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I’m wondering what people think of the new ‘Revpoints’ for airmiles offering from Revolut. Instead of saving your own spare change for the future (and earning interest), you’re buying convertible airmiles with it, so they’re not ‘free’ or a bonus as with dedicated credit cards.
I enabled it 24 hours ago and I’m not sure what to think, as I liked watching my spare change grow. On the other hand, if I were to spend 5 pounds with Amex, I’d get 5 Avios. If I buy 5 bars of chocolate in individual spends on Revolut, I’d ‘save’ 5 pounds, which equals 250 Avios. So, for a total of ten pounds spent, I’d have 255 Avios, as opposed to 5 – and five bars of dear chocolate.
Equally on the plus side, these points earned are transferable in real time to Aer Lingus, BA, Vueling and so on. That seems attractive enough.
That said, I’m not used to paying for Avios – so do we think it’s a deal or not ?
(Amazing, isn’t it, that Revolut can send their points immediately to over a dozen airlines using varying reward types and yet I haven’t been able to combine Avios on BA for months on end).
Yeah, I think you need to dig into the details. I think it’s worse that any AMEX/Barclays offering
To coincide with the RevPoints launch, they’ve enhanced the Premium account by completely removing travel insurance. A year’s free upgrade to Metal (which retains travel insurance) being offered as recompense.
Really the correct comparison isn’t with Amex or any other credit card, but with the dearly departed BA Avios Mastercard.
Hopefully there will be an update on the previous HfP article now that RevPoints is available in the UK.
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/15/revolut-revpoints-avios-flying-blue/
Can’t see anything on my Revolut app. Can you earn points through spend or do you have to round up and essentially buy points?
So the £5 saved via Revolut converts to 250 Avios?
That’s £20 per 1K which you can buy them for via BA anyway.
I don’t really see the pointNothing showing up in my account
So the £5 saved via Revolut converts to 250 Avios?
That’s £20 per 1K which you can buy them for via BA anyway.
I don’t really see the pointYes, I get 1667 each month for 19 quid with my subscription.
Can’t see anything on my Revolut app. Can you earn points through spend or do you have to round up and essentially buy points?
You’re buying them.
I think the roll-out is staggered.
I think the spare change thing is in addition to the plain points/pound system, that varies depending on which card you have?
If I buy 5 bars of chocolate in individual spends on Revolut, I’d ‘save’ 5 pounds, which equals 250 Avios. So, for a total of ten pounds spent, I’d have 255 Avios, as opposed to 5 – and five bars of dear chocolate.
Equally on the plus side, these points earned are transferable in real time to Aer Lingus, BA, Vueling and so on. That seems attractive enough.
If that seems attractive enough, I have a bridge to sell to you.
Looks like revolut wont have difficulty scooping up the gullible. They’ll finally be on the way to becoming profitable.
Surely there’s better debit cards:
Monzo
Starling
Virgin Money Current account
Metro
WiseEven hyperjar
If I buy 5 bars of chocolate in individual spends on Revolut, I’d ‘save’ 5 pounds, which equals 250 Avios. So, for a total of ten pounds spent, I’d have 255 Avios, as opposed to 5 – and five bars of dear chocolate.
Equally on the plus side, these points earned are transferable in real time to Aer Lingus, BA, Vueling and so on. That seems attractive enough.
If that seems attractive enough, I have a bridge to sell to you.
Looks like revolut wont have difficulty scooping up the gullible. They’ll finally be on the way to becoming profitable.
I was only referring to the ease with which I could send the points accrued to Aer Lingus or to Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic.
The earning rate seems to be different to the HfP article. My email from Revolut as a Premium customer says 1 point per £4.
For anyone using Revolut for foreign spend, which is the only thing I use it for, this seems like a decent perk.
Sure Curve onto an Avios credit card can be Fx fee free and have a better Avios return, but you can’t use Curve for moving money between banks via SWIFT.
This sounds more interesting than the round up feature to ‘buy’ points. I still can’t see anything on my Revolut app even if I click into the subscription options. I’m just on the basic account.
I received a long email from them yesterday re changes to the metal card terms and conditions.
They are removing cash back which is a modest loss. I only use it for payments outside Europe though which is infrequent.
They are changing the insurance so that it only covers you if payment is made on Revolut which is excellent as I won’t need to declare a Revolut policy now when claiming elsewhere.
They are adding subscriptions (Chess.com, Masterclass, and the Athletic). I already subscribe to Chess.com, have never heard of Masterclass but have considered The Athletic in the past. Given the FT sub more than covers the annual fee, I see this is a net positive.
As for Revpoints? Meh. I guess I’ll earn a few on foreign spend I would be making anyway but it seems it’s 0.5p of points for £1 spend on metal vs the current 1% cash back. But I guess Revpoints aren’t capped at £15 a month. Revolut’s exchange rate is better than the Mastercard rate also so I won’t bother dusting off Curve.
As for the round up option? Buying 1p of points for 2p? Not a chance.
It’s interesting that the cost of providing insurance is hitting the likes of Revolut – Revolut removing it from Premium and making it conditional on card use for higher plans, Curve dropping it altogether and Amex Plat increasing the fee to contribute towards the higher cost.
Their problem is the low number of customers so the bigger banks are in a stronger position to offer good insurance. HSBC can offer it free to Premier customers (with no restriction on how you pay) and Nationwide can offer insurance and full UK/Europe AA membership for just £156/year. Lloyds is catching up and Barclays will probably need to do something. Their size and the UK’s unusual free banking model gives them a huge advantage over the likes of Revolut, even if the latter gets a UK banking licence.
Interesting point about insurance.
If the banking regulator is (probably should) really interested in more competition, they need to block sales of Tesco bank and sainsburys bank to the incumbents like Barclays and NatWest.
I only use the card for foreign spend too. I use the account for bank transfers as the rate is better than Wise.
But couldn’t help myself compare the tiers and Avios returned:
That’s quite a bit of foreign spend!
@BBetter – the trouble is that the regulators can’t really create competition and they are also responsible for stability. . Sainsbury’s is just acknowledging the failure of its banking project as Tesco did a while ago. M&S Bank is a little different. Virgin Money agreed to be taken over for half book value when its attempt to be a challenger bank failed badly. Metro Bank has been a fiasco and even Starling, considered a good quality bank has issues.
While we continue to enjoy free banking, it’s really tough to compete with the mainstream banks.
I think this is only really exciting if you’re paying some fairly significant sums to HMRC, and want to do it using Revolut instead of Barclays/Curve.
From my quick and dirty calcs it’s better to use curve up to £110k per year, Revolut metal from £110-160 and Ultra above £160k
(Ignoring any of the cards’ other benefits, purely looking at Avios earning rates)
“Where a Points Receiving Activity requires you to make a purchase from your Revolut account, your purchase must be a genuine purchase of goods or services to be eligible for points. For example:
Purchases which are cash or cash like transactions (for example, financial services (including cryptocurrency), cash withdrawals, or payment transfers) are not purchases of goods or services and are not eligible.
Purchase of goods and services which are returned, or cancelled are not genuine and are not eligible either.”I’m not sure HMRC payments will be earning any points?
I’m not sure either – but in the comments in the original HFP article there were some people claiming they had used it to pay tax without a problem
I’m sure Revolut is fine to pay tax, it’s a debit card. Would be good to know if anyone actually earns revpoints from it.
Will be easy to find out!
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