I wanted to ask, to see if Monzo would be able to do for Max Plan customers to receive points and this should be every 10 points for £1, this can then be converted to airline mile points - as like myself I’m a frequent traveller and not many customers may be eligible for a credit card / or want to take a credit card.
Major Airlines like
Qatar; Emirates; Etihad; Singapore Airlines and other airlines
That’s generous?
Even the highest fee paying American Express doesn’t come close to that. You’d be lucky - very lucky - to get 1.5-2 miles per £1. Temper expectations.
The thing people don’t understand about air miles is that the bank purchases the air miles up front.
Monzo would have to negotiate a price with an airline - then purchase enough miles to cover every single customer and every single purchase possible. Running out isn’t an option.
It’s an insanely competitive, expensive venture. To the point of really not being worth it for most.
It’s why Avios is more prevalent - it covers more than one airline. A bank just needs to do a deal with one company over many.
I will die on the hill that Monzo will never do air miles.
This is always overlooked, Avios are not even sold at a significant discount to partners. The upfront cost of partnering with the scheme is millions.
I’m sure Monzo could afford to do it but I agree with you, I very much doubt they ever would.
I think it takes having a certain kind of customer base for the investment to be worthwhile. I’m sure Monzo has data on which airlines their customers mostly fly with as well, if they’ve paid via Monzo.
Indeed. American Express give out about 30 billion Avios in the UK alone each year. Even if they got the best rate (say 0.8p per mile) that’s £240 million a year.
And remember that American Express are in a position of having generally higher net worth customers, with fees on most cards up to £650 a year, and have a higher interchange fee than Visa or Mastercard. So they are already pushing upwards.
I think Monzo are only making a profit of like £170 million? They literally would be unlikely to fund such a venture right now.
Globally about 200 billion Avios are earned each year through various partners. That’s a cool £1.6 billion for IAG - Monzo would be a small fish in a very deep pond.
It does make you wonder whether this could be a factor in the rumours of Barclaycard pulling back from the Avios cards as well.
That sort of investment for a card product that you aren’t even allowed to fully advertise because of existing contracts between IAG and Amex.
I’ve recently reached 500k Avios earned (over a good few years mind!). This is from both spending, bonuses and rinsing various offers.
Flying BA Club World (Club Suite) to Tokyo in December. Even with the taxes and fees, it’s still worth collecting and making full use of Avios. I’d never be able to travel this way otherwise.
My NatWest Black Rewards CC does offer Avios conversion for Rewards but it’s a horrendous rate of return, it equates to around 0.4/£1.
Once I’ve rinsed Barclaycard, I’ll move my spend back to Amex for a while.
Revolut offer Avios conversion? Then again, they are in enough global markets that it might be worthwhile investing as a group.
Once you get into their higher tiers, it becomes £1 or 2 for 1Avios. Granted there is a cost to that, but the subscription has other things bundled in as well.
I’ve moved back to AMEX already. Got my voucher from Barclays now.
I’m expecting the changes to be imminent with Barclays ending the Avios products.
They do.
It’s definitely better than nothing but you’re paying £660 a year for the same conversion as the free blue American Express reward cards. I know there are other benefits on it but from a purely earning point of view it’s not great.
other bank accounts are offering monthly Avios points, a cabin upgrade voucher each year and a welcome bonus of Avios - is this being considered as an add on to Monzo paid accounts or does this already exist? It could even be tagged or linked to holiday pots or holiday pots get an increased interest rate etc.
Zero chance.
Have to agree with this. Without being able to slap BA on the tin (exclusive to AmEx apparently) there just isn’t as much brand recognition.
I guess Monzo could always try the Avios savings account route, but I feel like it’s not worth doing.
I swear this topic has come up an odd amount recently.