

          I’d suggest that unless you’re close to expiry I’d see if it works itself out over the next month or two.

        • Liz says:
          5 Nov5 November 12:52

          @Stu – his says Bonus* also but above it says no activity on the account in last 30 days despite credit card spend showing on 5/11 and 13/10 so it’s not registered it as activity on the account. I don’t know the expiry date – that’s what I am trying to determine. Don’t want to lose these points as I am planning on building them up over the next couple of years for Singapore Airlines miles and not Marriott stays,

      • RussellH says:
        5 Nov5 November 13:26

        Points from my Marriott M/card also say Bonus*; the expiry date moves on each month as the points are credited.
        I would guess that the SPG Amex thing is a bug of some sort…
        Transfer of Amex MR points also updated the expiry date.

        • Liz says:
          5 Nov5 November 13:33

          @RussellH – that’s good it’s at least working for you. I have emailed them so will see what response I get. He doesn’t have any MR pts at the moment either. I’ll be transferring some to my account soon so that will reset mine at least.

        • Liz says:
          5 Nov5 November 16:28

          @RussellH – I think I might have found the solution. When we applied for the SPG Card before the merger I used the old SPG number. I am going to ring Amex and get them to change to account number over to the new combined account number and hope that next month that will resolve the expiry date problem. Is your Amex SPG linked to your new Combined account number.

    • Nick M says:
      5 Nov5 November 12:28

      According to Award Wallet, my SPG expiry date is Feb 2019 – recent transfers from Amex haven’t reset this at all

      • Nick M says:
        5 Nov5 November 12:30

        Does booking and cancelling a stay count as “activity”?

        • Stu N says:
          5 Nov5 November 15:01

          It’s all horribly inconsistent isn’t it?

          Pretty sure the “book and cancel” won’t work with Marriott but would be useful to know if anyone has had success with this. Amex Membership rewards look to have reset my expiry date too. I’m relying on the Marriott app for all of this by the way.

      • Liz says:
        5 Nov5 November 12:32

        My account says Feb 2019 also but I am not actively adding any points to my account as I don’t have a credit card at the moment. I’m a bit worrried that he didn’t have any other activity other than the Marriott NFL pts which don’t count to reset the expiry that these SPG pts will be lost if treated each month as bonuses rather than credit card spend.

        • Liz says:
          5 Nov5 November 12:36

          I’ve read the expiry rules article and Rob suggested this but others had reported that it didn’t work. Although we shouldn’t need to try it. I am going to put a order via their shopping portal as a back up but there’s not much on their portal. I assume we will all be in the same boat though.

        • RakishDriver says:
          5 Nov5 November 13:56

          Re the Marriott shopping portal, I just looked into doing what you’ve suggested, but yeah, minimal offerings compared to Virgin’s and BA’s portals – and they’re closing on the 15th of Nov – might be risky getting those shoppping points?

        • Liz says:
          5 Nov5 November 14:19

          @RakishDriver – where does it say it’s closing on 15/11. I was just searching for something to buy! Bummer! I was thinking that was a good way to reset the expiry date.

        • Liz says:
          5 Nov5 November 14:39

          Duh! I didn’t see that splashed across the screen!

        • RakishDriver says:
          5 Nov5 November 18:56

          @Liz – yep, page loading times.
          I never knew this existed until reading this today!

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