You can swap points between Club Eurostar and Accor Live Limitless – but should you?

Accor Live Limitless has a little known partnership with Club Eurostar.

As there are very few ways of earning Club Eurostar points apart from taking a trip, I thought it was worth a closer look at the Accor option.

You can convert American Express Membership Rewards points to Club Eurostar at the rate of 15:1. This is pretty much it in terms of partner earning apart from a modest Hertz deal.

How do you earn Club Eurostar points with Accor Live Limitless?

As the biggest hotel group in France and with a big UK presence, Accor was a natural fit for Club Eurostar’s first major travel partnership.

You can move Accor Live Limitless points to Club Eurostar, and Club Eurostar points to Accor Live Limitless.

Full details are on the Accor website here.

Does the maths make sense?

Accor is the only airline or hotel group which is really pushing the concept of two-way transfer partnerships.

Want to transfer Avios into Accor points? You can now move Avios into Accor Live Limitless credit (albeit at a poor rate 4,000 Avios = 1,000 Accor points, so €20 of free hotel room) via Qatar Privilege Club. Other airlines which let you move their miles into Accor points are covered here.

The snag with these transfer deals is that they are never generous.  Accor Live Limitless is a revenue based loyalty scheme, with 1 Accor point worth 2 Eurocents off a hotel room.  There is no redemption chart – the number of points needed for a free night is based on the cash cost of the room you want.

Because it is revenue based, it is hard for the scheme to be too generous on transfers because it needs to make a profit both on transfers in and transfers out.

What are the transfer rates between Accor Live Limitless and Club Eurostar?

You can see what I mean by looking at the asymmetrical Accor rates to and from Club Eurostar:

• 500 Club Eurostar points gets you 1,500 Accor Live Limitless points

• 4,000 Accor Live Limitless points gets you 350 Club Eurostar points

Point transfers do NOT count towards status in either scheme.

Let’s try to put a cash value on this.  I decided in this article that Club Eurostar points are worth at least 12p.

Going back to our original trade:

• 500 Eurostar points (value £60) gets you 1,500 Accor points (value €30)

• 4,000 Accor points (value €80) gets you 350 Eurostar points (value £42)

This is clearly a bad trade whichever way you do it.

Of course, life isn’t always that simple.

Perhaps you have a handful of Club Eurostar points you won’t use and will expire?   In this case, Accor points are better than nothing.  You can always stop Club Eurostar points expiring by transfering a small number of American Express Membership Rewards points though, and you can transfer Club Eurostar points to another person for free.

If you have 4,000 Accor Live Limitless points sitting around you could convert them to 4,000 Avios in Iberia Plus (NOT to British Airways Executive Club, which has a worse rate).  Even better, you would get €80 off a hotel room.  Converting to Eurostar is probably equally as good as moving to Avios in Iberia Plus, but you are losing almost 50% of the value compared to booking a room.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, it is always good to have more redemption options.  As is usually the case with transfers to or from Accor Live Limitless, this one involves a noticeable loss of value.

You can find out more about the Accor / Eurostar partnership on the Accor Live Limitless website here.

PS. I should say, to be fair, that I recently transferred 12,000 Flying Blue miles into 3,000 Accor Live Limitless points due to a 30% transfer bonus. I had only got these Flying Blue miles from doing Accor hotel stays via their partnership and had no other use for them, so taking €78 of Accor credit counted as a win. If I do need any Air France or KLM flights I still have a seven figure Virgin Points balance I can use.

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How to get Club Eurostar points and lounge access from UK credit cards (June 2023)

Club Eurostar does not have a UK credit card.  However, you can earn Club Eurostar points by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards. 

Cards earning Membership Rewards points include:

• American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 1,333 Club Eurostar points. This card is FREE for your first year and also comes with four free airport lounge passes.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 2,000 Club Eurostar points. Card benefits include Eurostar lounge access.

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 666 Club Eurostar points. This card is FREE for life.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 13th June, the sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card is doubled to 60,000 Membership Rewards points (worth 4,000 Club Eurostar points) – and you get £200 to spend at Amex Travel too! Apply here.

Membership Rewards points convert at 15:1 into Club Eurostar points which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, so you will get the equivalent of 1 Club Eurostar point for every £15 you spend.

American Express Platinum comes with a great Eurostar benefit – Eurostar lounge access!  

You can enter any Eurostar lounge, irrespective of your ticket type, simply by showing The Platinum Card at the desk.  No guests are allowed but you can get entry for your partner by issuing them with a free supplementary Amex Platinum card on your account.