Last night I was looking at my Revolut banking app seeing if there were any updates on my bricks and mortar UK bank account that is apparently imminent. Whilst looking through the notifications I noticed added Revolut points from a few purchases earlier in the day and I knew about them but never paid any attention. I thought you had to purchase their deals to benefit and not just normal every day spending.
It turns out I have over 10 000 points which equates to £10K having been spent on the card since I opened the Revolut account. On the Ultra plan you receive 1 point for every £1 spent so the points rack up pretty quickly.
I was wondering what is the benefit of these points and it turns out you can convert them for air miles, hotels and car hire. Revolut is linked to Avios points which is the British Airways Executive Club point system and can be swapped 1 for 1. 10 000 Revolut/Avios points is the equivalent of £100 so not a fortune, but at least it is something for nothing.
There are other use cases for the points like shopping in general using various promotions linked to Revolut, but for myself using the points to cheapen a trip via the air miles, hotels or car hire is more where my head is.
The Ultra Plan is not cheap and costs £55 monthly and the reason behind selecting this plan was for the un limited airport lounge access which is free. Every time we travel we always end up in these lounges and they are roughly £30-£50 per visit and we have already done quite a few trips using this free service so the monthly cost is negligible.
For now I am just going to continue as I have thus far and earn the points seeing how many can be accumulated through normal card usage.
The above states up to 4%, but after checking we are earning 4.46% currently so it does fluctuate.
The other bonus of having the Ultra Plan is being able to earn between 4 and 4.5% interest on the account without any hidden catches like locking it up for x amount of days. The interest is paid daily so this is another way to compound your earnings which is pretty decent. My interest payments easily cover the account costs each month so this is working out rather well for what is on offer. We all know the power of compounding especially being involved on HIVE. The upper limit for the savings account is £200K for the 4% and then after that drops to 3.6% for any funds over £200K.
I have been researching other "off shore" accounts and they do not offer the same interest being at around 1% and only climbing to 3.6% if you have more than £1 million which I do not currently, but definitely one of my target numbers. 3.6% tax free compounding is still a decent return when you compare what is on offer with other banks with the only exception the high minimum amount required to unlock this. I will keep the Revolut account for convenience whilst having another off shore account which I would like to open up some time later this year and will most likely be the Nat West offshore account in Jersey. I can get 15% locally on Rands, but that is Rands and a currency I am avoiding due to high depreciation and risk.