Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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.

Comments (89)

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

  • Mark says:

    My £99 fee is due or has just been added.

    I’ve not received ANY email about forcing me to upgrade. I’ve just received new cards for all my team as the old cards were expiring, so looks like I’ll be cancelling and re-applying.

  • Mark says:

    From COT

    You are not forced onto anything, you can opt-out and go onto the free rewards but will lose Avios temporarily, this would be given to free rewards customers in June, we are working out the final details with Avios but this will be coming in June for people on free rewards

  • Mark says:

    I can put you on to the free rewards that isn’t a problem, I am just double checking some information as I can see yours was renewed on the 13th of January and unfortunately that isn’t down to us, that is up to Avios and the pro will be changing to £199 per year instead of £299

  • Mark says:

    The rewards plan is changing, and I can see that you are on the business rewards plan which was charged to your account on the 14th of January.

    The changes we’re making to our rewards plans means that we are removing the business rewards plan, but you will then be able to redeem your Avios points without paying any annual fee. But this will take some time as we’re still negotiating the plan with Avios.

    from Rhoss:
    We predict that by June, customers can be on the free rewards plan, and redeem points to avios.

    from Rhoss:
    What we’re offering in the meantime is, should customers wish to upgrade to our PRO rewards plan, they can do so for £199 for the year, instead of £299.

  • Mark says:

    Intersting….

    COT: The free account would only be able to redeem to Avios once we’ve sorted out the contract with Avios. Which is expected to be in June.

    from Rhoss:
    If you’d like to go to the free plan, I can credit £99 to your account, but there would be some time where you wouldn’t be able to redeem your points to Avios.

    from me:
    I assume That I could upgrade until june then downgrade to the free card and get a pro-rata refund
    from me:
    But could I convert the points earnt in that period after the contract with avios had been sorted?
    from Rhoss:
    That’s correct. Have you looked over what we offer with the PRO rewards plan yet?

    I then asked for confirmation.

    Both of them. If you upgraded and decided to go back to a free plan we can do a refund.

    However, if you wanted to save some money, I can put you on the free plan now, and then you have 5 months to accumulate points on your Capital On Tap card before being able to redeem them around June.

  • HelenM says:

    Thanks Mark – its interesting that they offered you the £99 back if you chose to downgrade to the free plan. And it sounds like you can still accumulate points just wait to redeem to Avios until after its available in July? If they offered me the same I would accept the downgrade but my renewal was more than a month ago so I doubt they will.

  • Mark says:

    My £99 went on the card on the 14th! so three days ago.

    • HelenM says:

      I contacted them and downgraded to free – got a pro rata refund

      • Flips says:

        Hi Helen & Mark,
        That’s so interesting – the person I spoke to said that I would not longer be able to redeem or accumulate Avios after downgrading to free, and that I would also need to redeem any existing Avios before I downgraded; otherwise I would have until June to redeem Avios on the existing old rewards account. Might have to try them again.

        • Rob says:

          They are correct. You cannot redeem or accumulate Avios downgrading to free. You WILL continue to accrue COT points and IF they get permission as they hope in June to offer Avios to existing customers, those points will be convertible then.

  • A says:

    Probably not something that would affect most applicants but worth pointing out for those that it may. I had this Capital on Tap business card for a couple of years now from when my company was owned 100% by myself. Having then secured some US based private equity investment , the resulting KYC compliance from CoT became far more over zealous and intrusive than any of the other credit card lenders such as Amex or our main bankers by a country mile, to the point the information they insisted on was untenable and they ended up closing our account. None of the other banks or lenders needed anything close to the information COT insisted on.

    Just be aware in similar circumstances that you will need some KY jelly to comply with COT’s KYC!

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