Have you ever found yourself wondering what the best UK credit card for earning air miles is? Then you’re in luck! Today I’m looking at Barclaycards two Avios credit cards and comparing them against both American Express and Virgin Atlantic’s offering. In this post I’ll discuss whether the Barclaycard Avios Plus is worth paying £20 a month compared to its free counterpart.
Barclaycard Avios (Free Version)
The standard Barclaycard Avios has no annual fee and will earn you 1 Avios per £1 spent. You also get a 5,000 Avios bonus after spending £1,000 in the first 3 months. And if you spend £20k in a year you’ll earn a British Airways cabin upgrade voucher. Or if you don’t have use for a cabin upgrade voucher you can choose 7,000 Avios instead. Though the upgrade voucher is likely to be worth more than that on any long haul flight.
Both the free and Plus cards give you access to Barclaycard cash back offers, which can be useful for everyday spending. They also regularly give you offers on balance transfers which give 1 Avios per £1 transferred. At the time of writing they’re offering me 0% interest on balance transfers for 20 months. But the fee is 4.3% so I’m not sure I would recommend this card for balance transfers.
Barclaycard Avios PLUS
The premium Barclaycard Avios Plus will earn you 1.5 Avios per £1 spent, but also comes with a hefty £20 monthly fee. The biggest differences on the Plus card (apart from earning 50% more Avios) are the huge signup bonus and cabin upgrade voucher. Firstly, if you signup for this card and spend £3,000 in the first 3 months you’ll get a bonus of 25,000 Avios, which could be worth £250+. Secondly, compared to the free card you only have to spend half as much (£10k) to get a companion voucher.
You do also get discouted lounge access at £18.50 per entrance to over 1,000 lounges around the world. Though I don’t think that’s worth much. My Amex Platinum for example gives me unlimited free access for me and a guest. I wrote a post here about why the Amex Platinum card is so great.
Comparison
Below is a table showing how much Avios you can earn with each card. I’ve used an assumed value of 1.1p per Avios, though in my experience you can do much better than this. I worked out you could earn at least £200 of Avios with either of these cards. If you’re a high spender I would recommend the Plus card as you can earn at a better rate.
My personal Avios redemption record was when I booked a one way flight from London City Airport to Billund for 9,250 Avios. The fare would have been £326 meaning I redeemed at a rate of 3.5p per Avios (326,000/9,250). That is a bit of a special case though as it’s a flight operated by Sun Air of Scandinavia, which I’ll be making a video/article about in September.
I personally use the free version of this card when shops don’t accept Amex and am very satisfied with it. You receive a 5,000 Avios bonus for spending £1,000 in the first 3 months. You also get access to plenty of Barclaycard cashback offers plus the ability long interest free rates on balance transfers, something not offered by Amex. Finally, you can get up to five months of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple News+ and Apple Arcade for free with your new Barclaycard (at the time of writing).
Other Options
American Express British Airways Card
The American Express British Airways Card is very competitive compared to its rivals. I have both the Amex and Barclaycard Avios and earn similar points on each. The big difference is that American Express will often run cashback offers. For instance I recently used a Fairmont hotels offer of “Spend £750 get £100 back”. Barclaycard don’t have such lucrative and wide-ranging offers. If you want to earn Virgin Atlantic miles instead then their credit card is the best choice.
For my full review of the American Express British Airways Cards click here.
Virgin Atlantic Credit Card
Just like American Express and Barclaycard, Virgin Atlantic also offer two tiers of reward credit cards. The free Reward credit card and the premium Reward+ credit card which costs £160 per year. The difference between the two cards is basically identical to Amex and Barclaycard’s offering so I won’t bother go in depth here. But if you want to find out more I wrote an in depth article comparing the two Virgin Atlantic Credit Cards here. Long story short the £160 per year Reward+ card will give you the greatest reward, but is only worth it if you have relatively high annual spending. Virgin Atlantic also offer some fantastic redemption deals to. In my experience at least you can get much better value with Virgin Atlantic booking Business Class flights with miles. The only downside is that Virgin Atlantic has a much more limited route network compared to British Airways and its partners. It’s great if you regularly travel to North America, otherwise I prefer British Airways and Oneworld.
Barclays Avios Rewards
Barclays also offer a subscription program which awards you 1,500 Avios plus a few extra perks for £12/month. You also get a joining bonus of up to 25,000 Avios plus another anniversary bonus of either 7,000 Avios or a cabin upgrade voucher. You also get “airport lounge membership” but I believe only at discounted rates, not for free.
If you’re already a Barclays customer, then Barclays Avios Rewards could be a good option too. Note though that to be eligible you have to own a Barclays Premier account or be a Barclays Weath Management customer. That requires either a salary of £75,000 or £500,000 deposited with Barclays. Check out my full review here.
Final Thoughts
Both cards are great ways to earn Avios but whether you should get the free or premium version depends largely on how much your yearly spend is.
In my case I only use my Barclaycard Avios for small spending where Amex isn’t accepted, so I’m not going to hit the annual spend required for a companion voucher anyway. Therefore the Plus card wouldn’t make sense for me as I would be spending more on fees. However, if you are likely to spend more than £10k a year on this card then I would recommend the Barclaycard Avios Plus Card. You’ll get the 25,000 Avios signup bonus, companion voucher, plus 15,000+ Avios just from regular spending. That makes it more than worth the annual fee of £240.
More from me…
Please feel free to check out other related posts I’ve written:
- Ultimate Guide to British Airways Executive Club
- Is the Avios Subscription Worth It? – It could be if you use it right
- The No1 Lounge at London Gatwick’s South Terminal – surprisingly good
And if you fancy earning some fantastic rewards and Avios points through American Express, please use my referral links below:
- The Platinum Card – You Receive 50,000 Membership Reward points after spending £6,000 in the first 6 months: https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/fREDEGgRA5?CPID=100493012
- British Airways Card: You Receive 8,000 Avios after spending £1,000 in the first 3 months: https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/fREDEG42lN?CPID=100503089