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All MBNA airline credit cards withdrawn – what are your alternatives?

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Last week I ran this article suggesting that you should act immediately if you wanted to apply for any of the MBNA airline credit cards.

It was good advice.

All eight MBNA airline credit cards were pulled on Monday evening.  Slightly surprisingly, this included the new American Airlines card which is only a few months old and which did not have an American Express element.

These are the cards you can no longer get:

Lufthansa Miles & More

Emirates Skywards

Emirates Skywards Elite

Virgin Flying Club White

Virgin Flying Club Black

Etihad Guest

United Airlines MileagePlus

American Airlines AAdvantage

You should NOT assume that these cards will return under a new issuer.

We know that the two Virgin Atlantic cards will return shortly under the Virgin Money banner.  However, I know from some discussions I have had that you should not necessarily expect the other cards to return.  If you think that they are all primed to relaunch next week, you are very wrong.

Two linked events caused this.  The core driver was the European Union cap on interchange fees.  This restricted the fee that payment processors could charge retailers for accepting credit cards to 0.3%.   It is very difficult to run a successful mileage card on this basis.

The second driver was American Express being caught up in the 0.3% cap, even though it was originally expected to be exempt.  American Express decided to pull all of its licensed cards from the market, which means that MBNA, Lloyds, TSB and Barclays had to stop issuing Amex-branded products. 

I am a little surprised that the American Airlines card was pulled.  This had already been relaunched without an American Express element.  It combined a chunky fee (£70) with a very high earning rate (1.25 miles per £1 on a Visa).  I thought this might prove sustainable but MBNA clearly had other ideas.

So, overnight, one third of the UK airline and hotel credit and charge card market disappeared.

What are my alternatives?

If you currently hold these cards (I have the Lufthansa ones, my wife has the Virgin ones) they will continue to operate for a while.  Whether that is weeks, months or years I don’t know.

If you had been planning to get one of these cards but never got around to it, here are your options:

Lufthansa Miles & More / American Airlines AAdvantage

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold or American Express Platinum (points convert 2:1 into Starwood Preferred Guest, then 1:1 – or 1:1.25 for larger amounts – into Miles & More or AAdvantage)

or

Starwood Preferred Guest American Express (best choice – points convert 1:1 into Miles & More or AAdvantage, or 1:1.25 for larger amounts)

The only half-decent Visa / MasterCard option is via the IHG Rewards Club Mastercard (0.2 miles per £1, assuming you convert 10,000 IHG points into 2,000 airline miles) or, with the £99 IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard, 0.4 miles per £1.

Emirates Skywards

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold or American Express Platinum (points convert 1:1 into Emirates Skywards)

or

Starwood Preferred Guest American Express (points convert 1:1 into Emirates Skywards, or 1:1.25 for larger amounts)

The only half-decent Visa / Mastercard option is via the IHG Rewards Club Mastercard (0.2 miles per £1, assuming you convert 10,000 IHG points into 2,000 airline miles) or, with the £99 IHG Rewards Club Premium Mastercard, 0.4 miles per £1.

Etihad Guest

You can use the Amex Gold, Platinum or Starwood Amex options as per Emirates

or

HSBC Premier Mastercard (0.5 miles per £1) or HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard (1 mile per £1) – these cards are only available to HSBC Premier current account holders

You can also use the IHG option for a Visa / MasterCard (0.2 or 0.4 miles per £1).

Virgin Flying Club

You can use the Amex Gold, Platinum or Starwood Amex options above as per Emirates

or

Tesco Clubcard Mastercard (0.31 miles per £1) or Tesco Premium Mastercard (0.62 miles per £1)

or

you can also use the IHG option for a Visa / Mastercard outlined above (0.2 or 0.4 miles per £1)

or

wait for new Virgin Money-issued Virgin Flying Club credit cards

United Airlines MileagePlus

You can use the Amex Gold, Platinum or Starwood Amex options above as per Lufthansa / American.  However, because Starwood has a poor transfer rate to United, you should move your Starwood points across to Marriott Rewards and convert from there.  The exact rate will depend on the amount you transfer.

You can also use the IHG option for a Visa / Mastercard (0.2 or 0.4 miles per £1).

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Category

American Express Membership Rewards, Emirates and Emirates Skywards, Etihad and Etihad Guest, Lufthansa and Miles & More, United Airlines and MileagePlus, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (155)

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

  • Ian says:
    8 Nov8 November 05:31

    Wow not good news.

    I applied and was accepted for the Miles & More card on the day you ran the article last week, but nothing has arrived in the post yet. I hope it’s on its way!

    I put big spend through the Emirates cards as well. Hope they keep them in place for existing account holders for a decent length of time

    • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:
      8 Nov8 November 14:16

      Not sure if it is a relevant or useful data point but I have the old Rewards + AmEx / Visa from MBNA which closed for new accounts ages ago but still have the card with unchanged earning rates. I only use the Visa to be fair as the 0.5p / £ is decent enough when somewhere doesn’t take AmEx, but still.

  • Ross says:
    8 Nov8 November 05:41

    I’m wondering about what kind of notice they are going to give card holders. I put large spend through virgin black card and will need to make significant arrangements as/when they dump it.

    • David says:
      8 Nov8 November 05:55

      They are very unlikely to close your card account – at all.
      Turning off miles earning is a different matter.

      I’d expect at least a couple of months notice (i.e. more than 1, but perhaps NOT significantly more than 2) when the time comes for miles earning on the card to stop.

      But your card account will continue – you would just not be earning anything. So if the question is about having a replacement spending facility, I’d not expect that to change at all.

      • EwanG says:
        8 Nov8 November 07:08

        Legally they have to give at least 60 days notice because they will make a change to the terms and conditions via a “notice of variation”.

        If I recall correctly the demise of the old bmi cards was not handled too well by MBNA.

      • Fenny says:
        8 Nov8 November 21:39

        My card year ends in Feb, so if there’s a high chance of points drying up next year, I won’t be paying the fee to renew it. Shame, as I like the card and the points.

  • Callum says:
    8 Nov8 November 06:30

    I know they’re going to have to, but Lloyds haven’t pulled their Amex cards – you can still apply.

  • mark2 says:
    8 Nov8 November 06:37

    Another point: this may be the last year for my big bundle of cards for ShopSmall!

    • Genghis says:
      8 Nov8 November 06:42

      🙂 how many do you have, Mark?

      • mark2 says:
        8 Nov8 November 08:06

        16 last year; probably the same this year.

        • mark2 says:
          8 Nov8 November 09:03

          a few fewer than the optimum as neither of us holds a Gold/Platinum at the moment (poss 4) and I have cancelled my BA.

        • Genghis says:
          8 Nov8 November 09:15

          Wowsers! That is serious. Would you use all 16 at the same time? 🙂

          Anyone working in the City of London have their shop small plans sorted yet? Any tips?

        • mark2 says:
          8 Nov8 November 10:55

          The postman has just delivered an other Amex card, thanks to Genghis who told us that we could have a supplementary card in our own name as well as OH. I must do that for a couple of my wife’s cards too. I may manage 20 in the end, of which only two are MBNA I am surprised to find.
          I only manage to use all of the cards in a few shops: those where the card machine is not controlled by the till, but that is most small shops. I saw the lady from the lingerie shop in Waitrose and she said the card machine was ready for December. They also need to ignore the rule about gift cards.

  • Graham Walsh says:
    8 Nov8 November 06:58

    Shame. I was going to churn my Virgin Black. Think I’ll hang onto it and see what conversion offer if any will they make.

    • Genghis says:
      8 Nov8 November 07:12

      Currently a sunk cost so nothing to lose by keeping it

    • Alan says:
      8 Nov8 November 07:57

      I’m not holding out for much given the lack of any meaningful offer when they closed the bmi cards.

  • Rtid says:
    8 Nov8 November 07:23

    As Virgin Black card holder, anyone else tempted to pay their self assessment now rather than wait for Jan?

    • Funtime says:
      8 Nov8 November 12:10

      Already in motion, too many very cheap points to miss out on. Each £5k of tax = 10000 IHG and 5000 Virgin or 10000 HH for £18.70.

      Deadline is looming for HMRC credit card payments, especially for the very high 6 figure tax payers without the matching credit card limits.

  • Ahop says:
    8 Nov8 November 07:35

    I wonder whether those who have earned an upgrade voucher with Virgin will receive it. Specifically those who have a card year end that falls beyond the MBNA/Virgin association date.

    • Dale says:
      8 Nov8 November 07:49

      Yes I too was wondering about Virgin upgrade vouchers that have been earned and sit in Virgin accounts…will these be useable even if the cards are pulled? And for how long??

      • Alan says:
        8 Nov8 November 08:00

        If they’ve already hit your Virgin account then I’d say they’re almost entirely safe. It’s those that have hit spend limit but are waiting end of card year for vouchers to hit where there is more concern.

        • Fenny says:
          8 Nov8 November 21:42

          I’ve hit the spend limit, so if they don’t appear at the end of the year, it’s a breach of my current terms. If they change terms now, I’d expect any vouchers earned to arrive sooner than the year end.

    • Alan says:
      8 Nov8 November 07:59

      I’ll definitely be pushing for compensation if not. Am hoping they’ll honour through to end of existing card year for anyone with it.

      • MattB says:
        8 Nov8 November 10:01

        Considering we paid a fee for this card surely we would have a decent case for compensation if we don’t get the advertised benefit.

        I mentioned this last week but I was offered a prorata refund of the £140 when I enquiried about cancelling.

        • Alan says:
          8 Nov8 November 23:11

          Agree a decent case – many got a good deal out of Barclaycard when they lost the IHG deal. However IIRC some others also didn’t get a great deal and then rather frustratingly didn’t get much support from the Ombudsman.

  • Lemeng says:
    8 Nov8 November 07:51

    Thanks to Rob’s warning last week, I applied for the Miles & More card last Wednesday and the application was immediately confirmed. Still waiting for the card to arrive, though…!

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