If you don’t travel that often to build up airline miles with flights another tool at our disposal are credit cards. But what are the options for anyone living in the UK who’s interested in building up British Airways Avios miles?
In this post:
- Top UK British Airways Credit Card Options
- No Fee British Airways Card Options
- The Premium Card Options
- What To Be Well Aware Of
- Sign up to my newsletter
Top UK British Airways Credit Card Options
First things first, there’s the direct and indirect miles accrual route. The direct mile accrual involves a co-branded British Airways credit card, while the indirect route involves a non-branded card from which points then have to be transferred to British Airways Club.
For the purposes of this post I’ll be focusing on the direct mile accrual route. We’ll talk about non-branded options in a separate post.
The issuers of co-branded British Airways cards are:
- American Express
- Barclays
Here’s which are which cards they offer:
| Issuer | Card | Business/Consumer |
|---|---|---|
| Barclays | Barclaycard Avios | Consumer |
| Barclays | Barclaycard Avios Plus | Consumer |
| American Express | BA AmEx Credit Card | Consumer |
| American Express | Premium Plus Card | Consumer |
| American Express | Accelerating Business Card | Business |
Now that we’ve got the full picture of what the options are let’s break them down into:
- No Fee Cards
- Fee Cards
- Business Cards
And then take a closer look at what kind of welcome bonus they come with and other benefits and costs.
No Fee British Airways Card Options
So if you’re not looking for a fancy card to flash or you simply don’t need the bells and whistles premium cards come with, the best call are no yearly fee cards.
You’ve got two options in this domain:
- Barclaycard Avios
- British Airways American Express Credit Card
| Cards | AmEx Basic | Barclaycard Avios |
|---|---|---|
| APR | 29.9% | 29.1% |
| Welcome Bonus | 5,000* | 5,000* |
| Accrual Rate | 1 Avios per 1£ | 1 Avios per 1£ |
| Circuit | AmEx | Mastercard |
| Lounge Access | No | No |
| Annual Fee | 0 | 0 |
* Welcome bonus is unlocked when minimum spend in first 3 months of possessing the card. To unlock the 5,000 point welcome bonus you’ll need to spend:
- £1,000 for the Barclaycard Avios card
- £2,000 for the AmEx card.
So if you’re looking for a casual card and to unlock the welcome bonus as fast as possible the Barclaycard is the way to go.
However, the higher entry barrier does hide some good things in favor of AmEx. They are generally much more generous in allowing you to have higher spend limits. That comes in handy when you are traveling or booking airline tickets.
The Premium Card Options
If you’re looking for something that comes with greater benefits then you might want to consider a more expensive credit card, one that has an annual fee. Cards such as:
- British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card
- Barclaycard Avios Plus
| Card | Amex Premium Plus Card | Barclaycard Avios Plus |
|---|---|---|
| APR | 29.9% | 29.1% |
| Welcome Bonus | 30,000** | 25,000** |
| Accrual Rate | 1.5 Avios per 1£* | 1.5 Avios per 1£ |
| Circuit | AmEx | Mastercard |
| Lounge Access | No | No |
| Annual Fee | 300£ | 240£ |
*Accrual rate is shared between the two cards at 1,5 Avios per £1 spent. However, American Express’ card does bring to the table an sped up accrual rate of 3 Avios per £1 spent when purchasing on BA or BA Holidays.
**The welcome bonuses are unlocked once you hit a spend threshold within the first 3 months of holding the card:
- Barclaycard Avios Plus: £3,000 spent in first 3 months of holding the card
- Amex Premium Plus Card: £6,000 spent in first 3 months of holding the card
Barclays and Amex don’t disclose what the spend limit is on these cards, but I can assure you it is higher than on the no-fee options.
Also worth highlighting, that these more expensive cards also don’t come with complimentary lounge access.
What To Be Well Aware Of
The main thing to keep in mind when applying for one of the cards I’ve covered in this post is that they are co-branded credit cards. As such they only allow to build up Avios miles that are directly credited to your British Airways Club account.
They differ from the non branded credit cards that allow to build up a third party currency that can be then converted to a number of different airline frequent flyer currencies.