Hot on the heels of our popular post from earlier this week showing our readers how they can earn over 118,000 Aeroplan points for nothing other than credit card spend is that you can do the same for several other programs in Canada. One of the most popular non-Canadian frequent flyer programs for Canadians is British Airways Executive Club and thanks to many of the same card offers seen in the Aeroplan post plus one additional card you can earn a boat load of BA Executive Club Avios at no cost other than credit card spending. That’s where the
asterisk * in the title comes into play. * We mean free as in
paying no annual fees on this list of credit cards in the first year –
you simply need to make the minimum spending requirement on some or all
of the cards to garner those points. Some of you may have one or two
of these cards so you can jump on some of the offers to earn a portion
of the points for free or are sitting at a position in the points and
miles game where you can re-apply for them now and get yourself those
points while some of you may not have any of the cards and can
potentially score the full 98,000 Avios.
The plan laid out to score 97,000+ Avios
Now how do you go about getting a portion of or the full amount of 97,000 Avios? Here’s how:
Step #1 – 22,000 Avios
Grab yourself the HSBC World Elite® Mastercard®. This card is offering a welcome bonus of up to 40,000 HSBC Rewards
Points with no annual fee in the first year. You get 20,000 points upon
approval and 20,000 more when you spend $5,000 within 180 days of
account opening. You can then convert these points to British Airways
Executive Club Avios at a 2.5:1 ratio (they also have transfer bonuses
several times per year) . The offer on this card is available until April 19, 2021.
Total Avios after this step: 22,000
Includes points earned on spend requirement
Total spend required: $5,000
Apply for the HSBC World Elite® Mastercard® here
Step #2 – 31,667 Avios
Get yourself the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card .
This card is offering a bonus of 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points when you
spend $3,000 on the card in the first three months. They will also give
you a $120 statement credit if you can spend $10,000 on the card in the
first 12 months. That $120 statement credit is equivalent to the card’s
annual fee thus making this card also a first year free card and you
get those 60,000 points with spend only. Since the card earns 2 points
per dollar on most spending that would be 80,000 points. You can then
convert the 80,000 Marriott Bonvoy points to 31,667 Avios (you
could potentially get more as there times throughout the year where
Aeroplan gives a bonus on hotel point conversions) Also if you doe
Total Avios afters Steps 1-2: 53,667
Includes points earned on spend requirement
Total spend required: $15,000
Apply for the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card here
Step #3 – 35,000 Avios
Get yourself the Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card .
Like the personal version of the card, the Bonvoy Business Card is
offering a 60,000 point bonus however you get those points with a higher
requirement of $5,000 in three months. You’ll also get a $150 statement
credit when you spend $15,000 on the card in the first 12 months which
is equivalent to the card’s annual fee thus making this card also a
first year free card. All told hit that $15,000 in spending and you’ll
have no less than 90,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. You can then convert
those 90,000 Bonvoy points to 35,000 Avios.
Note:
American Express is one of the most lenient when it comes to getting
Business cards – there are numerous data points showing people getting
the cards even without having a business. They use their SIN as the
business numbers since that is the number utilized for sole
proprietorships.
Total Avios afters Steps 1-3: 88,667
Includes points earned on spend requirement
Total spend required: $30,000
Apply for the Marriott Bonvoy™ Business American Express® Card here
Step #4: – 4,400 Avios
Get yourself the Choice Card from American Express™ This card is
offering 10,000 Membership Rewards Select points when you spend $1,000 on it in the first three
months and it is a no fee card! With the spend you’ll have 11,000 points can be converted to
13,200 Marriott Bonvoy points which can then be converted to 4,400
Avios.
Total Avios after Steps 1-4: 93,067
Includes points earned on spend requirement
Total spend required: $31,000
Apply for the Choice Card from American Express™ here
Step #5: 4,000 Avios
Get yourself the mbna Best Western Mastercard®. You
earn 20,000 points with the card after your first purchase. The card
has no annual fee so those points come to you with as little as a $1
purchase. Those Best Western Rewards points convert to British Airways Executive Club at a 5:1
ratio so if you transfer these over you have another 4,000 Avios
Total Avios after Steps 1-5: 97,067
Includes points earned on spend requirement
Total spend required: $31,001
Apply for the mbna Best Western Mastercard® here
And
there you go! Those are the 5 steps to scoring over 98,000 British Airways Executive Club Avios for free! Yes you do have spend on your credit card to get them
and that’s pretty much the case with any new credit card welcome offer
these days. The question is can you do it and should you do it? The
answer is yes if you have the means – that is, being able to spend that
much on your credit cards without going beyond your means. In all
likelihood for most Canadians you’ll do a portion of the above to score a
decent amount of points. If anything, you would do steps one and two as
they provide the most bang for your buck. The Best Western card
offer? Easy peasy. That’s a standard offer that’s not limited time so
you can do it at anytime and you literally only have to spend $1 to get
those points. I think the major sticking point in the above list of
cards would be the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express card –
adding in that $15,000 in spending to get the statement credit could be
the tough one for some people. If you pull that card out of the mix
you’re still going to come out with over 50,000 Avios with the rest of
the cards. In fact the 53,667 points from the other four cards is enough for two round trip flights between Toronto and Dublin, Ireland in economy class!
Tips, Tricks & Warnings
If
you are going to go for it and try to score as many of those points as
possible you’ll want to utilize some tips and heed some warnings:
- Go
for the HSBC or personal Marriott Bonvoy card first as they provide the healthiest welcome bonus offers and HSBC gives you half a year to meet the spend requirement. It doesn’t hurt to grab the Choice Card from American Express as well since it’s increased offer is only in the market until May 5.
- Make
a plan/schedule for applying for the cards – if you get a whole bunch
at once it may be difficult to reach the spending requirements on them – ideally give your self
some breathing room. But don’t wait too long as other than the Best
Western card these are all limited time offers. We know the HSBC offer ends April 19 and the Choice Card offer ends May 5 but the rest don’t have published
end dates! - Take screen shots of the offers on the bank/issuer page in case any discrepancies come up in having the points awarded
- Don’t get a card if you don’t think you can meet the spend requirement in time.
- Don’t
spend beyond your means – make sure you plan and budget and that your
regular monthly spending can make those minimum spend requirements. - If
credit rating is a concern and you can have two people in your
household to spread the applications across you can have one person
apply for a couple of the cards and the other person to apply for some
of the others and then combine the points via BA’s Family Sharing
(see Doubling up below)
- You
can wait for the Best Western card since it isn’t a limited time offer.
Let your credit rating come back up after applying for the other cards
and then go for this one
Doubling up
You
can get even more points than this! How so? If you and your partner
take on the game you can get multiple combinations of the cards. Just like Aeroplan’s Family Sharing program, British Airways allows for household accounts which means you can pool Avios collected from multiple accounts and this multiple credit cards. The one major caveat with British Airways is that it is truly a household account as all members have to live at the same address. Learn more about BAEC household accounts here.
Wrapping it up
Thanks
to the new statement credit offers on the
Marriott cards and an ongoing first year free offer on the HSBC World Mastercard there hasn’t been a better time to in on the British Airways Avios game! Even if you can’t get all the cards just a combination of a
couple can have you earning enough Avios to be redeeming for award
flights with the Executive Club program in few short months.
Recommended reading: Utilizing British Airways’ Executive Club for flights in North America