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NEW: Revolut launches Avios for debit card spending in five countries – coming to the UK?

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Here is something which could lead to a big change in the Avios universe – RevPoints.

Revolut has started to offer Avios for debit card spending in five European countries via its new RevPoints loyalty scheme. I expect it to come to the UK soon.

If you or any familiy members live in Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Greece or Malta you can jump in now.

Earn Avios Flying Blue miles with Revolut RevPoints

Revolut is rolling out a points programme called RevPoints, which convert to Avios.

To quote the company:

“RevPoints are designed to transform routine purchases into valuable rewards and will soon be available across Europe, making it one of the largest debit card loyalty programs. extensive areas of the region. By offering a tangible and rewarding incentive for everyday spending, we empower customers to get the most out of using Revolut as their main bank account.

RevPoints joins our portfolio of everyday banking products, as we continue to offer innovations aimed at meeting the needs of our customers, including vacation home rentals, hotels, travel insurance, experiences and currency exchange. As with many Revolut services, we are ready to redefine what loyalty programs can do, by adding even more benefits in the future.”

How do you earn RevPoints?

The key route is via spending on your Revolut debit card.

Other options include:

  • Earning bonus points by upgrading your Revolut plan and hitting a spend target
  • Completing challenges in the Revolut app
  • Booking hotel stays via Revolut
  • Signing up for RevPoints Spare Change

RevPoints Spare Change is a feature where you can choose to round-up any card transaction to the nearest whole number and exchange the difference for points. If your card transaction was £5.60, it would be rounded-up to £6.00, with 40p being exchanged for points.

Revolut RevPoints Avios

What is the earning rate on card spend?

The earn rate varies based on your Revolut plan. This is how the European plans work in the countries where RevPoints is already live – swap € for £ and you get the equivalent UK pricing:

  • Free plan – 1 RevPoint per €10 spent
  • Plus (€3.99 per month) – 1 RevPoint per €5 spent
  • Premium (€8.99 per month) – 1 RevPoint per €3 spent
  • Metal (€15.99 per month) – 1 RevPoint per €2 spent
  • Ultra (€45 per month) – 1 RevPoint per €1 spent

Some transaction types earn double points, and there are also ‘challenges’ such as a weekly spend bonus.

Which airlines is Revolut working with?

At the moment, the two participating programmes are Avios and Flying Blue, the Air France / KLM programme.

The only other option for redeeming points is for a discount on a hotel room booked via the Revolut platform.

Is this coming to the UK?

It seems so. I have seen specific comments about it being rolled out here soon, although there is no guarantee that the Avios option will remain.

Revolut RevPoints Avios

Won’t this clash with existing Avios deals with Amex and Barclaycard?

It shouldn’t clash with the existing agreements with American Express and Barclaycard.

As long as a card offers an intermediate currency that converts to Avios, it is OK. Capital On Tap, NatWest and HSBC already operate on this model – you earn their proprietary points and must do a separate conversion to turn them into Avios. Revolut won’t be allowed to put an Avios logo on its card, however, and may be restricted from mentioning it in its advertising.

Will this be a good deal for UK Avios collectors?

Potentially, yes.

I doubt many HfP readers will want to pay a high monthly fee for a Revolut debit card.

However, the option to earn 1 Avios per £10 spent on a free debit card could be interesting. It depends how much occasional debit card spending you have.

If you could pay HMRC for free with a Revolut debit card whilst earning Avios then it would be very interesting for a subset of HfP readers – and would potentially make the paid Revolut products worth considering too.

Let’s see …. more to come, I’m sure.

You can check out Revolut plans on its UK website although there is no mention of RevPoints yet.

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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

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Barclaycard Avios card

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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.

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The Platinum Card from American Express

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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

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

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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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

Air France KLM and Flying Blue, British Airways and Avios

Comments (90)

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

  • Qrfan says:
    15 Jan15 January 06:33

    100k tax bill, pay revolut 500ish in fees, collect 100k avios worth 1k+. I don’t think chase pays cash back on HMRC spend so that’s the kind of situation this would cater for. Surely that’s not a business model in itself though, and I agree 1 per £10 isn’t getting anyone excited.

    • Niel says:
      15 Jan15 January 06:45

      That earn rate is joke. How much do you pay for ultra again?

      • Rob says:
        15 Jan15 January 06:49

        Ultra is an interesting package for £45. Financial Times and WeWork subscriptions included for a start.

        • PH says:
          15 Jan15 January 16:41

          Maybe it’s recently changed, but the landing page advertises 3 WeWork credits per month (= 3 hours of meeting room bookings!)

          • Rob says:
            15 Jan15 January 16:47

            A credit is 1 day of hot desking or some meeting room time (meeting room pricing now varies by room size) – you can use them for either.

            Obviously you’re not getting an All Access membership, you get an On Demand membership.

        • Carl says:
          15 Jan15 January 18:41

          So does Metal for just £140 a year.

        • Carl says:
          15 Jan15 January 18:42

          So does Metal for £140 a year

    • Mr. AC says:
      15 Jan15 January 06:47

      Surely Revolut would have a clause against earning Avios on corporate / non-personal tax even if they don’t ban HMRC payments from getting points outright?
      E.g. Plutus (debit crypto rewards card) explicitly supports HMRC payments and gives 3%, but only on personal taxes: https://support.plutus.it/hc/en-us/articles/4713263751197-How-to-earn-PLU-Rewards (search for HRMC)

      • Qrfan says:
        15 Jan15 January 06:54

        Some small % of the readership probably have a large personal tax bill from savings interest, capital gains etc. There will also be folks in partnerships (e.g. GPs) with non PAYE income to pay that still counts as personal. It’s niche though I agree. There’s no value here for me at these rates.

        • Mr. AC says:
          15 Jan15 January 06:59

          Right, but at the 1 point per pound at Ultra level you’d breakeven on the fee after a payment of 50000… I doubt you can have a personal tax payment that high, perhaps rare one-off things like selling residential property?

        • JDB says:
          15 Jan15 January 08:57

          Mr. AC – many self employed people, notably professionals, have personal tax liabilities substantially in excess of £50k pa as do many who live off income of various sorts. All those complaining about the reduction of Curve Fronted from £10k to £3k presumably must have had big tax bills to pay!

      • Roy says:
        15 Jan15 January 07:30

        The RevPoints T&C’s say points only earned etc on “goods and services”. I would guess they will say HMRC don’t qualify as such

        https://www.revolut.com/legal/RevPoints/

        • Roy says:
          15 Jan15 January 13:22

          To quote slightly more, “your purchase must be a genuine purchase of goods or services to be eligible for points”. They also go on to exclude cash-like transactions.

          They don’t _explicitly_ exclude tax payments, but I’d say the odds aren’t good.

  • John says:
    15 Jan15 January 06:35

    Isn’t Revolut still technically a prepaid card rather than a debit card?

    So far it seems the rate is 1 revpoint to 1 avios. But it could be decreased in future.

    As for the spare change thing, it’s not clear how many points the 40p would convert to. It might be a personalised rate based on your plan.

    • Earthman says:
      15 Jan15 January 07:50

      Revolut is now a current account with a bic and IBAN
      You can actually have your salary paid in there
      They have also recently launched a credit card

      • Alex G says:
        15 Jan15 January 08:50

        Revolut don’t offer a credit card in the UK.

      • John says:
        15 Jan15 January 19:23

        It functioned like a current account from the start, but that doesn’t make it an actual current account.

  • CarpalTravel says:
    15 Jan15 January 06:44

    I like the idea of calling it Revios.

    I am assuming there will be some form of commitment to a plan, so no switching it up to Ultra for a month and then back to the free plan, until the next big spend is due.

  • Rob says:
    15 Jan15 January 06:50

    Chase is now 1 year only for new applicants. The gravy train is over.

  • Venturelog says:
    15 Jan15 January 06:51

    Chase has earning cap of £15 per month

    • Peter says:
      15 Jan15 January 12:45

      I think that’s the main reason why it isn’t popular here. Many payment transactions are excluded, max £180 a year = more or less 18k avios.. not really a big deal. Good for household shopping but not point collectors.

  • Sharon says:
    15 Jan15 January 06:57

    I have a Nat West Premier Reward Black account and used to convert my reward’s to Avios but this option was removed at the end of 2023 with little notice or reason given. It just disappeared. It was the cheapest way to “buy” Avios by far at £50 for 4500 points. Emirates is still there but Avios has gone. Is there another route in Nat West I don’t know about?

    • Mr. AC says:
      15 Jan15 January 07:03

      AFAIK NatWest sent out an e-mail to anyone that had ever used the Avios redemption: “The existing Avios offer is coming to an end, which means all Avios voucher code(s) within this offer will expire on 31/12/2023 and must be redeemed into your British Airways Executive Club (BAEC) account before this date.”

    • Gary says:
      15 Jan15 January 07:05

      It’s still there today at the new rate you quoted. it used to be better (£50 = 5870 Avios).

      • Sharon says:
        15 Jan15 January 07:19

        I can’t see it in the exchange list. You are correct I used to get 5870 for £50 but just checked my statement and they have retrospectively changed it to 4500. Is there another route I can’t see?

        • Gary says:
          15 Jan15 January 08:23

          Mine was under “Exchange” next to Emirates. Perhaps the offers are targeted these days?

  • Jeremy says:
    15 Jan15 January 07:02

    Revolute cannot be trusted. I had a small balance with them. I use to pay a bill each month in USD using the card. They decided to block my account one day and there is no one to talk to it’s all machine based and when you get blocked you cannot use the app. Took a month to get my money back. Avoid this company. They are not regulated.

    • Alex G says:
      15 Jan15 January 08:40

      Revolut is regulated by the FCA, but does not have a UK banking licence.

      https://help.revolut.com/help/wealth/stocks/licences-regulations/regulators/who-is-revolut-trading-authorised-by/

    • Ken says:
      15 Jan15 January 08:41

      I think this is the main problem.

      I could set up account that would be just used to pay quarterly VAT of £35k and PAYE/NI of £12k a month.
      But what happens when it freezes my account and it takes 6 weeks (or longer) to sort out ?

      That said, I’d value FT premium sub about 5 times more than a Times subscription, plus Dragon Pass, Nord VPN , wework , interest rate on balances and it looks more attractive than Amex Plat

    • Aston100 says:
      15 Jan15 January 10:47

      Exactly this.
      I’ve had a transactions frozen for no apparent reason and their customer service was not contactable other than through the in-app support which wasn’t in real time.

    • Dawn says:
      16 Jan16 January 04:52

      @Jeremy
      I had £1000 stolen from my Revolut card, by someone ringing on the Revolut phone line and sending me a text on the Revolut thread. I did not give them any information at all and they did not ask for any personal information. Revolut refused to compensate me. Since investigating further, literally hundreds of people have had the same issue and I do not trust them at all.

  • points_worrier says:
    15 Jan15 January 07:27

    Yes, Rob, I think it is important to point point out that Revolut does not have a UK banking licence, and reviews of customer service is currently poor when things go wrong.

    • Earthman says:
      15 Jan15 January 07:54

      Ah I’m in RoI and they do have a banking licence effective here [EU]and are regulated
      My Revolut has a Bic and IBAN, it’s a current account

    • Nic says:
      15 Jan15 January 18:50

      It is also worth noting that Revolut is not a signatory to the voluntary scheme in the UK that refunds you if a victim of fraud.

      It has also had a qualified audit opinion for two years in a row and recently secured external debt financing.

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

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