“Kick Back With 4,500 Avios” promotion launches

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• Trevor says:

  16 Sep16 September 12:27

  Good insight and options/contemplations on this offer.

  I also of course don’t like the idea of a voucher rather than pure miles, especially with conditions, but did decide to open a new CC account for my wife and get the minimum required points to qualify. Will this transfer though? Normally you require 250 CC minimum for transfer to Avios, but here they require only 150 CC for the offer – will it transfer at the lower balance because it’s an opt in for auto-conversion? I did try find T&C regarding opt in transfers, but found nothing regarding minimums.

  Getting the new CC up to 650 points is beneficial to also take advantage of the 2,000 bonus offer under the new collection special, that way having 1,560 (transfer) + 2,000 (bonus) + 4,500 (voucher) = 8,060 Avios – almost enough for a zone 1 flight (enough should I build up 1,050 CC).

  Considering it’s a new account with no existing CC points (a status surely many CC accounts will be close to currently if they took advantage of the previous 50% transfer bonus) and I’ll opt out immediately after 20 Oct, I’ll be transferring a minimum of 150 CC yet getting 360 (transfer) + 4,500 (voucher) = 4,860 Avios which is far more than I’ll get should I wait for a 50% transfer bonus, getting only 540 Avios in total. If I take it up to 650 CC, I’ll get 8,060 Avios as stated above, yet only 2,340 for a 50% transfer bonus. So I guess at your valuation of 1p/Avios (only applicable value for Reward Saver flights I might add, far less for long haul flights), the difference is worth £57.20 – more than I’ll pay for 2 ultra-cheap hotel nights in some faraway dive (see below)!

  The other reason I decided to go for it was that I’ve done it before. Years ago I had an Airmiles voucher with the same 1 or 2 night hotel condition of use, and it worked out worthwhile as while I didn’t book a hotel and use it (I didn’t need a hotel if I recall), I did book the cheapest hotel I could find in the most remote place for only a few ££ – there was no stipulation that it had to be at your destination. That way, I used the voucher and it was cost effective as a) the “wasted” hotel booking was dirt cheap, and b) Airmiles were worth more in those days considering the all-inclusive rewards.

  If I ultimately don’t use the voucher it’s hardly a lot lost, and will still have the Avios anyway, so decided better to have in the bag than not. At the end of the day, I guess it has everything to do with how many CC points would be involved in a non-bonus transfer as to whether this is worthwhile for people.

  With regards to costing more than 4,500 Avios in the long run (only a consideration should you have a huge CC balance currently, as shown above), when considering waiting for a CC->Avios transfer bonus, how often do these offers come along? Despite some previous experience, I am new to the “game” of playing it big time as you do (only found this site days ago), hence generally need the points transferred frequently and available as I don’t have a truck full of Avios ready for use.

  • Raffles says:

    17 Sep17 September 09:18

    Transfer bonuses from Tesco were very rare. Now they seem to come along like buses, once or twice a year. (This is not surprising, because transfer bonuses eventually have the opposite effect to what BA wants – when you are expecting another one soon, no-one converts at the usual rate and BA is forced to run an expensive conversion promo to get any money from Tesco.)

    Note that the new partner 2000 avios bonus needs to be into an active avios.com or BA account, so you can’t open a new avios account and have the first transaction into it a Tesco conversion.

    This is also the last quarter for this promo, so you’d need to get 150 Clubcard points in a new Tesco account by mid November. Or possibly 250, as you say!

• Tim says:

  17 Sep17 September 06:20

  Perhaps I have received a slightly different offer? The linked T&C in the email I received are:

  Here’s how it works
  Shop at Tesco as usual — collect just 150 Clubcard points from 1 September to 20 October 2012 and we’ll add a 4,500 Avios voucher to your account
  Book two hotel nights or more — and get the Avios off the hotel price and any return flight or Eurostar™ trip on the same booking
  Travel within a year of getting your 4,500 Avios voucher
  We’ll add your voucher to your account by 16 November 2012.

  I.e. there is no requirement to auto-convert or even convert CC points to Avios at all. I don’t auto-convert for the reasons Raffles has given. I have already collected over 150 CC points in the specified period so the voucher will be posted. It is conceivable that I may book a hotel (for cash only) via Avios and take the 4500 Avios discount on a flight e.g their cheapest hotel in Venice is price-competitive.

  I would not be so fast to write this offer off. Look this gift horse in the mouth.

  • Raffles says:

    17 Sep17 September 09:14

    Interesting. If they are just going to give you voucher anyway, then obviously you shouldn’t complain!

• Trevor says:

  17 Sep17 September 13:17

  Thanks for the reply, Raffles.

  I realise this is the last quarter of the Avios bonus (what a shame), but 2,000 Avios is better than none or simply a conversion bonus as noted on the few miles. Also, I do already have an active Avios.com account in my wife’s name.

  Tim, very odd that what you received says nothing regarding an opt in for auto-transfer. I never received an email, but was alerted via a till voucher from Tesco stating that an opt in was necessary and to visit http://www.avios.com/tesco4500 While not explicitly stating “opt in”, direction 1 at the website above very clearly shows you what you need to do, which is opting in. Are you sure there wasn’t more to the email or a “*” implying “see the small print” which indicates that the voucher is subject to certain T&C?

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