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What is the best Star Alliance credit card?

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What credit card should you get if you want to redeem for flights with a Star Alliance airline? Let’s find out.

Who are the members of Star Alliance?

The bulk of major global airlines have formed three alliances – oneworld (which includes British Airways), Star Alliance and SkyTeam (which includes Virgin Atlantic).

Star Alliance is the largest of the three, both in terms of member airlines (25) and airports served (1,290).  This means that it can be handy to have access to miles in a Star Alliance frequent flyer programme in order to redeem across these carriers.

What is the best Star Alliance credit card?

The full Star Alliance member list is: Aegean, Air Canada, Air China, Air India, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana, Austrian, Avianca, Brussels, Copa, Croatia, EgyptAir, Ethopian, EVA, LOT, Lufthansa, Shenzen, Singapore, South African, SWISS, TAP, Thai, Turkish and United.

Our article on which Star Alliance frequent flyer programme is best for you can be found here.

Which UK credit cards earn Star Alliance miles?

One of the key determinants for me when joining a mileage programme is the ability to earn miles via a credit card. There is often a generous sign-up bonus to be had, and earning via a credit card lets you top up your mileage balance if your flying reduces. A credit card is also a good way to ‘top off’ a mileage programme you intend to abandon after one last redemption.

However, no Star Alliance airlines have their own UK credit card.

Unless a new Lufthansa appears (Lufthansa’s Miles & More closed its UK card in 2021), you need to look for alternatives.

All of the cards we discuss below add a 2.99% foreign exchange fee so you might want to get a separate free credit card to use abroad.

Unfortunately there are no travel rewards cards without a foreign exchange fee, although the Virgin Atlantic credit cards have 0% FX fees in the Eurozone.  One option is to get a free card from Currensea. Currensea is a simple but clever idea. You pay abroad with your Currensea Mastercard debit card. Currensea translates the cost to Sterling with just a 0.5% fee (83% less than the usual rate) and withdraws the money from your bank account. You can find out more by clicking here. Currensea is free so there is no risk in giving it a try.

What is the best Star Allance credit card?

Option 1: Get an American Express card which earns Membership Rewards points

The easiest way of earning Star Alliance miles indirectly with a UK credit card is by transferring American Express Membership Rewards points.

You can earn American Express Membership Rewards points with, primarily, these five cards:

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.

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.

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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

American Express Rewards

The only ‘free for life’ Amex card which earns Membership Rewards Read our full review

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

Looking at the Amex Membership Rewards catalogue the only Star Alliance airline which is a transfer partner is:

  • Singapore Airlines: 3 Membership Rewards points = 2 miles

Click the links to our reviews above to learn more about these five cards and their sign-up bonuses.

Mariott Bonvoy American Express credit card is the best star alliance credit card

Option 2: Get the Marriott Bonvoy American Express credit card

Whilst American Express Membership Rewards points are easy to earn, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is just one of the many Star Alliance frequent flyer schemes.

A better answer may be the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card.

The Marriott Bonvoy American Express awards points in the Marriott Bonvoy hotel loyalty scheme, covering 36 hotel brands.  It comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.

Here are the full card details:

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

Bonus: 20,000 points

Read our full review • Apply here

Other information:

  • 15 elite night credits per year to help you towards higher status
  • Free night, up to 25,000 points, when you spend £25,000 per year.
  • Upgrade to Gold Elite status when you spend £15,000 in a card year
  • Annual fee: £95

Representative 53.7% APR variable based on an assumed £1,200 credit limit and £95 annual fee. Interest rate on purchases 30.0% APR variable.

Apply here
See if you qualify for the 20,000 points sign-up bonus: +

You will receive 20,000 points as a sign-up bonus on the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card if you spend £3,000 within 90 days of signing up.

To qualify for the bonus, you must NOT, currently or in the previous 24 months, have held any other personal American Express card.

You are OK if you had a supplementary card on someone else’s American Express account.

You are OK if, currently or in the previous 24 months, you have held a Business American Express card.

For clarity, you can still apply for the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card even if you do not qualify for the bonus.  You would still benefit from the 15 elite night credits per year, the free night (up to 25,000 points) for spending £25,000 and Gold Elite status for spending £15,000.

Learn more about the card benefits +

You will receive 15 elite night credits per year in Marriott Bonvoy.  The first batch will arrive within 60 days on applying and then in Spring in each subsequent year.

15 elite nights will automatically get you Silver Elite status in Marriott Bonvoy and put you nearer to Gold Elite and higher tiers.

If you spend £15,000 per card year, you will be upgraded to Gold Elite status in Marriott Bonvoy.

If you spend £25,000 per card year, you will receive a free night voucher, valid at any hotel where reward nights cost up to 25,000 points.

You need a minimum personal income of £20,000 to apply for the card.

You can convert Marriott Bonvoy points to 40 airlines.  The transfer rate is nominally 3 : 1, with the credit card earning 2 point per £1. For most partners this is increased to 3 : 1.25 if you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points at once.

There is a preferential conversion rate to United Airlines – which is a Star Alliance member – of 2:1 if you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points at once.

These are the Star Alliance members which are Marriott Bonvoy airline partners.   The earning rates shown ignore the 25% bonus if you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points (20,000 miles) at once.

  • Aegean: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Air Canada: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Air China: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Air New Zealand: 0.66 points per £66
  • ANA: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Asiana Airlines: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Avianca: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Copa Airlines: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Singapore Airlines: 0.66 miles per £1
  • TAP Air Portugal: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Thai Airways: 0.66 miles per £1
  • Turkish Airlines: 0.66 miles per £1
  • United Airlines: 0.66 miles per £1

In most cases, the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card is your best option for earning Star Alliance miles from UK credit card spend.

What is the best credit card for collecting star alliance miles

Option 3: Get a HSBC Premier credit card

HSBC Premier is an option if you want Singapore Airlines, TAP Air Portugal or EVA Air miles.  It has an excellent Visa / Mastercard rate (0.5 miles per £1 on the free card, 1.5 miles per £1 on the paid card).

You need a HSBC Premier current account, however, which has tough income and savings criteria. This means that it is out of reach for many readers.

We review the free HSBC Premier credit card here and review the £290 HSBC Premier World Elite credit card here.

Conclusion

There are plenty of options here for anyone wanting to earn Star Alliance miles from a credit card. As far as I can see, the only members with no earning ability are Lufthansa Miles & More (admittedly a big hole), EgyptAir and Ethiopian.  Shenzhen Airlines uses Air China’s PheonixMiles programme.

Want Singapore Airlines miles?

The free (in year one) American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is probably your best choice if you want Singapore Airlines miles.  You earn 1 point per £1 and the sign-up bonus is 20,000 Membership Rewards points. The points convert at 3:2 into Singapore Airlines. You can apply here.

Want miles with any other Star Alliance airline?

The £95 Marriott Bonvoy American Express is probably your best choice for Star Alliance miles with all other airlines. 

The Marriott Bonvoy Amex has a number of partners at a decent conversion rate of 0.825 miles per £1 (assuming you convert in 60,000 Bonvoy point chunks) and may be a good way to hedge your bets about which Star Alliance programme you want to redeem through.  

You can, of course, also redeem your points for Marriott hotel rooms if you change your mind about airline miles.  My full review of the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card is here. You can apply here.

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earns points from credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2025 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 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

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.

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher 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

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 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:

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

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

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

Capital on Tap Visa

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

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

Category

American Express Gold card, American Express Platinum card, HSBC Premier Mastercard, Lufthansa and Miles & More, Marriott Bonvoy American Express, United Airlines and MileagePlus

Comments (28)

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

  • Geoggy says:
    9 Jan9 January 07:22

    In the linked article which reviews the Amex Bonvoy card it says

    “ Unfortunately there are no credit cards with 0% foreign exchange fees worldwide which earn airline or hotel points.”

    I recently got a NatWest Travel Reward Card, which technically renders this comment untrue, as the rewards earned can be converted to Avios. Worth a review maybe?

    • DF says:
      9 Jan9 January 10:08

      I also have the NatWest Reward Black card which has 0% FX fees but only earns rewards at 0.5% in most situations. The Avios conversion rate is also poor (£10 rewards = 900 Avios so 1.11p/Avios) so you’d be better off taking the rewards as cash and buying Avios through subscription or boost

      • Geoggy says:
        9 Jan9 January 12:29

        I take your point, however I only use this card to avoid FX fees which is generally on the categories of spend earning 1%.

        Plus it has no annual fee and after a recent holiday I’ve got 5k Avios out of it. Sure I could have taken a statement reduction but I can’t see any FX fee free card on the market with zero annual fee that has the suite of reward options this card does.

  • Vit says:
    9 Jan9 January 07:48

    I have been eying up Option 3 but never had chance to read up (fully) the stuffs with bendy etc., within the forum BR to Bangkok from LHR / VIE are very useful.

  • Jose Marques says:
    9 Jan9 January 08:09

    Didn’t Amex drop the krisflyer points conversion??

    • Rob says:
      9 Jan9 January 08:27

      No. Stop believing what you read elsewhere 🙂

      • LittleNick says:
        9 Jan9 January 11:15

        Will Amex UK ever get anymore star alliance partners? I guess not as they’re not keen on transfer partners anymore?

    • Axel Heyst says:
      9 Jan9 January 08:34

      No iKris conversations ts listed for me at 3:2 on Amex.

      HSBC World better at 2:3 hopefully with plunging pound this will put off HSBC reducing rate in foreseeable future

  • Tom says:
    9 Jan9 January 09:05

    Hopefully one day we might have a version of the Australian HSBC card previously covered on this site.

  • vlcnc says:
    9 Jan9 January 09:59

    Rob do we know how the HSBC Star Alliance credit card is doing in Australia? And are we likely to see a similar product in the UK in the next couple of years??

    Always struck me a missed opportunity that the other alliances didn’t launch a credit card in the UK – I reckon SkyTeam would especially be in a strong position given KLM’s vast regional network which makes it more useful to majority of the country.

    • Rob says:
      9 Jan9 January 10:00

      Not well, I was told. I think the issue is that few Star carriers actually fly there.

      • vlcnc says:
        9 Jan9 January 11:14

        I did think it an odd place to launch for that reason. I guess it’s a difficult one as it needs to be somewhere that doesn’t already have a dominant star alliance hub carrier which might have its own card but more could be a viable contender of a hub carrier of another alliance.

      • NicktheGreek says:
        9 Jan9 January 12:57

        I think also that few would regularly fly with Star Alliance, unless with Air NZ. You’d have a pretty low percentage of travellers regularly traveling with United, Singapore or Thai out of Australia, so there’s less mass appeal.

        It also doesn’t help you domestically (unless you select SQ or UA with their reciprocal rights with VA) which would be a turn off for most, and ultimately just no need to move away from Qantas and Virgin offerings.

        In addition, having to select an airline to have the status with is quite restrictive. Whilst the benefits would carry across it just doesn’t feel intuitive. Select Air NZ and you’re losing out if flying north or west. Same with United and Air Canada. Select Singapore or Thai and it’s not optimal for flying east.

        An offering from FlyingBlue or M&M (or an alliance more widely) to the UK market doesn’t face most of these challenges I don’t think, so could be better placed.

  • DW says:
    9 Jan9 January 11:08

    I know it’s not a credit card but Revolut with Ultra now gives 1 rev point to 1 GBP of spend. Turkish Airlines and TAP are transfer partners, 1 rev point is equal to 1 mile (also 1 rev point is equal to 1 Avios). There’s also a number of multiplier promotions, for example, before christmas, I bought a new Apple device. There was a 20X multiplier promotion on Apple Store Online, so I got 20,000 rev points for 1k spend. Qatar also frequently run multiplier promotions.

    I am a bit surprised how little rev points are mentioned online.

    • BBbetter says:
      9 Jan9 January 11:16

      We need reviews on both metal and ultra. Metal is worth it for just the FT sub.

      • Geoggy says:
        9 Jan9 January 14:18

        Annual fees have always put me off. Absolutely eye watering, but would consider based on review.

        • Rob says:
          9 Jan9 January 14:25

          As we have said before, Revolut will not allow us to write about its products unless it sees and approves the copy in advance. We do not allow this.

          • krys_k says:
            9 Jan9 January 14:45

            As a journalistic website can you not just write a review ?

          • Rob says:
            9 Jan9 January 15:16

            We not a media company – you just think we are. We’re a regulated financial services company that derives the bulk of its revenue from credit broking.

  • Spaghetti Town says:
    9 Jan9 January 11:56

    Still holding out hope that one day we’ll get a star or skyteam UK card

  • The Paw 🐾 says:
    9 Jan9 January 12:09

    Earnings rate for Marriott Bonvoy is (slightly more than) 0.833/£

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

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