Best business credit cards for travel and Avios in the UK: lounges, FX fees and insurance

The short answer

• Most Avios per pound: British Airways Amex Accelerating Business, £250 a year, open to sole traders.
• Lounges and insurance for a frequent traveller: Amex Business Platinum, £650 a year, limited companies and LLPs only.
• Lounges on a Visa card with no FX fee: Capital on Tap Pro, £299 a year, with unlimited Priority Pass lounge access for the main cardholder.
• No FX fee and no annual fee: Capital on Tap’s free card, iwoca or Funding Circle; only Capital on Tap converts to Avios.
• Low FX fee plus insurance, sole traders welcome: Barclaycard Premium Plus, £150 per account, 0.99% FX.

Which of these is best depends on how often you fly, whether someone will actually redeem Avios well, and how much of your spend is in other currencies. The sections below take each feature in turn.

Travel features side by side

“Not stated” or “Not listed” means the issuer’s page does not mention it, not that it is certainly absent. Amex Gold and Platinum are charge cards: the balance is due in full each month. The full fee and eligibility detail for every card is on every UK business credit card compared.

Airport lounge access

Only two cards in our data include lounge access, and they work differently.

Capital on Tap Pro costs £299 a year and gives unlimited Priority Pass lounge access for the main cardholder through Priority Pass, with two free guest passes a year, then £30 per guest per visit. You show a digital membership card at the lounge. Capital on Tap values Priority Pass at £467 a year. That is its own valuation, and it is only worth that to someone who would otherwise pay for a membership. Pro also includes Times digital subscription, Radisson Rewards VIP, Go Privilege Silver and priority support.

Amex Business Platinum costs £650. Amex says: American Express Global Lounge Collection: complimentary access to 1,550+ airport lounges for the Cardmember, a Business Platinum Employee Cardmember and a guest each, whatever the airline or class of ticket. The employee and guest access is the real difference: a director and a colleague travelling together both get in, plus a guest each, where Pro covers the main cardholder and two guest visits a year.

If you fly a handful of times a year, the lounge benefit alone rarely justifies either fee; the Capital on Tap Pro break-even page works through the sums, and Amex Business Gold vs Platinum asks the same question of the Amex fee.

Earning Avios

There are three ways to turn business spend into Avios. The BA Amex card earns them directly. Capital on Tap earns its own points and converts them. Amex Gold and Platinum earn Membership Rewards points, which transfer to British Airways among other partners: points transfer to partners including British Airways, Marriott Bonvoy and Virgin Atlantic; minimums and increments vary. Amex does not state the points-to-Avios ratio on the pages we read, so we do not quote one.

The BA card’s earning rate fell on 7 October 2026. Amex’s page now shows 1.25 Avios per £1 on purchases; 10,000 bonus Avios for every £20,000 spent, up to three times each calendar year. The welcome offer it shows is 30,000 bonus Avios after £5,000 in 3 months; not available if you have held an Amex business card in the previous 12 months. It also gives £1 statement credit for every eligible £1 spent on hotels or car hire booked through Avios.com, up to £200 a calendar year.

Here is what £30,000 of card spend in a year earns, valued at the 1p-per-Avios ball-park used by Head for Points. It excludes welcome bonuses, which are one-offs.

The BA card earns by far the most Avios. Once its £250 fee is taken off, though, at the 1p ball-park it is worth less at this spend than simply taking Capital on Tap’s free-card points as £300 cash. The picture changes with more spend: at £60,000, when all 3 yearly spend bonuses have paid, the BA card earns 105,000 Avios, about £800 after the fee, against £600 cash on the free Capital on Tap card. Avios are also worth more than 1p to someone who redeems them on premium-cabin reward seats, and less to someone who uses them for short economy hops. At the ball-park, Capital on Tap’s free-card points are worth more as cash than as Avios, and Pro’s Avios roughly cover its fee at this spend, so Pro’s case rests on the lounges.

Against the BA card’s higher earning, set its 2.99% non-sterling fee and narrower acceptance: Amex is not taken everywhere Visa is, at home or abroad. The Avios for business spend guide goes deeper, including the tax question, and the cashback and Avios calculator runs Capital on Tap’s numbers on your own spend. Capital on Tap points also convert to Virgin Points at 10 points = 8 Virgin Points on the free card on the free card and 10 points = 10 Virgin Points on Pro on Pro.

Foreign exchange fees

For anyone who spends abroad, the FX fee often matters more than the points. Capital on Tap charges 0% non-sterling transaction fee, iwoca 0% (Visa exchange rate), Funding Circle 0% and NatWest Business Plus 0% on purchases. Barclaycard Premium Plus charges 0.99%. Every American Express card here charges 2.99%.

On £8,000 a year of hotels, taxis, meals and conference fees in euros or dollars, that is £239.20 in fees on an Amex card, £79.20 on Premium Plus and nothing on the 0% cards. On the BA card, the same spend earns about 10,000 Avios, worth about £100 at the 1p ball-park, so the fee costs more than the Avios are worth. The FX fee calculator runs your own figures, and the no foreign transaction fee cards page covers the 0% cards in detail.

A practical set-up for a business that travels is to pair cards: an Amex for Avios or lounges on sterling spend, and a 0% card for anything charged in another currency. Wherever you pay, choose to be charged in the local currency rather than accepting the merchant’s conversion to pounds.

Travel insurance

Business card travel cover varies widely, and every policy has conditions. Here is what each issuer publishes.

• Amex Business Platinum: Worldwide travel insurance for you, your family and Employee Cardmembers, business and leisure trips of up to 120 days; enrolment required; limitations and exclusions apply.
• Amex Business Gold: Travel Accident Insurance up to £250,000 and Travel Inconvenience Insurance up to £200 when you use the Card to book travel; limitations and exclusions apply.
• BA Amex Accelerating Business: Travel accident cover of £250,000 on public transport for business trips booked with the Card, plus travel inconvenience cover for flight delay, overbooking and delayed baggage (higher limits on British Airways flights).
• Barclaycard Premium Plus: Free enhanced travel insurance covering you overseas if you pay for the trip in full with the card; the insurance package includes business travel, purchase protection and cardholder misuse cover; T&Cs apply. Barclaycard publishes the insurance terms as a PDF.
• Capital on Tap: we have not found travel insurance among the card’s benefits. The Pro page lists lounge access, 1:1 Avios and Virgin Points conversion, the boosted rate and Times digital subscription, Radisson Rewards VIP, Go Privilege Silver and priority support, but no travel insurance.

Only Platinum and Premium Plus describe something close to full travel insurance. Gold and the BA card offer accident and inconvenience cover tied to paying for the trip with the card, which is not the same as medical or cancellation cover. Check enrolment requirements, trip-length limits, who is covered and the excess before you cancel a separate policy.

Hotels, travel credits and cash abroad

Amex Business Platinum adds up to £600 in Amex Travel credit to use at American Express Travel Online and hotel benefits: Fine Hotels + Resorts (US$100 property credit, upgrade when available, breakfast for two, 4pm check-out) and The Hotel Collection (US$100 credit on prepaid stays of two nights or more through Amex Travel). Amex Business Gold’s perks include £100 Amex Travel credit per £40,000 spent (up to £200 a year); Indeed and Dell credits; travel accident, purchase and refund protection (all subject to change). The BA card gives £1 statement credit for every eligible £1 spent on hotels or car hire booked through Avios.com, up to £200 a calendar year. Capital on Tap Pro includes Times digital subscription, Radisson Rewards VIP, Go Privilege Silver and priority support. Credits only count if you would have booked through that channel anyway.

For cash abroad, Capital on Tap charges a £0 ATM fee, though there is interest on cash withdrawals from the day you take them. Barclaycard Premium Plus charges 3% (min £3), plus 0.99% if non-sterling. iwoca and Funding Circle do not allow cash withdrawals. Cash on any credit card is expensive borrowing; use it for emergencies only.

Interest and APRs

Travel cards with fees carry high representative APRs because the fee is included in the calculation. The BA card shows 104.9% APR representative (variable), including the fee; Barclaycard Premium Plus 54.3% APR representative (variable), including the fee; NatWest Business Plus 29% APR representative (variable); purchase rate 13.9%. Amex Gold and Platinum are charge cards, paid in full monthly. Amex adds: a line of credit via the Flexible Payment Option arrives with the card, at a 29.1% p.a. variable purchase rate.

Capital on Tap advertises rates as low as 13.86% APR (variable) and does not publish a representative APR; your rate depends on your personal and business credit history and the Bank of England base rate. Whichever card you choose, rewards are only worth having if the balance is cleared every month. Interest on a carried balance wipes out a year of Avios quickly.

Sole traders

Capital on Tap is not available to sole traders, and Amex Gold and Platinum are for limited companies and LLPs only. For a sole trader who travels, the BA Amex Accelerating Business card is the main Avios option (eligibility: sole traders and small businesses with a UK business bank account; £20,000+ personal income), and Barclaycard Premium Plus offers 0.99% FX and travel insurance (eligibility: turnover £10,000 to £6.5 million). NatWest Business Plus charges 0% on purchases but requires a NatWest business account. The sole trader guide covers the full field.

Who should choose which

If you are choosing between Capital on Tap and Amex more broadly, the Capital on Tap vs Amex Business comparison covers acceptance, charge-card rules and staff cards, not just travel.