Earning air miles is not all about flying. You can earn air miles from using your credit card too or by transferring credit card points to miles. You can earn miles or points just for signing up (= sign-up bonus) followed by miles calculated on how much you use your card. The amount varies from 1 point/mile to 2 miles/points per euro spent. I will guide you through the very few possibilities here in Belgium.
American Express Gold & Platinum Credit cards
With the American Express Gold & Platinum you can earn Membership Rewards points. By using referral links you can earn a generous sign-up bonus.
Membership Rewards points can be transferred to a handful of partners:
Earnings for both Gold & Platinum card is 1 point = €1.
How to interpret the table above?
Let’s say you have 110.000 Membership Rewards points, you can transfer them to Miles & More miles, netting you 55.000 M&M miles. If you’re checking the monthly Mileage Bargains, you get the chance to get a return trip to North America in business class. Africa can be sometimes booked for as low as 40.000 M&M miles. The only caveat: you have to pay taxes and they can be quite high on Lufthansa Group (from 300-500 euro for a return trip in business class long-haul).
Examples of Mileage Bargains of 2024:
So what’s the difference between the American Express Gold and the Platinum besides the hefty annual fee (240 euro vs 780 euro)?
Both cards offer extra’s and depending on your lifestyle and travel habits, it might be useful to choose for the Platinum card.
Platinum card benefits vs Gold card:
- Annual dining credit (300 euro for Platinum vs 100 euro for Gold)
- Free hotel statuses (MeliaRewards, HiltonHonors, Marriott Bonvoy and Radisson) for Platinum
- PriorityPass unlimited + invite one guest for Platinum vs 4 passes each year with Gold
- Unlimited fast lane access at Brussels Airport for Platinum
- A free Platinum card for your partner or friend which also gets PriorityPass unlimited
- More insurance coverage and extra coverages
Depending on your travel habit and your lifestyle you can calculate how much all these benefits above are worth it to you. For example, if you own an airline status, the PriorityPass will be worth less for you and will not count a lot as a benefit.
For my own calculation, I value Membership Rewards points only 0,006 euro per point, as the conversion rates for Belgians is quite horrible (e.g. 2 points = 1 Miles & More mile). Using this metric and knowing how much you spend on a yearly basis, you can calculate how much value in points you’ll earn with your card, which also contributes to determine if a card and its annual fee is worth choosing for.
Business class starter on Brussels Airlines – Long haul flight
The best way to maximize the value of your points/miles is by spending them on business and/or first class flights. Loyalty programs will advertise to spend your miles on shopping, hotel bookings or other things but the use of your miles are never as valuable as booking business class flights.
Beobank Flying Blue Mastercards
Flying Blue is a frequent flyer program for the alliance Skyteam with airlines such as KLM, Air France, Delta and a few others. With the Flying Blue cards you can save air miles directly that can be used on Skyteam partners.
Sign-up bonus for Flying Blue World MasterCard fluctuates but is usually something around 3.500 miles whereas the Premium card gets you 5.000 miles most of the time. You will get 1.25 miles per euro spent in Flying Blue miles with the Premium card.
Business class lunch on ITA Airways (SkyTeam member) – Intra-European flight
The card offers similar travel insurance options as the American Express cards with lower limits (see here).
However, American Express offers different insurance options that are not included in the Flying Blue cards such as medical costs.
An advantage to take into account when comparing Mastercards with American Express is the fact that MasterCard is usually accepted everywhere.
Conclusion for Beobank Mastercard:
Beobank cards are handy if you want to be able to use the card everywhere, as MasterCard is widely accepted in Belgium. However, the sign-up bonus is low with Beobank so earning enough miles takes longer to get your first free flight.
If we make the calculation, considering the value of 1 Flying Blue mile as 0,01 euro per mile, you’ll need an annual spent with your Beobank card of 12.000 euro to have a fictional break-even, which means earning miles gets more return of investment compared to American Express Membership Rewards. But, because of the low sign-up bonus compared to American Express and the non-existent added benefits, I would say that American Express is a better return of investment, but it all depends on your own lifestyle.