Earning points via Credit Cards and financial products in the UK
You've probably seen them clickbait videos or articles online. "I flew First Class for just $300" or "Frankfurt to Tokyo in Business for $50 one way". These are so annoying. Period. They are also misleading since these would've been achieved through award bookings with points and a cash surcharge - earning points isn't as easy as you may think.
The primary method of points earning for the majority of frequent flyers is via credit card spending. Effectively, for every pound you spend the airline will "give" you a certain amount of their frequent flyer points which are then debited into your airline account. I stress "give" because, as with any credit product, if you don't pay your card on-time you will pay interest at a high rate and will be paying for them points in practice. Providing you pay your credit card on-time, you will then be able to get attain more points with your airline scheme.
In the UK, there is less choice for airline credit cards than in the US. The primary issuers are:
Virgin Money (Clydesdale Bank) who issue Virgin Atlantic Credit Cards
American Express who issue their own Reward Currency as well as co-branded British Airways Avios cards
HSBC Premier who issue their own Elite Miles
The first example is easy. VM issue 0.75 Virgin Points per pound on their no-fee card and 1.5 Virgin Points per pound - but they are deposited straight into your Virgin Red account to spend on flights with Virgin and their partners. The same goes for British Airways AMEX cards - they can only be spent with British Airways and their partner airlines. The more flexible alternatives are the non-BA American Express Rewards/Gold/Platinum and HSBC Premier cards. These examples allow you to move your AMEX/HSBC points into a variety of airlines schemes. For American Express these are:
Alitalia (albeit, they are currently in the process of winding down operations) - 1 AMEX:1 Alitalia Mile ratio
Asia Miles for Cathay Pacific - 1:1
British Airways Executive Club - 1:1
Delta Sky Miles - 1:1
Iberia - 1:1
Qantas - 1:1
SAS - 1:1
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer - 3:2
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club - 1:1
With the exception of Singapore Airlines, all points are transferrable on a 1:1 ratio - making the maths to work it out easy.
HSBC Premier is a little different. Their partners are:
Etihad Guest - 1 HSBC Elite Mile : 0.5 Etihad Guest point
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer - 1:0.5
Asia Miles for Cathay Pacific - 1:0.5
British Airways Executive Club - 1:0.5
The earning rates will vary between cards offered - the free HSBC Premier card is 0.5 Elite Miles per pound spent in the UK whilst the annual fee HSBC Premier Card offers 1 Elite Point per pound which is on a par with AMEX offerings. The biggest benefit of flexible points-earning cards like these is the ability to hold them in this account and move across when ready to your preferred frequent flyer scheme. This is particularly useful as some airlines, like Singapore Airlines, have a hard expiry of 3 years on KrisFlyer miles so it is generally best to maintain your AMEX reward points or HSBC Elite Miles balance until you are ready to use
Although AMEX generally offers the most competitive cards, there is still some issues with acceptances - particularly outside major cities. Both Virgin and HSBC cards are Mastercards, which means their acceptance is almost universal wherever cards are accepted. Generally, if you opt for one AMEX and either the HSBC or Virgin cards you can easily cover all your spending requirements for different scenarios - allowing you to build up your balance quicker.
The obvious choice to deposit credit card points to in the UK are British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. They are both UK-based airlines and offer their own credit cards but mostly the ease at which you can earn makes it simple to increase the number of points you have. If you are able to meet the earning requirements for HSBC Premier it may make sense to deposit to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer or Cathay Pacific Asia Miles. Both are transferrable partners of AMEX and HSBC, covering all shops that take credit cards, but gives you access to award bookings for their premium flights such as Singapore Airlines Suites, which can retail upwards of GBP 10,000 one-way, which are only released to their own members - and not partners like Virgin.
Outside of credit cards, there's some other limited methods for gaining points. The first is switching bank accounts to Virgin Money M Plus account, which is free, providing you use the Current Account Switching Service, have a £1000 balance and two direct debits setup. Currently there is a bonus of 15,000 Virgin Points for doing so - and it’s one of the easier methods to earn quite a large sum of miles for Virgin Atlantic's scheme. Barclays offer effectively an Avios subscription service whereby in exchange for a monthly fee, you will earn British Airways Avios. The number of Avios increases depending on the number of products you take from Barclays - it is a clever way to lock you closer into the Barclays product portfolio and British Airways Executive Club.
What's my strategy?
I've got my finger in a number of frequent flyer pies. For UK card based earning, I have:
British Airways AMEX Card - no annual fee - 1 Avios per pound
AMEX Gold Card - no fee in first year, GBP 165 from year 2 - 2 AMEX Reward Points per pound
AMEX Blue Rewards Card - no annual fee (and also my longest running AMEX card) - 1 AMEX Reward Points per pound
Virgin Atlantic Rewards+ Card - GBP 165 per year - 1.5 Virgin Points per pound
HSBC Premier World Elite Credit Card - GBP 165 per year - 2 HSBC Elite Miles per pound
That's quite a number. However, I'll likely get rid of my Gold Card on the 13th month of membership and reclaim the fee for that year as I don't see much value in the card. I'll keep on maintaining the BA AMEX and Virgin card as they will always be useful for UK travellers - plus the latter has no foreign exchange fees in the European Economic Area (EU + Norway, Switzerland, Lichtenstein) which is a rarity for points earning cards. I'll also be keeping the Premier World Elite from HSBC due to it's flexible points spending.
As for where I will put my flexible points from HSBC and AMEX, when I'm ready I will transfer these into Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer on a redemption to Asia via Singapore - hopefully in First or Suites. It's an aspiration, a bit of a stretch, but definitely more feasible than if I deposited to a Singapore Airlines partner programme like Virgin Atlantic.
Although them clickbait articles I mentioned at the start are technically true, I hope this actually showed you how you can get to those premium airline experiences - explained as simple as possible and with a lot less clickbaiting!
