Air Miles to offer branded credit card

Air Miles Travel Promotions, owner of the Air Miles incentive currency, is launching its own branded credit card.

Air Miles provides the incentive currency for a range of other credit card and loyalty schemes, including NatWest, Sainsbury’s, Vodafone, Shell and British Airways.

But this will be the first time Air Miles will go direct to customers with its own card. More Air Miles branded financial products may be launched if the card proves successful.

Marketing director Judith Thorne says: “We will be watching the launch with interest and could offer more products in the future, but we are not planning to launch our own financial services company.”

The Air Miles MasterCard will be backed by NatWest and will be marketed to existing Air Miles collectors not yet collecting with NatWest. NatWest has used Air Miles as an incentive for the past ten years.

Aimed at regular travellers, the card will give one Air Mile for every 200 spent and with a bonus of one Air Mile for every 3 spent on booking package holidays through the Air Miles Holiday Hotline.