Obscure Avios partners – mytrainticket.co.uk

This is the first of a series of posts looking at some of the low-profile companies who partner with avios.com (the old Air Miles site).  If you are a BAEC member, you will need to have an avios.com account to collect from these companies, and then use ‘Combine My Avios’ to move them across.

mytrainticket.com is an Avios partner, full details here (EDIT: deleted as link now dead).  Basically, you earn 20 Avios for every £10 you spend on train tickets via their site, which is accessed via the Avios e-store.

Now, train tickets are fundamentally commodity products, but the various booking sites have got very crafty recently when adding extra fees.  mytrainticket adds £1.60 to receive your tickets by post (free for station collection) plus 2% for using a credit card.  This is substantially better than thetrainline.com (with a shocking £3.50 credit card fee plus a mandatory £1 booking fee).  However, newcomer redspottedhanky.com has no booking or card fees at all.

It is also important to remember that some train companies offer exclusive discounts on their cheapest tickets for booking via their own website – East Coast, for examples, deducts an extra 10% from its cheapest seats, and has a loyalty scheme worth 1% cashback.

mytrainticket.com also offers 2% cashback if you go via Quidco instead of via the e-store.  This is probably a better deal than taking Avios, because you only earn Avios on every multiple of £10 – a £19 ticket would only earn 20 Avios.

So, my verdict on earning Avios via www.mytrainticket.com is FAIL.  Cheaper tickets may available from the train company directly, and you can avoid the credit card fee by booking elsewhere.  Even if you want to use the company, I would go via Quidco instead.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios 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.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)