What are the best credit card sign-up deals for March 2019? – plus the first Avios SME card

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

• Dave Barron says:

  4 Mar4 March 06:42

  Grateful if someone could verify my latest strategy? Am I maximising my points potential and are my assumptions correct?

  I’ve currently got the PRGC which is due is approaching the end of it’s first year. Is the Platinum upgrade still offered? Was thinking I’d upgrade for a couple of months for several reasons including a) bonus points and b) travelling to North America next month and would benefit from hire car insurance and also lounge passes. On my gold card I had a supplementary card for my wife and using Amex chat yesterday cancelled this so that I could add again following receipt of the platinum potentially scoring for more points? Finally once obtained I hope to do a couple of friends and family referrals plus potentially a self referral for the nectar card if that’s still possible?

  I also have the BAPP card and yesterday triggered the spent threshold which will imminently generate my 2nd 241 voucher. Once this posts to my account I plan to cancel the card and get my pro rata refund. My card is paid up until 8th June – is the refund calculated daily or based on complete months? Also I assume that my current card balance would need to be cleared before the card can be cancelled and refund claimed???

  Thanks in advance!

  • Genghis says:

    4 Mar4 March 07:08

    1) upgrade still possible if you’re Gold charge card
    2) due to IT error your wife may still receive a Plat supp. If you add a Gold (for yourself) though you should still receive the 5k
    3) self referrals ok
    4) refund done on daily basis
    5) any refund would just go against your card balance. Get the refund then clear the balance in full.

    • Dave Barron says:

      4 Mar4 March 07:19

      Brill – many thanks for reply!

    • SG says:

      4 Mar4 March 07:20

      Hi Genghis
      No upgrade to Platinum from Green MR Amex in your knowledge?

    • Jon says:

      4 Mar4 March 07:40

      Is there a reason/benefit on 5) why you should get the refund then clear balance? I have always cleared the balance first and thought that was the only way Amex would agree to cancel card over the phone.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        4 Mar4 March 07:42

        Benefit is no need to mess around trying to get your money back. Unless your bill is due I’d get the refund then clear any balance after.

      • Mark2 says:

        4 Mar4 March 07:52

        If necessary I make a purchase to ensure that I know that I owe more than the refund.
        Also make sure that points have gone across before cancelling.

    • Rui N. says:

      4 Mar4 March 08:51

      Wait, you can self-referal yourself on Amex to get a new card? No need to get my poor wife into the game?

      • TGLoyalty says:

        4 Mar4 March 08:59

        Can’t companion if you don’t get the points or they take them away. Using your wife is far safer and in line with the programmes T&C’s

      • Wollhouse says:

        4 Mar4 March 12:10

        I had the freebie BA Amex and tried to self refer to upgrade to BA premium and didn’t get any referral Avios. Agent told me I wasn’t elegible for referral Avios for myself 🙁 If it’s true that I can’t self refer for bonus Avios, then by best extra points strategy is sign up points. As I’m single, I can’t take advantage of the supp cardholder strategy, so I guess the only way for me to get sign up points is to cancel my BA card as soon as I hit my 241 voucher, wait 6 months and reapply, and in the interim, earn Avios on the non BA Amex? Out of interest, was the agent correct re self referral upgrade Avios? Thanks

      • Dave says:

        4 Mar4 March 12:51

        Wollhouse moving to BAPP from the free BA card is seen as an upgrade.Even if someone else had referred you they wouldn’t have got the points.

    • James says:

      4 Mar4 March 12:23

      Any idea if you upgrade from PRG Charge Card to Platinum for the sign up bonus, when you downgrade is it possible to revert to your now discountinued gold charge card or would you get new gold credit card?

      • Rob says:

        4 Mar4 March 12:58

        Credit.

• Craig says:

  4 Mar4 March 07:12

  Standing by for mixed comments!

  Churning, any issues with cancelling as soon as the sign up has transferred out?

  • Grant says:

    4 Mar4 March 08:16

    Not in my experience with Amex

• Alex W says:

  4 Mar4 March 07:51

  Wish I had got the dollar card now and transferred $5000 to Curve. Missed that boat now and couldn’t otherwise spend $5k.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    4 Mar4 March 09:01

    Spend it in £ and swallow the 3% fee as cost of 30k points?

    Or are you expected to spend $?

    • Rob says:

      4 Mar4 March 13:10

      You can spend whatever you like.

• Grant says:

  4 Mar4 March 08:22

  Any recommendations for a second non-Amex card to sit alongside my IHG? Needs to play nicely with Curve / Revolut for ‘quasi cash’ transactions.

  Preference would be to have something which could convert to Avios, but also have IHG and Bonvoy balances which I’d be happy to add to. Not really interested in Virgin Flying Club miles unless they can be converted out to something else.

  Thanks

  • Neil says:

    4 Mar4 March 08:27

    Flying Club miles convert to Hilton points

    • Alex W says:

      4 Mar4 March 08:34

      Or IHG

    • Grant says:

      4 Mar4 March 08:40

      Thanks both – didn’t realise that.

      Any issues with Curve / Revolut and quasi cash transactions?

• TescoTease says:

  4 Mar4 March 08:28

  Capital On Tap. Do HMRC accept it and what fees are charged if they do. I’m hoping the answers is no fee as it’s a pre paid card.

  • Rob says:

    4 Mar4 March 08:33

    One person has told me that it works. No other feedback yet.

    • The Savage Squirrel says:

      4 Mar4 March 13:25

      Sorry for my ignorance but how can a pre paid card offer 56 day credit card terms? I am misunderstanding th term? Is it a credit card or not? Interested in this IF there is no fee to HMRC (and Curve stops being an option.)

      • Rob says:

        4 Mar4 March 15:48

        It is the same as the Miles & More Mastercard. It is, technically, a pre-paid card but it isn’t loaded by you, it is loaded by Capital on Tap who send you a statement in exactly the same way that a normal credit card would.

        Imagine I give you a pre-paid Mastercard with a zero balance. You go Waitrose and spend £20. Waitrose rings me up to say that Squirrel is making a transaction for £20. I load up £20 onto your card. Your transaction is verified. At the end of the month I tell you how much you owe me and give you a few weeks to pay me back, or face interest.

        It looks like a credit card, it functions like a credit card but it isn’t – technically – a credit card. My Miles & More Mastercard works the same way and you don’t see the join.

      • The Savage Squirrel says:

        5 Mar5 March 02:57

        Thanks for that explanation. Makes it a lot clearer. Seems like a convenient piece of doublethink largely done to make HMRC payments fee free on a de facto credit card? As the largest single expense for many smaller businesses, getting 56 day terms on HMRC to aid cash flow and get points too suddenly makes the £99 fee very palatable.

    • Helen says:

      8 Mar8 March 07:56

      I’ve paid HMRC twice in the last week usually my new Capital on Tap card linked to Curve. It went through with no issues. Will do the same every month now for my business VAT.

      • Rob says:

        8 Mar8 March 08:17

        Thanks, good to have a 2nd bit of confirmation on this.

      • Helen says:

        8 Mar8 March 21:12

        No worries. Had to do 2 separate transactions due to Curve limits. However 2 weeks ago Curve flatley refused to up my limits cos my main use was HMRC. But I asked again this week and explained I’d be more than happy to use it for day to day spend but I can’t cos my limit is maxed out, and they promptly upped it. Pays to be persistent I guess, Their logic is flawed though. Why bother with piddly limits when my cc let’s me spend it?? Anyway, now I got the max limits so it more than covers all my spend via HMRC plus enough day to day to keep them happy,

• Qwerty Bertie says:

  4 Mar4 March 08:51

  I’ve been considering future strategies involving the ICC, but what puts me off is having to find a hassle-free & zero-cost method to make payments to the card. Off the top of my head there is no such method…but I would love to be proved incorrect.

  • Rob says:

    4 Mar4 March 08:57

    I rarely use it and pay it via my HSBC online banking – bad rate but quick and I am only spending a few hundred on it annually.

    • Matt says:

      4 Mar4 March 10:15

      Is it possible to transfer MR points back from the ICC to a UK account?

      Wondering about transferring points out when I close an account, then transferring them back if I want to transfer them to Avios etc.

      I know there’s a limit of once per year to the ICC – how about in the other direction?

      • Rob says:

        4 Mar4 March 13:04

        You can do it once per year in the other direction too I THINK – but never done it.

    • the_real_a says:

      4 Mar4 March 13:16

      The cheapest method is to open a HSBC USD account in the UK (Free) and then exchange your currency via revolut, and transfer the USD to the HSBC account. Then pay your AMEX in USD for £4 charge and no Fx loss.

  • Alan says:

    10 Mar10 March 17:15

    I’ve found Caxton FX the only reasonable-cost option so far. Not zero but not bad. Tried Revolut, etc. but no luck as they didn’t pass across all the payment reference info properly.

• George K says:

  4 Mar4 March 10:45

  Bits: £50 back on £500 spend on Apple is back on my Amex Plat

• Matt says:

  4 Mar4 March 11:30

  Yes, the still work. Avios are transferred to your BAEC account now that Avios.com accounts closed

  • Barry says:

    4 Mar4 March 17:59

    +1

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