Originally Posted by
Raffles
These are all well thought through points.
I have just refunded £10k I charged on the Amex during the 10 x miles, and have immediately spent it again on paying my July tax bill on the MC.
I am not expecting a clawback of the 10x bonus. Not that the Avios are still there anyway, of course! Unfortunately it will be 3 weeks until my next statement so I won't know for sure until then,.
Even then, though, I am likely to run a negative Avios balance for the month because of the disparity between MC and Amex earning. It is not clear if Lloyds will try to take Avios back or if they simply sit on a negative transfer balance, like Amex, and do not transfer new spend miles across until it clears.
I need to add in the mix the double miles on Amex promo, since in theory I should be deducted double miles for my refund. However, that correction is meant to post separately in September, so heaven knows what will happen. I am also intrigued, since double miles applies only to the first £10k of spend, how they treat refunds in this process.
I have refunded some flights made during the 10x bonus period. However I was sure to spend enough to make sure I still had a positive Avios total for the statement period. So in this situation there was no claw back of the bonus.
Given that by many accounts the 10x bonus was calculated manually, I highly doubt that the systems are sophisticated to link transactions to the bonus period (probably impossible anyway).
However if I were Lloyds I would be monitoring accounts that racked up large bonuses (say over 300k) for refunds post bonus period, and the easiest thing to do would be set an alert for negative Avios earnings. Maybe I am being too wary though, and giving Lloyds too much credit! (And in fact, if Avios.com paid for this bonus, then Lloyds aren't really going to care!)
The risk of an audit aside though, I expect any negative balances to just sit on the card, I don't think they can automatically claw miles back from Avios.
Raffles, I'll add another question to the current double miles promotion. Assuming you exceed the £10k with a mix of £ and fx, it raises the question do they apply the bonus points to the first £10k spent, or in the way that benefits you the most (e.g if you spend £10k in £ and then £5k in fx, do you get the bonus on £5k of £ and £5k of fx (18,750 Avios), or just on the £10k in £? (12,500 Avios).
Probably not a problem most people will face, as I don't think its worth bringing forward future spend for mere x2 points. However it would have been clearer if the promotion stated a maximum number of bonus Avios, rather than a spend limit.