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Earn 'free' flights with these credit cards
Many credit cards offer rewards for spending on them, from free days out to giftcards to experiences. Various airlines also have their own cards, which offer 'free' flights once you've earned a certain number of points.
You can also earn flights via schemes such as Avios (formerly Airmiles)
We say 'free' in quotes as in almost all cases you will have to pay some form of fees and charges. These can often be low though.
Several cards offer decent introductory points bonuses that allow you to accumulate a lot of points quickly. In fact, Virgin Atlantic has just increased the bonuses on its cards, so let's start by looking at what their cards have to offer.
Virgin Atlantic card offers soar
Virgin Atlantic has two pairs of credit cards: the White and the Black.
The White is fee free, while the Black charges an annual fee of £140, so is only really suitable if you’re a heavy spender, perhaps using it for your business expenses.
With either option, you will get two cards to use: an American Express and a Visa.
With the White cards, you earn one Flying Club Mile for every £1 you spend on the American Express, and one mile for every £2 you spend on the Visa.
Right now, the White cards will give you 3,000 Flying Club Miles when you spend anything on the card. Spend £1,000 within the first 90 days of having the cards and you’ll also receive 7,000 bonus miles.
Those 10,000 miles will earn you a ‘free’ return flight within the UK (they cost 7,500), to/from London Heathrow, Manchester, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. You will have to pay a charge of £34 per return flight though, or £17 one-way.
Alternatively, you’re just under a third away from a ‘free’ flight to New York, Boston, Chicago or Washington. Again, you’ll have to pay taxes and charges, so the flight may not actually end costing you much less.
A better use of the miles might be to upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy on a one-way transatlantic flight.
With the Black cards, you’ll earn 18,500 miles the first time you make a purchase. Spend £2,000 within the first 90 days and you’ll get an additional bonus of 6,500 miles.
Those 25,000 miles would get you most of the way to a ‘free’ flight to New York, Boston, Chicago or Washington. Or it would pay for an upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy on both legs of a transatlantic flight, or a one-way upgrade from Economy to Upper Class. The latter could be useful if you’re heading to the west coast of America or the Caribbean.
Spend on the Black American Express and you’ll earn two miles for every £1 you spend, while the Black Visa will earn you one mile for every £1 spent.
[See how the Virgin Atlantic cards compare to other airline cards]
Another way to collect Flying Club Miles
Looking at other popular airline reward schemes, you need to collect more Avios to get the cheapest ‘free’ flight to both the UK and the US (9,000/40,000 versus 7,500/35,000). The fees/charges for both schemes are broadly similar.
However, if you’re a regular Tesco shopper you can earn 813 Flying Club Miles for every £2.50 of Clubcard vouchers. So you would need to spend around £10,760 to earn a flight to the east coast of the US solely via Tesco, compared to £25,000 using the White Amex card.
And by using your Clubcard and a Clubcard credit card together, you’ll get to your points goal far quicker.
[Compare rewards credit cards]
Other cards offering free flights
The American Express Preferred Rewards charge card also offers a decent introductory bonus. Spend £2,000 within the next three months and you’ll earn 20,000 Membership Reward points, enough for two return flights to over 30 European destinations (adding on the fees and charges again). Note that this is a charge card, not a credit card, so you HAVE to pay your balance off in full each month, although not doing that with any of these cards is a big mistake as interest charges will eat into your rewards.
If you prefer British Airways then the fee-free British Airways American Express will give you 9,000 Avios, enough for a return European flight (plus £35) if you spend £1,000 or more in the first three months. You earn one Avios for roughly every £1 you spend.
For bigger spenders, the British Airways American Express Platinum Plus card offers 25,000 Avios, enough for a return flight to Eastern Europe or parts of the Middle East and Africa (plus £35 per person), if you spend £3,000 or more in the first three months. You then collect 1.5 Avios for roughly every £1 you spend. If you spend £10,000 or more, you'll earn a free Companion Voucher for a flight. However, this card has a £150 annual fee.
Or you may prefer a cashback credit card, so you can shop around for the cheapest flight. For example, you can earn £100 by spending £2,000 in the first three months you have the American Express Platinum Cashback Everyday card.
