Elevate Your Avios: Boosted Welcome Bonuses for British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus Cards

Right now, new card members can choose from Chase’s three Avios-earning credit cards and earn an elevated welcome bonus. The offer is the same for all three cards: Earn 85,000 Avios after spending $5,000 in the first three months from account opening.

Normally, the offer is 75,000 Avios after spending $5,000 in the first three months. However with the elevated offer, for the exact same minimum spending requirement you can score 10,000 more Avios—enough to cover a short-haul flight or two and the potential to save significant money.

The cards earn Avios at the following rates:

• Aer Lingus Visa Signature® Card ($95 annual fee): Earn3 Avios per dollar on purchases with Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, and LEVEL, 2 Avios per dollar on hotel accommodations when purchased directly with the hotel and 1 Avios per dollar on all other purchases.
• British Airways Visa Signature® Card ($95 annual fee): Earn 3 Avios per dollar on purchases with Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and LEVEL, 2 Avios per dollar on hotel accommodations when purchased directly with the hotel and 1 Avios per dollar on all other purchases.
• Iberia Visa Signature® Card ($95 annual fee): Earn 3 Avios per dollar on purchases with Iberia, British Airways, Aer Lingus, and LEVEL, 2 Avios per dollar on hotel accommodations when purchased directly with the hotel and 1 Avios per dollar on all other purchases.

Note that the rates are the exact same for each card.

With all three cards offering identical welcome bonuses and earning structures—plus the ability to transfer Avios between programs—deciding which is right for you isn’t exactly straightforward.

Even the card’s travel and purchase coverage benefits are the exact same: You’ll get purchase protection, baggage delay insurance, lost luggage reimbursement and extended warranty protection.

And none of these cards charge foreign transaction fees.

Ultimately, your decision of which card to get will hinge on airline-specific benefits you may (or may not) value, including:

• The Aer Lingus Visa offers members priority boarding on Aer Lingus-operated flights departing from and returning to the U.S. from Ireland.
• The Iberia Visa comes with a 10% discount on airfare when you use your card to book an Iberia-operated flight. You must book through iberia.com/Chase10.
• And lastly, the British Airways Visa offers statement credits toward taxes, fees and carrier charges, up to $600 a year, when booking a British Airways reward flight. You’ll also get a 10% discount on eligible flights when you purchase through ba.com/Chase10.

Additionally, when you spend $30,000 in a calendar year the Iberia Visa offers a $1,000 voucher toward two tickets on the same flight. And both the Aer Lingus Visa and British Airways cards offer the chance to earn a companion ticket or as BA calls it, a Travel Together Ticket, letting you bring a companion along onboard.

If you can utilize any of the above benefits, it makes your decision much easier as to which card you should get. But, if none of these benefits are valuable to you, at this point you can probably just throw a dart at a board and whichever it lands on, that’s the card to get. Just make sure you are clear of Chase’s 5/24 rule before applying.

I’ve personally used Avios via Iberia Plus to book business-class flights for a family trip to Spain.

It’s just 34,000 miles one way for off-peak travel from the East Coast to Spain and if you get lucky like we did, you can even find this deal from Chicago—which makes no sense since Chicago should price out at Band 6 (or 42,500 Avios in business class). But who am I to complain?

Our trip could almost as easily have been booked if we had opted for the British Airways or Aer Lingus Visa—like mentioned earlier, Avios can be transferred between Avios-earning programs. But going this route saved us an extra step and some wait time that can result from moving Avios from one program to the next.

Taking advantage of these limited time welcome offers means you could get two one-way tickets in business class or five one-way economy-class tickets.

At the end of the day, you can’t go wrong with any one of these cards. With 85,000 Avios on the table and so many flexible booking options, this limited-time offer is too good to pass. Even if you don’t have immediate travel plans, having a stockpile of Avios ensures you’ll be ready when the right opportunity comes.