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British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus all have increased welcome offers on their respective credit cards: 100,000 Avios after $7.5k spend within the first six months. These increased offers have evidently been around for a bit, as Doctor of Credit has reported.
All three of these give you an additional 15K Avios above the current 85K after $5K public/affiliate offer. While they all require $2,500 more spend in order the get that additional 15K, you have six months in which to do it, as opposed to the three months that you get for the $5K spend in the current public version.
The Offers and Key Card Details
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
100K Avios ⓘ Non-Affiliate Earn 100K Avios after $7.5K spend in 6 months$95 Annual Fee This card is subject to Chase's 5/24 rule (click here for details). Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. Recent better offer: Expired 7/4/22: 100K after $5K spend FM Mini Review: Good choice for a nice intro bonus. Award rebate makes the card a keeper if you frequently book awards from the US to Europe. Earning rate: 3X British Airways. Iberia, Aer Lingus, and LEVEL ✦ 2X hotel accommodations booked directly with the hotel ✦ 1X elsewhere Card Info: Visa Signature issued by Chase. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Big spend bonus: Every calendar year you make $30,000 in purchases on your British Airways Visa card, you’ll earn a Travel Together companion Ticket good for two years. Noteworthy perks: Up to $600 per year in award fee rebates ✦ 10% off BA flights originating in the US. ✦ No foreign transaction fees |
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
100K Avios ⓘ Non-Affiliate Earn 100K Avios after $7.5K spend in 6 months$95 Annual Fee This card is subject to Chase's 5/24 rule (click here for details). Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. Recent better offer: Expired 7/4/22: 100K after $5K spend FM Mini Review: Good choice for a nice intro bonus. Unless you fly Iberia often or intend to go for the big spend bonus, though, I don't see it as a compelling card to keep past the first year. Earning rate: 3X British Airways. Iberia, Aer Lingus, and LEVEL ✦ 2X hotel accommodations booked directly with the hotel ✦ 1X elsewhere Card Info: Visa Signature issued by Chase. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Big spend bonus: Every calendar year you make $30,000 in purchases on your Iberia Visa card, you’ll earn a discount voucher good for $1,000 to use toward two tickets on the same flight Noteworthy perks: 10% off on Iberia flights when you use your Iberia Visa to purchase at iberia.com/Chase10 ✦ No foreign transaction fees |
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
100K Avios ⓘ Non-Affiliate Earn 100K Avios after $7.5K spend in 6 months$95 Annual Fee This card is subject to Chase's 5/24 rule (click here for details). Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. Recent better offer: Expired 7/4/22: 100K after $5K spend FM Mini Review: Good choice for a nice intro bonus. Unless you intend to go for the big spend bonus, though, I don't see it as a compelling card to keep past the first year. Earning rate: 3X British Airways. Iberia, Aer Lingus, and LEVEL ✦ 2X hotel accommodations booked directly with the hotel ✦ 1X elsewhere Card Info: Visa Signature issued by Chase. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Big spend bonus: Every calendar year you make $30,000 in purchases on your Aer Lingus Visa card, you’ll earn an economy class companion ticket good for 1 year. Noteworthy perks: Priority Boarding on Aer Lingus flights departing from and returning to the US from Ireland ✦ No foreign transaction fees. |
Quick Thoughts
In terms of total Avios for the minimum spend, these match the best offer that we’ve seen in sometime (although previous 100K offers only required $5k in spend). The bonus categories are almost non-existent so, assuming that you did the $7.5K spend at 1x, you’d be getting ~14 Avios/dollar for your money (or a total of 107,500 Avios). That’s an excellent return and among the best Chase consumer card offers in terms of first-year value.
Remember that Avios is a partner of every major transferable currency, so if you just want Avios fast, I’d still can also go after the 90k offer on the Ink Business Unlimited, the 100k Amex Platinum (which adds 10x on dining for 6 months) or the 150k Capital One Venture X Business. However, for those that don’t want to dip their toes into business cards and/or who already have the Platinum, this is a decent way to bulk up your Avios stash.
Best Uses for British Airways Avios
- Business class to Europe from 34K one-way via Iberia. This is probably my favorite Avios redemption and have one booked this year already. Iberia charges as few as 34K miles off-peak for one-way in business class on its own flights from New York, Boston, Chicago, or DC to Madrid during off-peak season. The fuel surcharges are quite reasonable and they also run seasonal promotions (usually during the Winter) where the prices drop down even further.
- Business class South America from 22K one-way via British Airways. I've used this once and availability can be tricky to find. But when you can find it, BA has excellent pricing for shorter distance non-stop American Airlines award flights.
- Long Haul Business Class on Qatar Airways. After Qatar's addition to Avios, BA lowered many of their award prices on Qatar. It's now possible to travel between the United States and Doha in business for only 70,000 Avios with minimal surcharges.
Things to Know
- Avios Purchases are processed by Points.com and DO NOT count as airfare.
- Avios can be easily transferred between Aer Lingus, Iberia, Finnair, Qatar and British Airways
- Avios expire after 36 months of no activity
- British Airways has near-extortionate fuel surcharges when flying on BA metal. It's best to keep Avios for use with partners or the Iberia Plus
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Anybody think it’s worth it to get BA card if I just want to fly AA domestically?
Does the FM team think that Chase will issue a card for Finnair Avios? Finnair has a credit card, but I don’t think it’s available in the USA.
I know you always use the term “easily transferred..” among partners, but that is far from the truth in many, many cases. I have 200K pts locked with BA, IE and Iberia that cannot be transferred from any airline to another and the airlines themselves are no help. All my details match exactly and it has been the most frustrating experience in my 5 yrs in the game. You might want to do a post about how many can’t get there points moved to see how much of a problem it really is.
It’s never smooth sailing. The system that handles this is down 80% of the time.
Have anybody found a significant difference in booking AA metal through BA versus Alaskan. I’m just wondering if it is worth the hassle of trying to keep BA avios alive along with Alaskan miles. Sometimes this hobby seems like a job lol
Chase needs to up its game. 100k is the new 60k with all the devals. I remember going whoah, 100k avios friggen 10+ years ago. **PASS**
One clarification/extension to the first sweet spot:
I left this comment on a different post, but not sure if it was seen:
I saw 4-5 biz-class tickets available for ORD-MAD-XXX – where XXX was MUC, PRG, CPH, and HAM – in later March 2025 for 41.5K or 49K (depending on whether the intra-European leg is in econ or biz). This happened on a date that the 34K ORD-MAD was not showing as available.
For example, right now I see ORD-MAD-HAM 4 tickets in biz for Mar 09, but when I look at the same date for ORD-MAD I do not see the 34K availability. So you can still get biz-class to Europe on Avios for <50K, but you have to look to see if there is a connecting flight to make it happen. I did not try to find any on the return side that might do the same thing (it did not show up on the dates I needed), but I imagine it is probably true that direction as well.
I’ve also seen quite a bit of married segment logic on the low priced Iberia business class flights. Big downside with Iberia is that they keep their cabins absolutely swelteringly hot. Up there with Asian carriers in terms of super hot cabin temps.