TLFL Special offer: 3000 Avios with the British Airways Prepaid Mastercard®
EDIT: Hopefully the issue we had with the voucher box not appearing should be fixed. If you have trouble, please comment below.
If you applied earlier and did not put in the code, you will still get the bonus points. The voucher code will be added manually to your application.
A couple of months ago I wrote about the relaunched British Airways Prepaid Mastercard which was offering a 1500 Avios welcome bonus. We have now managed to negotiate an additional bonus for TLFL readers. On top of the original 1500 Avios welcome bonus, you will now receive an extra 1500 TLFL Avios bonus, making a total of 3000 Avios.
What is the British Airways Prepaid Mastercard?
Back in times past, we used to take travellers checks on holiday as a safe way to take foreign currency abroad. Now there are much easier options. The British Airways Prepaid Mastercard is a way to travel with currency in the form of a Prepaid card which you can use to pay for things or withdraw cash.
You can also use it in the UK for the same purpose and you collect Avios too. You’ll collect 1 Avios for every £2, €2 or $2 you spend. If you don’t want to take out a credit card, this could be a good option to rack up the Avios.
How do I apply get the bonus Avios?
To get the bonus, you will need to spend £500, €500 or $500 in your first 90 days. So, if you don’t have any travel planned for a while, you can simply top up £500 and use the card in the UK to get your bonus. You will need to spend the £500, €500 or $500 all in one currency, and cash withdrawals do not count towards the total.
The offer runs from 00:01 30 September to 23:59 18 October 2022 using promo code TLFL2022, and you will receive a special welcome bonus totalling to 3,000 Avios. You need to apply by downloading or opening the British Airways Executive Club Rewards app in the App Store or Google Play which is separate from the normal British Airways app. Click the Mastercard logo in the menu at the bottom, and don’t forget to use code TLFL2022 in the promo field during your application.
You’ll need to be a member of the Executive Club and have your passport or driving licence to complete the application.
If you are after Avios in a hurry it’s worth noting that the bonus Avios will not be added until 30 days after the initial 90 day period, no matter how quickly you spend the £500, €500 or $500.
How does the British Airways Prepaid Mastercard work?
The card is very simple to use. You load it with money and top up at any time using a debit card all through the British Airways Executive Club Rewards app. You can select Mastercard at the bottom of the app and then click on apply.
You can use the card to pay for things in pounds in the UK or you can use it to pay abroad in euros or dollars. To do this, you can either move funds from your Pound Sterling ‘wallet’ on your card into the Euro or Dollar wallets, or just use UK pounds to pay and be charged the Mastercard exchange rate + 1.5%. This can actually work out slightly cheaper than transferring the £ into your euros or dollars wallets due to the Mastercard rate used, and it’s easier.
It’s worth noting that the rate of foreign exchange when moving money into the other currency wallets is not the same as the cheapest rate you may be able to get on a card with no foreign exchange commission.
There are various top-up and withdrawal limits for the card, but the daily limits are high enough for most people.
What are the benefits of the card?
If you use most credit or debit cards to pay for things abroad or take money out, you will usually get charged a fee and/or commission. The British Airways Prepaid Mastercard allows you to make three free monthly cash withdrawals up to £300. After that, there will be a 2% withdrawal fee but no foreign exchange commission.
You can use the card with both Google and Apple pay too.
Who can apply?
There are no credit checks when you apply for a British Airways Prepaid Mastercard, so any adult over the age of 18 years in the UK with a local current bank account is eligible.
Are there any fees for the card?
The card is free for the first six months, then it costs £2.99 a month. At £35.88 for the year, it’s good value.
You can find the full terms and conditions of the card and more details here.
19 comments
Never received the bonus for the last offer with this card. Rang multiple times to be told I qualify even when I cancelled as I didn’t want to pay for the ‘service’ to be told I would still receive the Avios. Never did!
It would be good if Tier Points could be negotiated next time instead of Avios
Not sure I came across the field to enter the TLFL code. Did I miss it?
There was a technical issue this morning but IAG Loyalty assure me that anyone affected can apply to get the extra Avios credited.
British Airways has recently launched a Prepaid Mastercard – and we’ve negotiated a special sign-up bonus for Head for Points readers.
Head for Points had same issue. EDIT: BA has removed the promo code box from the application from box early! This is outside our control obviously. If you apply by Sunday night we will do our best to ensure BA awards the extra points but we cannot guarantee this.
Brian we will look into this today and hopefully it can be fixed.
No promo field in the rewards app, so can’t claim the 3k Avios….
Thanks Alex. I’ve already added a note to the article and notified IAG loyalty. Hopefully we will have it up and running properly shortly.
Thanks – will it be possible to add the promo on now that I’ve already made the application then?
I will ask IAG Loyalty what they can do for those that have already applied.
Hi Michelle – and others! Just wanted to add a couple of realities of having this card. 1 – there is a maximum spend limit of £2600 PCM, and once you reach this limit that’s it. The card becomes totally redundant until the 1st of the next calendar month. Fine if you spend less than this, but should you spend more, you’ll find yourself (like I was!) in a situation where you CANT get to the cash you’ve loaded onto it, until the month starts again. 2 – the stability of the supporting BA Exec Club app is frankly terrible. It’s not uncommon for the card itself to vanish from the app, or for there to be login problems – this wasn’t unique to me as others who I know with the card have this issue. A quick scan through twitter tells the same story.
What I will say on the plus side is points are awarded instantly, and you can also use this card to pay American Express bills – and indeed other bills (or at least I have for the last 7 months with no issues!)
Sorry for jumping in on this one Michelle, I love your blog but I think it’s really important to highlight the potential issues with this card before people rush out to use it on a holiday and then find it’s blocked because they’ve had too much fun using it!
Chris
Hi Michelle, did IAG come back to you at all?
Yes. I did put an update on the article and the next day. They will add the code manually so you still get the bonus.
Ah I didn’t see that. Great, thank you!
There seems to be a prob with the app. Tried installing on a new iphone, ipad and samsung tab and none of them are letting me login
I’ll pass the issue onto IAG Loyalty. What message do you get when you try to log in?
I applied for the card today 12th Oct. At the foot of the first page it had a promo code field. When I started to type TL. it said invalid code but when I reached TLFL2022 it immediately accepted it!
Only trouble was that so far as I could see the only way to type in my DofB was to tap or swipe back month by month to my birth month – in may case that meant nearly 1,000 swipes. (1947). A bit tiresome !
So hopefully now promo code TLFL2022 expressly accepted I should get the bonus
Thank you for mentioning the card and bonus
I applied for one of these today, just before your closing date – was accepted, but could not find any Promo box to enter your code!
Hi Jeremy. Do you know what time you applied?
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