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Just spoke to customer services at capital on tap as I wanted to swap to the £99 business rewards account so I can redeem for avios. They said they’re removing this. However they are releasing avios redeeming to the free cards but ONLY if you sign up after 16th January. Aka for new customers only. What a distasteful way to treat existing customers.
Looks like I’ll be going elsewhere for my Ltd coHi,
Thank you for your quick reply.
I can confirm that from July, any customers on Free Rewards who signed up with us after January 16th will be eligible to use Avios. Unfortunately, this is a decision from Avios themselves.
The alternative way to redeem to Avios as an existing customer, would be to upgrade to our Pro Rewards plan.
If you have any further questions, you can get in touch with our Team 24/7 on 0208 962 7401.
Alternatively, you can reach out on chat by visiting http://www.capitalontap.com or email us at contact@capitalontap.com, or by responding to my email with a time most convenient to call you.
Best wishes,
XThanks for posting this, it’s good to know. I’m currently on the £99 fee card, and the only options are to upgrade to the £299 fee card (discounted to £199 for a year) or downgrade to the free card with no avios transfer. I guess I need to call and ask if I can cancel my card and then apply for the new free card!
Is there an issue with closing your account today, then opening a new one on Thursday?
Apart from the fact that they may not offer it to you I don’t think so. I was thinking of doing this also.
When you can get Radison VIP for free and the priority pass is only for the main account holder, even other directors have to use the 2 x free guest passes, it’s not the best really. I can’t justify the cost at £300.This or may not be correct but doesn’t fit with what CoT has been saying to us.
In particular, I know that their Avios contract banned them for offering points on a free card. This may have been renegotiated but that’s why the £99 fee was there in the first place.
I also had this January 16th chamge confirmed via webchat.
Yep, very sneaky from COT
‘Lets get people to upgrade to the £199/£299 plan, and then give new customers free access to the main reason to upgrade – the avios redemptions for points’
I asked the question today and had a rather confusing reply:
“Unfortunately Avios will only be available on the 16th Jan to new Capital on Tap customers. Current Capital on Tap customers on the free rewards plan should have access to Avios in June.
The only way you could have access to avios on the 16th of Jan is if you close your current account with us by paying off any outstanding balance, and apply for a new one.
However, I must advise that we cannot guarantee that you will be reapproved or be set up with the same credit limit that you have at the moment.”
So if I’m reading that email correctly, from June you will be able to transfer to Avios on the existing customer free account? That’s not what any of the emails or their website says though! I’ve gone back and asked the question anyway.
This or may not be correct but doesn’t fit with what CoT has been saying to us.
In particular, I know that their Avios contract banned them for offering points on a free card. This may have been renegotiated but that’s why the £99 fee was there in the first place.
I’m sure no-one would begrudge CoT a 1p/year fee to keep to the terms of that contract!
They’ve just confirmed to me that from June existing customers on the free card will be able to transfer points to Avios, and it would just be a few months that you couldn’t do the conversion.
If that’s true then it’s really out of order of them to deliberately not tell customers this so that people pay £199 to upgrade just to be able to transfer Avios!
Not been told of any changes, so is it just a few depending upon the date of the account?
They’ve just confirmed to me that from June existing customers on the free card will be able to transfer points to Avios, and it would just be a few months that you couldn’t do the conversion.
If that’s true then it’s really out of order of them to deliberately not tell customers this so that people pay £199 to upgrade just to be able to transfer Avios!
If you can’t downgrade beforehand it would be very sneaky and one that I am sure Rob would ask them directly to clarify.
We now have clarity on this.
Basically, it’s all correct. Avios and CoT have a new contract which only applies to new applicants. This allows CoT to give Avios on the free card and very soon (this week) it will.
The contract does not allow them to offer this to existing customers, even via a downgrade, but there is something in it which means CoT believes it will be possible from June.
This is moving very quickly (this is not Barclaycard here, these are people who make a massive decision on Monday and have it live by Thursday) but that’s the current scenario.
The Pro card will remain with plans to make it far better over the course of the year.
To force people to upgrade just to get their Avios will lose a lot of trust.
Hopefully they can sort something out or just keep the business plan.
I presume you could downgrade to the free card & continue to earn points but simply not use them until the Avios transfer (hopefully) becomes available in June?
Looks like they’re banking on existing cardholders paying £199 to upgrade to Pro (as in, approx 2 x their original £99 fees) to entice shiny new (free) cardholders.
I will also be downgrading – not because of the increase in fee (fee increases are inevitable), but because of the increase in fee I would have to pay to retain Avios transfers whilst Capital on Tap onboarded customers who would be paying nothing have Avios transfer privileges.
It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
The only reason I am not cancelling the card at the moment is there are still some good reasons to keep the card (free overseas transactions, other transfer partners).
Glad I read this. I was sitting on a load of avios, so I’ve just transferred them out to hopefully miss any cut off.
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).
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).
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.
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