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Got or had the new British Airways Prepaid Mastercard? Collect 500 free Avios

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We recently asked readers to join a paid focus group that IAG Loyalty was running for people who hold or have held the British Airways Prepaid Mastercard.

IAG Loyalty has now moved to a second phase of research.

It is looking for current or past users of the British Airways Prepaid Mastercard to share their experience of using the card by completing the survey here.

EDIT: the survey has hit its cap on responses and is now closed – thank you for your help

It should take around 5 minutes to complete and you will be awarded 500 Avios approximately 30 days after completion.

To ensure you get the Avios awarded to you, please make sure your surname matches your British Airways Executive Club account. Only those who have (or have had) the British Airways Prepaid Mastercard and used it will be eligible – this will be checked against your Avios account details.

You can access the survey by clicking here. If you get a message saying that the survey is closed then it has reached the cap on participants. IAG Loyalty thanks you in advance for your help.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous 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

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes 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

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up 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

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (52)

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

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    18 Nov18 November 08:58

    Hmm. Reminded me to cancel Mrs MacK’s card, its 90 days are up.

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:22

    Can’t see survey being much use to them, the main questions are unclear!

    For example, the card didn’t disappoint me because I knew it was cr*p in the first place. How can I rate how I found the earnings once I used the card when I knew the avios rate was exceptionally poor when I applied: so do I rate as very poor, or neutral (ie: as expected)?

  • typem2b says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:22

    I applied for the BA prepaid MC but could not get the app to complete the setting up process despite several tries – So it was a complete waste of time…

  • JimmyJimmy says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:24

    Anyone received their sign up bonus points for this card? I have passed the 90 days since opening and not posted.
    J

    • Peter says:
      18 Nov18 November 09:34

      Most of us – check forum, I think it’s 90 days from reaching £500 spend.

    • Jonathan says:
      18 Nov18 November 11:12

      I got both my bonuses

      They did post separately

      • Rob says:
        18 Nov18 November 11:26

        Avios believes that everyone who should have had them, has had them.

        We can help if you’ve had the first bonus but not the HfP extra 1,500. We can’t help you if you haven’t had either because that means there is a more fundamental issue which is nothing to do with us.

        • Noel C says:
          18 Nov18 November 11:38

          Hi Rob – I went through your link but never got my HfP additional bonus. How do I do that?

        • Ian says:
          18 Nov18 November 11:46

          I’d say the more fundamental issue is HfP promoting this stuff in the first place.

          • Peter K says:
            18 Nov18 November 11:50

            To be fair, no one knew how awful it would be until it got fully rolled out.

          • Rob says:
            18 Nov18 November 12:34

            3,000 Avios for spending £500, very easy. And now you get an extra 500, plus some cash if you did the focus group. Seems very lucrative to me!

        • JimmyJimmy says:
          18 Nov18 November 14:28

          Conditions say
          “ The bonus payment will be added to your account within 30 days after the 90 day period has elapsed and providing all criteria has been met.”
          Seems I need to wait another 2 week!

  • Chas says:
    18 Nov18 November 09:57

    My favourite question was “How would you describe in your own words, what the BA Prepaid Mastercard®️ is?”. To which my response was ” a useless bit of plastic which went through my shredder”….

    • Rob says:
      18 Nov18 November 10:15

      What I thought was that they should have asked HfP readers who DIDN’T get the card, why they didn’t?

      I think the reasons why it isn’t as good a customer experience as it should be are relative obvious. What I would have done, I think, is created a Currensea-style debit card which sucks cash from your current account, incurs a 1% FX fee (so you save 2% on other cards) and gives 1 Avios per £1. Possibly add an annual fee option to remove the 1%. Keep it simple.

      • Richie says:
        18 Nov18 November 11:01

        Yes they should’ve appointed you for a lovely fee and got it right first time!

        • Callum says:
          18 Nov18 November 11:53

          That product doesn’t look remotely profitable to me…

        • Rob says:
          18 Nov18 November 12:36

          We do consultancy for free if it is a product we can promote when it launches. It doesn’t benefit us either to see sub-standard products in the market.

      • Chas says:
        18 Nov18 November 11:07

        That sounds like a much better alternative proposition Rob – if only you could convince someone to launch something like that.

        I completely agree about asking HfP readers why they didn’t get the card, although I could imagine that they’d be worried about the bottomless pit of avios they’d have to award to everyone who took the survey if it went viral. Their IT probably can’t cope with putting a cap on it….

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
        18 Nov18 November 11:28

        I didn’t because I thought it was just too much bother for the bonus avios I’d have gotten.

        I think other peoples bad experiences – from opening to (not being able to) closing – have shown it to be a good decision!

      • FearlessTraveller says:
        18 Nov18 November 14:46

        That would have been more a more appealing approach, instead of the top up function which is in place.

        This card reminds me of the Weswap card I used to have. Interesting concept, lackluster implementation

  • Paul says:
    18 Nov18 November 10:32

    Yes, it’s a largely useless product. However I did rinse it every month for the maximum avios for paying off other cards without incurring any fees.

  • Gosia44 says:
    18 Nov18 November 10:57

    What a pleasure to tell them what I think about the card..

  • Jonathan says:
    18 Nov18 November 11:17

    I reckon the A321LR could quite easily reach Madrid, Lisbon and maybe even Barcelona without needing to be defined as an XLR !

    • ADS says:
      18 Nov18 November 12:42

      I came here to say that !

      You can also add in Norway, Sweden and possibly Finland … and probably northern Germany as well

      And with JetBlue’s lower seating density, their range might even be closer to the 4,000 nm figure than we think !

    • Rui N. says:
      18 Nov18 November 13:41

      TAP flies it from LIS and OPO to the US, so yes, it of course can. On the odd winter day, it might have to refuel on the back to Europe, but that’s it.

    • FearlessTraveller says:
      18 Nov18 November 14:42

      LaCompagnie flies the A321LR from Nice Airport and Milan Malpensa to Newark Airport quite comfortably.

      However you have to keep in mind that their planes are in an all business configuration, which makes the plane somewhat lighter than a normal configuration.

      • Jonathan says:
        18 Nov18 November 23:01

        That’s how Singapore Airlines does their longest to or from JFK, by not having any Economy seats available.
        Also nearly exactly why BA1, 2, 3, 4 where able to operate a long route in such a tiny aircraft before those flights were scrapped

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

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