Another day, another email regarding loyalty schemes, this time our favourite international card provider, Revolut. The headline change is the addition of RevPoints, a loyalty currency like air miles that can be spent and traded within the Revolut ecosystem.
Of greatest interest is that RevPoints can now be swapped for airline loyalty points, most importantly, British Airways Executive Club Avios. Also cool is that points are convert 1:1 . 100 RevPoints = 100 Avios.
Nice.
Why has Revolut introduced air miles?
Historically, Revolut customers on Metal or Ultra plans would receive cash back on card spend. Typically this was as low as 0.01% (1p for every £1 spent). There was also a monthly cap of £12 cash back earnings to prevent churners making a healthy profit with manufactured spending.
RevPoints should offer a better deal, right? Not quite. Metal subscribers will receive 1 RevPoint for every £2 they spend. Standard subscribers will get just 1 point for every £10 spent.
What’s the problem? Most third party air miles experts value Avios at roughly £0.01 each, equivalent to the old Revolut cashback rate. With a 1:2 earning ratio, RevPoints will be worth £0.005 each. The ability to switch points to another program at 1:1 will help to offset some of that devaluation, but the reward feels a little less rewarding because you receive less of them.
Currently RevPoints can be swapped for Avios or Flying Blue air miles, offering plenty of redemption options. You must transfer a minimum of 100 points each time and the transfer cannot be reversed.
It’s worth noting that RevPoints can also be used as part-payment for hotel stays or travel experiences. Given that we never use our air miles in this way, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that’s good value or not.
Currently there are a few ways to accelerate your air mile earnings. Certain products and services bought within the Revolut app will pay rewards at a 1:1 rate. And if you make 150 card transactions within 3 months of the program going live, you’ll receive a 3000 RevPoints bonus.
Air miles hides bad news
Air miles will (probably) be more useful than the laughably low cash back rates previously offered. However, there have been some very unwelcome updates to the Metal subscription plan:
Travel insurance changes
Metal subscribers used to receive annual multi-trip travel insurance for themselves, their partner and their children as part of the plan. The policy was pretty decent, providing medical cover for travel, including cruises, and a host of mid-tier benefits. Best of all, it covered ALL your trips. For some people, this would be worth the £140 annual fee alone.
Unfortunately, that will all change on 25th July 2024 when Revolut switches insurance provider. From that date, only trips purchased using your Revolut card will be covered. This is annoying for us double-dippers who like to earn transferable air miles from American Express at a 1:1 rate for instance.
That’s not all. The coverage window shrinks from 90 days per trip to 30 AND delay expenses are only payable after 8 hours. Under the current policy you can make a claim after waiting for four hours.
No more SmartDelay
More of a gimmick than a feature, Revolut Metal subscribers used to be able to pre-register their flights in the app. If there was a flight delay, the app would auto-generate two free airport lounge passes, providing somewhere to relax and chill while everyone else stressed out at the gate.
We’ve only ever been issued with SmartDelay passes once – on a trip where we were flying BA business class, so we already had lounge access.
The SmartDelay perk will be removed from 19th July. In future, you will have to pay for the lounge privilege. There are Priority Pass discounts available in the app, but if you have already been rinsed by the airport once, are you really going to throw more money at them for your inconvenience?
Time to downgrade?
We have been Revolut subscribers for many years and would never hesitate to recommend the service. But as of these most recent changes, we’re a little more reluctant.
The addition of air miles to Revolut is welcome. However, the changes to the travel insurance policy are not.
The annual subscription fee for Revolut Metal continues to rise – as does the American Express card. Given the overlap in services, a time is coming where we will probably have to choose between Revolut and Amex.
Where Revolut wins out is the banking side of things. If you make or receive payments in foreign currencies, the card is quite useful. Lloyds Bank charges £7 per transaction to receive a payment in Euros for instance.
Amex Gold is the big winner when it comes to rewards. The 1:1 points earning facility along with the option to transfer points into virtually any airline or hotel loyalty program is incredibly valuable. As is the ability to earn bonus points and statement credits through the various cardholder deals each month. However, the annual travel insurance policy included with the card is quite weak and lacks much of what we would consider ‘standard’ requirements.
Our Revolut Metal plan doesn’t renew until November, so we have until then to decide what we’re going to do.
Interested in having your own Revolut or Amex Gold cards? You can use our sign-up links below to activate special bonuses:
Please note that although we may earn a referral fee or bonus points on some of these services, we never recommend anything we wouldn’t use ourselves.
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