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SME? Great news – Capital on Tap’s Avios-earning Visa card is now FREE!

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If you have a Limited Company or LLP, there is some good news today.

Capital on Tap’s Visa credit card is now FREE. The £99 annual fee has been removed, permanently, for new cardholders. See here and scroll halfway down.

You earn points worth 1 Avios for every £1 you spend.

It is also the only credit card indirectly earning Avios which has NO FX FEES.

Capital on Tap credit card earns Avios

It is a fantastic card to use for your business. Even if you have an American Express Business card, you will still need a back-up given the level of Amex acceptance in the B2B sector.

Sounds good?  Let me explain more.

You can apply here. This page shows two cards – the free card and the £299 Pro card – so make sure you select the free one.

What is the Capital on Tap Visa card?

Capital on Tap runs the only small business Visa credit card which can earn you Avios points.

Whilst the name may not be familiar to you, it has over 200,000 cardholders in the UK and is one of the few fintech ‘unicorns’ (start-up companies worth over £1 billion) in the country.

For six years, you have been able to earn Avios via a dedicated card called Business Rewards. This carried a £99 annual fee. Capital on Tap has now removed Business Rewards from the market and added Avios (for new customers only for now, for ‘contractual reasons’) to its ‘free for life’ card.

In this article I will explain all you need to know about the Capital on Tap Visa card and who can apply.

How does the Capital on Tap Visa card work?

The Capital on Tap Visa card is the only way to indirectly earn Avios via a small business Visa or Mastercard credit card. 

You earn 1 Capital on Tap point (worth 1p cashback or 1 Avios) per £1 you spend.

There is no longer a sign-up bonus, but of course there is no longer an annual fee either! Cardholders will be better off with this new structure.

As an added benefit, this is the ONLY Avios-earning credit card in the UK which does not charge foreign exchange fees when used abroad.

Avios transfers from Capital on Tap are INSTANTANEOUS.  Log in to Capital on Tap, request a transfer of some or all of your available Capital on Tap points to Avios, log in to your British Airways Club account and they will be there! American Express Membership Rewards does not offer instant transfers – you usually need to wait overnight.

You can find full details on their website here.

Capital on Tap free credit card earns Avios

Are there any other benefits?

On top of your 1 Capital on Tap point per £1 spent (worth 1 Avios or 1p of cashback), there are some other good benefits too:

  • unlimited free supplementary cards for your staff
  • a credit limit of up to £250,000
  • up to 42 days to pay before interest is incurred
  • auto-syncs to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and more
  • no FX fees and no ATM fees 

Capital on Tap also allows you to preload your card if you want to make substantial purchases in excess of your credit limit. You can transfer money onto your card and then make your payment, earning points on the purchase.

Capital On Tap Business Rewards credit card

Who can apply?

The Capital on Tap card is aimed at SMEs. You must have a Limited Company or LLP with a turnover of £24,000+ to apply.

Partnerships and sole traders are not currently being accepted, unfortunately.

What happens if you don’t have a limited company?

If you do NOT have a limited company, our recommended choice for a business Visa or Mastercard credit card is Barclaycard Select Cashback. It is free for life and you get 1% cashback on all of your spending.

Our review of the Barclaycard Select Cashback credit card is here and you can apply here.

Is it worth getting the Capital on Tap Visa card?

If you have any sort of small business which would allow you to qualify for the card, I think you need to have a serious look at Capital on Tap.

What do you have to lose? After all:

  • the card is free for life
  • you get points worth 1 Avios for every £1 spent
  • the card has no FX fees
  • you get far better acceptance than with an American Express card

Your interest rate is based on your business profile and can be as low as 14.95% APR variable.

But don’t forget ….

Capital on Tap points can be converted into cashback as well as Avios.  You can choose to take 1p of cash instead of 1 Avios.

If you don’t value Avios at more than 1p (and in most scenarios an Avios point is worth more than 1p as this article shows) then take your Capital on Tap points as cashback instead.

The cashback option also gives you a fallback in case Avios devalues or your travel plans change.  However, if you took cashback it would be taxable as business income.  You could pro-rata this to reflect any personal spending.

Points and miles have no cash or taxable value – this is a long-held HMRC rule.

How to apply

If the Capital on Tap Visa card sounds interesting for your business, you can find out more and apply on their website here. Remember that there is no longer an annual fee.

The application page shows two cards – the free card and the £299 Pro card – so make sure you select the free one.

Disclaimer: Head for Points is a journalistic website. Nothing here should be construed as financial advice, and it is your own responsibility to ensure that any product is right for your circumstances. Recommendations are based primarily on the ability to earn miles and points. The site discusses products offered by lenders but is not a lender itself. Robert Burgess, trading as Head for Points, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as an independent credit broker.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Capital on Tap Visa

Comments (89)

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

  • Lee says:
    17 Jan17 January 08:54

    From the email:

    Your options:

    Automatic upgrade to Pro – £199

    No action required
    £199 will be charged to your account on 11th March 2025
    Full Pro benefits begin immediately upon renewal
    Switch to Free tier:

    Must opt-out before March 11th
    No annual fee
    Note: Avios conversion will no longer be available

  • L Allen says:
    17 Jan17 January 08:58

    So existing card holders who don’t want to pay £299 a year don’t get the Avios conversion? But a new cardholder gets Avios for free? Definitely going to close my account down. That’s disgraceful.

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 09:05

      Not CoTs fault. They need you to close down your card (and open a new one) because legally they cannot switch you.

      • L Allen says:
        17 Jan17 January 09:24

        You say this but the contract is within their gift to change. They changed my contract by removing Avios from the £99 tier and told me I’d be automatically charge £299 for the same function and they can therefore change my contract again by putting Avios into the free tier If they wanted to. Are you saying the contracts are not within their control to manage and update?

        Anyway, I just looked at the options in app and they are showing two free tiers at the moment, and I seem to be on the one that earns Avios. I suspect that’s a temporary thing until 11 March when I was supposed to be one of the idiots they thought they could charge £299 for Avios conversions.

        • Rob says:
          17 Jan17 January 11:25

          I’m talking their contract with Avios, not with you …..

          • L Allen says:
            17 Jan17 January 13:31

            I didn’t know that’s what you were referring to. It wasn’t exactly explicit.

            Either way, the messaging is very poor especially at the current time with many BA members being generally unhappy.

  • Mike Fish says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:02

    @Rob – Was this the big announcement?

  • Rob says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:05

    You can cancel free and immediately reapply and you will earn Avios. Clunky but not their fault.

  • Paul says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:09

    Didn’t see the need to spend £99 in the first place. Why spend £99 to cash out for Avios when you can cash out for a more useful gift card?

  • Helen says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:36

    Those who are quoting e-mails forcing them onto the £299 per month package, when did this e-mail get sent? Ive been an existing customer since they first launched. My £99 renewal was taken in December, and I have received no e-mail forcing me onto the £299 package, nor anything telling me I will no longer earn Avios. So how does this affect me?

    • Skywalker says:
      17 Jan17 January 09:51

      Call Capital on Tap and find out.

      • HelenM says:
        17 Jan17 January 10:13

        I just went on chat with Megan from CoT. If you have recently paid your £99 fee nothing will change until your next renewal. For those customers whose renewal is between Jan – March – they are being offered the upgrade to Pro or downgrade to free. So since I just renewed in December, I will not be affected until Dec 2025, where I will be offered the same upgrade or downgrade to free, by which time the free card will be earning Avios as well ( and no need to cancel and re-apply).

        • Isherwood says:
          17 Jan17 January 10:40

          Thanks Helen. Our renewal matches with yours so this is really helpful data. Not a dicky bird about this from COT. Poor comms. But then I have my reservations about COT. I wouldn’t describe them as particularly slick on any level. I find their cs responses are less than helpful.
          Also, worth underlining that the card liability is 100% personal to the account opener and never others in the business (i.e. your fellow Directors / shareholders).

          • Rob says:
            17 Jan17 January 11:19

            Amex Business cards also have personal liability. Would be unviable to run a card with corporate responsibility – Amex requires £5m of revenue before it will even consider it.

          • HelenM says:
            17 Jan17 January 12:31

            So I moved all my points to Avios. I then contacted CoT chat again and said I was not happy that I had just paid £99 and they were offering the same benefits to new customers for free. I wanted to know if I could also be changed to the free card and get a pro rata refund. They stressed I would not be able to transfer to Avios until June, but I will still collect 1 point per £1 so I agreed and they offered £90 refund. I will just hold off converting my points to Avios until it is resolved for existing customers or else will close and open a new account.

          • Michael says:
            17 Jan17 January 21:59

            I’m August renewal for business rewards and I only received an email updating terms – eg fee can now be charged to the card etc. there was nothing about upgrading or downgrading.

            Now in the app I have two free tiers and I appear to be in the business rewards free tier – all the free benefits and redeem rewards points for Avios.

            Holding a personal Amex Plat and HSBC Premier Rewards Cards I wouldn’t be paying £299 for essentially a PP.

    • Rob says:
      17 Jan17 January 11:24

      It was only sent to a few people as a trial.

  • Paul says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:41

    Re no FX fees, just to be clear, this card would be in line with cards such as Halifax Clarity for using abroad?

  • Chris says:
    17 Jan17 January 09:50

    I have a bunch of points on the free card that can’t be changed to AVIOS.
    1. Do you think that they will update contract terms and conditions (which they can do) and allow AVIOS conversions for me in the future?
    2. If I convert them to a Costa voucher, for example, will that have tax implications?

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