Review: Is the Bank of Ireland Avios credit card from Aer Lingus AerClub worth the fee?

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• Cuchlainn says:

  8 Jan8 January 04:31

  Eh no, I’ll pass ( again ! ).

  Aer Lingus’ IT is abominable – it took them over 11 weeks to correct a wrong DOB on OH’s profile on Aer Club and don’t mention trying to use an Avios printed confirmation letter which does not show any baggage allowance !!

• Jonathan says:

  8 Jan8 January 05:31

  I think what could’ve been mentioned as an advantage (this goes for any credit card that’s based on Euros as it’s currency) is the fact that there’s no issues with exchange rates, when you pay for some goods or services in Euros, you know how much you’re paying, and you’re not subject to the exchange rate at the time (plus any other related fees the credit card may impose, some credit card providers use less favourable exchange rates than others), this clearly doesn’t cover the presumed need to move your money into an Irish current account to order to pay your credit card, assuming you don’t already have enough in an account to pay the balance (or however much or little you wish to pay)

  This is very much an overlooked advantage of holding any form of payment card which base currency is different to that of most the others you hold

• Polly says:

  8 Jan8 January 07:46

  Waste of an article Rob. Nobody l know bothers with it over there… they really really wish EI would get with it, and get into the current century. Envy us big time here in the U.K. only way they can do it is to be on my F and F in BAEC…
  Totally Useless.

  • Mikeact says:

    8 Jan8 January 08:35

    +1 Total Rubbish

  • JDB says:

    8 Jan8 January 08:44

    I don’t think any article is wasted. Many are not relevant to me at the time but they are part of a general store of knowledge, so of some interest. If nothing else, this article serves to remind us how fortunate we are in this country to have such a panoply of rewards credit cards; it may not be up to US levels, but we have a better offering than most countries, notably other European ones.

    • Magic Mike says:

      8 Jan8 January 08:59

      +1 to that – I found it interesting how bad things could be!

      • Peter K says:

        8 Jan8 January 12:58

        +2
        I thought the same thing!

• MFlyer says:

  8 Jan8 January 09:26

  Hi Rob,

  Great article. To give a pro option of someone’s who’s had this card for many years.

  I’d have to disagree with most of the comments above.

  Irish market is poor, but substantially smaller population. Total cost of card as above is €125.

  – €100 of benefit just from fast track, lounge and priority boarding. You can select your flight to redeem and you get a pdf on your phone to scan.
  – Travel insurance cover includes winter sports and during Covid a generous Covid policy, can add quite a chunk on most policies to be included.
  – Short haul redemptions includes Spanish Islands and Greece. This can quickly add up so the €10-20 flight per saving can be easily a lot higher.
  – Adding a supplementary card holder does not add any extra monthly fees or stamp duty. Meaning they also get the same travel insurance cover for no extra cost.

  I find my reward back each year is substantially more than the cost.

  It’s certainly not on par with the UK but certainly better than a significant number of UK cards, but not the top tier.

  • Briand says:

    8 Jan8 January 13:31

    This is, of course, primarily a UK (£) site, which is of course, open to one and all.

  • Flyin says:

    8 Jan8 January 14:50

    If have to agree. I get 10x the value quoted for the free flights every year. Flights to Islands, Greece etc. are expensive (and it isn’t the taxes that make them so)

• Hapshade says:

  8 Jan8 January 09:31

  Enjoyed the article, very interesting and informative to see what other countries have!

• NFH says:

  8 Jan8 January 09:52

  I would love to have a EUR-denominated Avios-earning credit card, and Ireland would be my preferred Eurozone country of issue. However, this product is diabolically poor value. The €30 stamp duty significantly curtails growth and competition in the Irish credit card industry. There’s also a €5 stamp duty on debit cards.

  • Rob says:

    8 Jan8 January 10:04

    There was one, until Amex recently withdrew it – the International Euro Card. 0.66 Avios per €1.

    • NFH says:

      8 Jan8 January 11:06

      True. I used to have both the EUR and USD ICCs. But I stopped them as I’m not willing to pay Amex UK a separate annual fee per settlement currency. So instead I now have an German-issued Amex Payback card for EUR and a US-issued Amex EveryDay card for USD, neither of which has an annual fee.

      • Jonathan says:

        8 Jan8 January 11:42

        Do you have addresses in Germany and the US ?

        I don’t think you get hold of one (or both) of these cards without an address in the countries

        If I could get a US issued Amex, I’d do so right away since there’s many that offer 0% FX fees (ignoring the annual fees, but their offerings minus that are great), although they’d probably soon get wise to nearly all transactions going through as Sterling, and usually in one particular area of the UK, apart from where an order has been made via telephone or internet…

        • NFH says:

          8 Jan8 January 12:35

          Yes, I have addresses, bank accounts and credit histories in both countries.

          If you have a good credit history with Amex UK, then Amex will open an account for you in other countries in which it operates, which makes this much easier. Your UK “member since” year is copied to the new country. In the case of the US, Amex then reports this date to the credit reference agencies as the account opening date of your US account.

          https://www.americanexpress.com/us/customer-service/global-card-relationship/

        • Samuel says:

          9 Jan9 January 11:13

          Not the poster but I am living in the UK, but since I am a us citizen, I use my us based credit card for all of my daily spending and I have not lived in the US for 5 years. They do not care that I exclusively use it in the UK and the 2x on every purchase is more then enough to cover the fee to send the money back (I use wise for 0.2% fee + 0.2% for the difference between the spot rate and the visa exchange rate, and wise allows you to pay us credit cards directly from a uk account), however you need to have a us address and a us phone number.

          If you ever have to move to the us for work/etc should be simple to get setup with a us credit card and if you move back to the uk can get the cards sent back to a friend and you can use Google voice for the phone.

          It should be easy to get a credit card once you move to the us as you can do an American Express global transfer.

    • QFFlyer says:

      8 Jan8 January 11:30

      Which I believe was unavailable in the EU, which includes Ireland. Amex pulled out of Ireland some years ago I think, the IEC was available for a while, but then not – some may still have it if they applied before the rules changed, but who knows.

      Also worth mentioning (although unlikely to be useful), the stamp duty is only payable if you actually live in Ireland – this might sound agiven, but I had some Irish cards a few years ago (probably a decade plus) issued by Ulster Bank ROI (I hold tri-citizenship); my address at the time was in the UK, so I never paid the stamp duty.

      • Jonathan says:

        8 Jan8 January 11:44

        Just register an address a few miles or so across the border inside NI !

      • NFH says:

        8 Jan8 January 12:38

        That’s a good point about the stamp duty not being payable for non-residents. I believe that Revolut charges the Irish stamp duty (presumably at €5 per annum) to those with Irish addresses.

    • Jack says:

      9 Jan9 January 10:22

      Still shows as open to applications for existing card holders? I’m practice it was never really available for those living here without an address in the UK also

      • Rob says:

        9 Jan9 January 10:25

        Let me know where you see an ‘Apply Here’ button.

        • Jack says:

          9 Jan9 January 11:03

          I had assumed that meant you had to ring them. Is it effectively dead?

        • Rob says:

          9 Jan9 January 11:13

          Yes. You can only apply if you have an account with one of a couple of private banks (not sure which ones) which feed people to Amex. I suspect that these deals will also end when existing contracts expire.

          If you look at the landing page for Gold or Plat there is a message saying it is closed. Not sure why it isn’t on the Green page.

  • Jonathan says:

    8 Jan8 January 10:37

    Amex don’t operate in Ireland, almost certainly due to the government’s stamp duty on credit / charge cards…

    • NFH says:

      8 Jan8 January 16:22

      Despite this, Amex acceptance is pretty good in Ireland. I can use my German-issued Amex card at most establishments in Dublin. Of relevance to tourists, the Guinness Storehouse is a notable exception.

      This is in contrast to the Baltic states. When Amex pulled out of issuing cards there, acceptance of Amex cards almost dried up. The largest supermarket chain Maxima and even the duty-free shop at Vilnius airport don’t take Amex any more. In my experience, the only places that still accept Amex in the Baltic states are 4* and 5* hotels, particularly international chains.

• Declan says:

  8 Jan8 January 11:18

  Hi Rob,

  Just to further MFlyers comments above with some positive feedback on this card.

  For Irish consumers this is the only card in town that has any kind of airline features-rewards. For an Irish person there isn’t much use in looking at UK cards which we can’t apply for.

  I’ve had this card now for one year and whilst it won’t suit everyone I have gotten huge outsized value for it (I understand this isn’t the same for everyone).

  In order of biggest pro’s:

  1: Two free return flights. Whilst the process it is a bit cumbersome as pointed out in the article I booked two return flights from Dublin to Geneva for next week (peak ski season) flying from Sunday to Sunday. The cost for these flights online (direct with Aer Lingus or Swiss) was c.€350 EACH. I used the flight redemptions and paid €75 ish total in fees for both flights. This alone saved me almost €200.

  2: Fast track and Lounge access. During the summer it was well documented how awful security lines were in Dublin airport and how over crowed the lounges were. You could no longer book fast track no lounges at the time. We flew to Frankfurt in the middle of July and used the vouchers to for fast track and lounge access. This was worth more than its weight in gold at the time. Whilst it might not be as valuable this year I like to save these benefits for when I think I’ll need them most. Whilst a lot of people (myself included) may have BA Silver which allows them lounge access to EI lounges – this is only for specific flights and doesn’t cover fast track security.

  3: Avios accrual – whilst the accrual’s are terrible there is nothing else on the market and I’d be using my credit card anyways so may as well get something!

  4: Priority boarding – handy if/when you need it.

  5. Insurance – I would never rely solely on my credit card for insurance but handy to have for some.

  Whilst my own experience won’t match everyone – I’m a big fan of the card so far and have no hesitation to keep it for another 12 months and then re assess.

  • Carol says:

    8 Jan8 January 17:09

    I pretty much agree with Declan. My card has been pretty good to me.

• Dave says:

  8 Jan8 January 16:15

  “it looks very smart”

  It reminds me a lot of the old VS Black Card.

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