Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: mystery Supercard charges, £120 LAN Madrid to Frankfurt business class deal

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

News in brief:

Supercard – the small print we missed

I covered the relaunch of Supercard recently, the payment card which lets you charge foreign currency transactions to ANY Visa or Mastercard without incurring any FX fees.

You can download the free Supercard app and order a card here.

People are now starting to use their Supercard and a strange pattern is emerging.

When transactions are made, they are logged by the app along with the exchange rate used.  A few days later, Supercard is charging a separate – smaller – amount and calling it ‘exchange rate difference’.

This is apparently the difference between the exchange rate on the day of the transaction and the date that it is cleared.  That said, I was under the impression that Mastercard locked the exchange rate on the date of transaction ….

Extra confusion comes from the fact that Supercard does not tell you which transaction these ‘exchange rate adjustments’ refer to.  If you are using it for business purposes, it will be difficult to reconcile the original transactions with the additional charges.

It isn’t clear if Supercard gives you a credit if the exchange rate moves the other way.  The market has generally been one way over the last fortnight as we all know.  One reader was told by Supercard that he had ‘saved £48’ by using Supercard on a US holiday only to find an additional £50 of charges added on as ‘exchange rate difference’.

Supercard

Fly Frankfurt to Madrid in LAN business class for £120

Last year I wrote an introductory piece on South American airline LAN. LAN is a oneworld partner so you can use Avios points to redeem for its flight from Madrid to Santiago, Chile.

It also has an impressive business class seat as you can see from that article and the photo below.

Few people know that the LAN flight from Chile does not terminate in Madrid. It carries on to Frankfurt.  This allows you to earn some British Airways tier points in style.  Why? Because you can buy tickets just for the Frankfurt to Madrid flight.

If you want to try out the very nice business class seat below, here are the current special prices available on certain days over the Summer as per the LAN website here:

Frankfurt to Madrid one-way – £120

Madrid to Frankfurt one-way – £101

Return trip – £179 irrespective of where you start

You will earn roughly 1,100 Avios points and 40 tier points for each segment. The flight is 2 hours and 40 minutes so you will get a decent amount of time to enjoy the LAN seat. Lounge access is also included.  You will be flying a Boeing 787 Dreamliner which a lot of people have not yet been able to experience.

The timings are not ideal, to be honest. The Frankfurt flight departs at 19.35 and lands in Madrid at 22.10. The Madrid to Frankfurt flight leaves at 15.10 and lands at 17.45.

There probably aren’t many HfP readers who actually need to fly from Madrid to Frankfurt, or vice versa. However, if you are after some cheap BA tier points and fancy trying out a different airline then this is a fun deal.  You can book this on the LAN website here.

If you want to do a triangular trip from the UK to Frankfurt to Madrid to the UK or vice versa, remember that some Iberia flights to Heathrow are operated with long-haul A330 aircraft with flat beds in business class. You can redeem these seats using Avios and it would be an interesting comparison to do that flight and the LAN trip as part of the same journey.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

oneworld alliance partners

Comments (148)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Mr Dee says:
    13 Jul13 July 10:25

    I’m starting to think its Wirecard (Behind Supercard and Curve) that is the problem rather than just supercard directly, had similiar pre authorisation issues with Curve.

  • rams1981 says:
    13 Jul13 July 10:53

    Why did supercard switch from visa to MasterCard and the new technology? What was the point of the beta?

    • John says:
      13 Jul13 July 12:25

      1. Because the old provider probably lost a lot of money as we all did cash withdrawals as purchases

      2. To see how much use there would be

  • MrHandBaggageOnly says:
    13 Jul13 July 10:56

    Just back from a few days away and had a look at the credit card statement last night. Had a small £1.20 IC CASH 01 transaction showing and was wondering about it, so pleased to see this update.

    I am far from impressed with Supercard so far. Mrs HBO and I both applied for cards, hers came through quite quickly, they wanted ID checks from me so I didn’t bother in the end, am now glad I didn’t. Worked fine for the first few days, but was then rejected at our final hotel, so reverted back to the Amex. The app on my wife’s card had also asked her to re-activate, then this morning on trying to log in said it didn’t recognise the last four digits and they then sent an email saying they’d temporarily locked the account.

    I’m not sure we will bother chasing it for reactivation. All seems like too much hassle, especially as we are not huge spenders when we are on trips overseas.

  • DS says:
    13 Jul13 July 11:35

    For a few Euros more you can continue to Alicante, Malaga, Lisboa, Tenerife etc. via Madrid.

  • John says:
    13 Jul13 July 12:29

    One positive out of all the negatives – I got 4 IHG points per £ for my (so far only) supercard transaction as it was processed in Ireland

    Has anyone tried using it in the UK yet? At this rate, it may be worthwile to pay the 1% fee for UK use if linked to the IHG card – provided that it gets recognised as a debit card by the merchant website

    • John says:
      13 Jul13 July 12:36

      and hopefully no exchange rate adjustments as GBP

    • Simon says:
      13 Jul13 July 12:56

      How do you know this? I only get the total points after the statement has been produced, and even then I have to try and work out what they have done!!

      • John says:
        13 Jul13 July 17:17

        Because my statement was produced today and that was the only “foreign” transaction that month.

        The number of points on the statement was exactly 2x the total expenditure of the statement, plus a further 2x of the supercard transaction.

        Actually I know many people have problems with the IHG barclaycard but I never have, my points are always exactly what I would expect (sometimes more, but in 2 years never less)

    • Mr Dee says:
      13 Jul13 July 16:23

      He meant that the supercard charge shows up as located in Ireland

  • Alan says:
    13 Jul13 July 12:46

    Very interesting (and depressing) reading all the comments on here. Sadly Supercard seems to have got a lot worse coming out of Beta, mainly due to this switch to Wirecard (same as Curve) – with all the same issues re. pre-authorisations, etc. Mind you Wirecard also power the Number26 debit card in Germany and it seems to work fine (and still gives free ATM withdrawals).

    I agree with other posters that Revolut has a role over and above just being for those that can’t get 0% fee credit cards. No fess on ATM withdrawals up to £500 per month too is quite decent. Of course the free SEPA payments may well be going for us now thanks to Brexit…

    • Alan says:
      13 Jul13 July 12:57

      Have also just found when signing up for Revolut that they give you an electronic card in the app immediately for use online whilst waiting for the physical one to arrive, very handy!

    • Nik says:
      15 Jul15 July 04:21

      Have to agree with you. Used the Supercard through the beta period and it worked flawlessly. Been on a couple of trips now with the new card and its failed three times at authorisation. It’s also lacking previously available features so you can’t change the pin, no TouchID on the iOS app and the website access has been removed.

      Luckily I have a Revolut card and have been using this all this week out in the US with out any issues.

      It appears that the beta period must have been too successful and the launch has been scaled back to the minimum viable product.

      • Alan says:
        15 Jul15 July 08:15

        I must say I’ve been impressed with Revolut – my card is due soon but they give an instant electronic one to use, have clear live currency rates and some very good security options (eg location-based security for physical transactions, ability to switch off magnetic strip transactions, etc)

  • Gavin says:
    13 Jul13 July 12:51

    Used just once an adjustment of approx. 1.5% on an online transaction in AUD.

    I only used my Supercard as I didn’t have the card I wanted to use in my wallet and I did have my supercard on me. Perhaps not to be used again given I have Clarity and Lloyds cards

    • PalCsaky says:
      13 Jul13 July 17:32

      Same here. Payment in AUD, supercard added 1.08% extra charge. Best to stick with Halifax Clarity.

  • Nick M says:
    13 Jul13 July 13:32

    I thought SuperCard was fantastic whilst in Beta and signed up for the new version… took lots of chasing for them to get the card out, and I’ve now been chasing them for nearly a week because the app won’t show me the pin number!

    Very happy with my experience with Revolut so far… shame you can’t link it to a point-earning credit card though!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!