Acceptance of the BA credit card in UK stores
Not accepted:
- Greggs
- Cosmo
- Pizza hut
- General Medical Council
- Heating oil suppliers (Carnegie, Connon)
- Wu Asia Pacific Edinburgh restaurant
- Aroma Cafe
- Taco Bell
- Simply Business
- Aberdeen University Students Association
- Las Iguanas
- Linx Ice Arena
- Mountain Warehouse
Accepted:
- ASDA (but Health Service Discount card gives a better 2.5% cashback)
- Cubie education
- Menkind
- B&Q (but Health Service Discount card gives a better 4% cashback)
- Poundland
- MoonPig
- Brewer's Fayre
- Euro Entertainment Corporation Circus
- Aldi
- McDonald's
- Lidl
- Joules
- Ami Emirato
- Marriott Courtyard
- Ibis Styles
- BP petrol station
- Lebara
- CeX online
- Local garage
- Toolstation online
- Screwfix online
- Bloc Blinds Fourds Ltd
- Government car tax
Tesco credit card vs AMEX for Tesco groceries:
The Tesco Clubcard credit card clubcard boosts earnings from 4 points to 5 points per £4 spent. The base value of a Clubcard point is worth 1p. So an extra point per £4 equals 0.25p per £1. This can be doubled if spent on Cineworld, EasyJet Holidays, a Railcard, restaurants or days out. That is, the value of a Clubcard point can be boosted to 0.5p per £1. There is no boost for the delivery saver plan.
Outside of Tesco, the Tesco credit card gives 1 point (or a base value of 0.25p) per £8. This equals 0.03125p per £1 spent outside of Tesco. If spent with the partner providers above, this can be doubled to 0.0625p per £1 spent outside of Tesco.
The British Airways Avios card gives 1 Avios for every £1 spent. An Avios has a floor value of 0.5p. For economy long-haul it can be 0.75p and better for non-economy flights.
Therefore, Avios points easily outvalue clubcard points when spending outside of Tesco, with a minimum value of 0.5p per pound spent compared to 0.03125p per pound spent. If one expects 0.5-0.75p per Avios, then it will mostly beat the additional Clubcard points earned by using the Tesco credit card in Tesco.
On usage on 29/06/2026: 39,580 Avios points gave a discount of £234.00. This gives each Avios a real-world value of only 0.5912077 pence.
Warnings about the BA Companion Voucher
Warning 1: BA Companion Voucher reward seats and routes are heavily limited.
Warning 2: If only some of the legs of a multi-flight voucher have reward seats available, then they can't be combined into the same booking reference. If booked separately, then protection for delays is lost.
Warning 3: The Companion Voucher does not give free flights. A part-payment is still needed.
Spent £15,000 in one card year and got a Companion Voucher? Great! Want to use your BA Companion voucher for a trip to Bangalore at Christmas-New Year? Good luck! Search in May and all the viable dates for festive season trip are unavailable. It's not because the plane is full - there are seats available at normal prices. It's because BA limit the number of reward seats.
I didn't know that when I got the BA AMEX credit card!
