Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

£75 discount code for a £450 British Airways long-haul flight

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British Airways is celebrating its sponsorship of the Taste of London 2013 restaurant festival in Regents Park (see my Taste of London article here on why you may or may not want to visit!) with a selection of discounts on flights to what they consider ‘culinary hotspots’.

What that means in plain English is that, until May 21st, you can save £75 per person on an Economy flight of £450 or more to the following destinations:

  • Thailand
  • Mexico
  • India
  • China
  • Japan
  • Lebanon
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore

Slightly oddly, you cannot travel before 1st September 2013, and all travel must be completed by 31st March 2014.

The British Airways promotional code you need can be found here.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (15)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • James67 says:

    Thanks Raffles. I hope this works with their luxury seat sale. Does BA have pattern to their sales? Would like to book BAA PE to BKK bext May and MfU if possible. Best to wait for next sale or just reserve as booking window opens? Apologies for going off topic.

    • Sir Stamford says:

      Unless you are booking in World Traveller (economy), it won’t work.

      Sir Stamford

    • Rob says:

      Chance of an MFU to Bangkok at time of booking is slim, I reckon you will need to book the seat and then hope to upgrade a few days prior to departure.

      • James67 says:

        Thx guys. I will wait to next sale and give it a try. May opt for HKG as there is usually more award availability. Usually I plan my travels a year in advance but for 2014 I think I will take a chance on waiting for another BA sale nearer the end of this year.

  • Zoe says:

    Another slight aside, I’m hoping to book 4 seats to Miami for early July 2014 using 2 241 vouchers. Would obviously like to get business or first, is it just a matter of logging on at midnight 355 days ahead. What’s the likely hood of finding the 4 seats? I realise I’ll book the outbound first then the return as the flights get released. Also a massive thanks to Raffles for sharing his expertise both here and on Paid to Shop.

    • Rob says:

      BA has been moving away from opening up seats at 355 days and then doing no more. It is becoming more of a dripfeed. You can get an idea of what opens up by checking now what they are releasing for 355 days time.

  • Pierre says:

    Strange, I wonder why they have put Malaysia in the list, as I don’t see any direct flights on BA metal from LHR to KUL…and the voucher is only valid on those!

  • Pete says:

    Just tried to book an economy (LHR – BOM) in Dec and got this msg
    TasteCFSZH05, may not be used when flying to this arrival point
    🙁

  • R0Ck5TaR says:

    On a slight variation to the topic, am just a newbie who has started collected AVIOS and looking at the various ways to maximize the use of them.

    My query to the experienced expert users of the blog.

    Is there any way to use avois on non BA destinations like eg, greece destinations part from Athens, like Santorini, Mykonos, etc. Similarly Turkey, Antalaya, Dalaman, etc. I guess you get my point.

    I spent some time going through One world partners who fly to these destinations, though not direct.

    I don’t mind connections in Europe , so long as the Reward Saver flights can be used on connections. Do they class as two separate award flights?

    Any ideas?

    Thanks

    • Rob says:

      This post https://headforpoints.com/2012/12/29/avios-redemption-university-lesson-4-reward-flight-saver/ gives a full overview of Reward Saver.

      Unfortunately, Reward Flight Saver can only be used on British Airways flights. You will pay standard taxes if you use oneworld partners, although if the airline involved does not impose fuel surcharge (eg airberlin) the taxes will be low anyway.

      Flights involving a connection are charged per leg, unfortunately. A connection is therefore best avoided if possible.

      Remember that avios.com is also partners with Air Malta, Flybe and Monarch. You will not see these flights via the BA website but you can search for them at avios.com. Your Avios can be transferred from BA to avios.com using ‘Combine My Avios’ (under ‘My Account’ at ba.com) Full taxes payable, though.

      You can also redeem on Vueling via Iberia Plus. You’d need to open an account there and then, again, transfer Avios across in order to book.

      • R0Ck5TaR says:

        Thanks

        Thats interesting. Just tried Monarch for an eg 23 Sep 13,LGW- DLM, shows 10,000 Avios + £59 (Taxes,etc)

        Same flight through Monarch direct, £57.49 + £26.50 ( Taxes, charges).

        I can understand fares being different, just wondering about the difference in the taxes+charges through Avios compared to the airline direct. The taxes+charges was the same on other dates as well, as in remained £59 (Avios) and £26.50( Monarch)

        Does that mean Avios are allowed to inflate actual taxes+charges ? Or rather the other way around….Monarch bringing it down artifically to compete?

        • Rob says:

          Taxes are a mystery, they basically make them up. Some stuff Monarch includes in the base fair (eg airport landing charges) may be included as a tax in the Avios calculation.

        • David says:

          That seems like a shocking bad case (and is making me wonder if it is correct). I would (as I will explain in a minute) sadly expect it to be distinctly higher, but probably not THAT much, although it could be.

          Based upon a wide variety of Monarch experience via numerous sales channels, something close to the last thingt you said – Monarch have a number of tactics to inflate other sales channels.

          I’ve various bits of evidence/experience over recent years that Monarch do seem to have fuel surcharges involved in their fares model *behind the scenes*, or they certainly have done as recently as 12 months ago.

          But they don’t break them out separately for direct customers, so looking at the Monarch website you would never see them, they don’t do what some airlines do, and put them with the Taxes and Charges. Monarch seem to limit that to taxes and third party charges, leaving everything monarch related grouped as the fare/price elemnt. But there can be times when you need to pay the fuel surcharge.

          Now it could be the nature of Avios.com’s access to Monarch seats (and fares/agreement), that they see the fuel surcharge coming through as a separate line item. Seeing it as a separate line item they group it (in common with BAEC and Avios.com policy) as a taxes and charges – on the reasoning that it is NOT the base fare, so you pay it.

          Hope that makes sense, it is my best guess for what is probably happening. Not wrong exactly, just different policies colliding.

          I’d suggest you compare total monarch cost, with total Avios.com cost (adding the taxes and your valuation of the Avios togehter). Unless you are seriously loaded in Avios points and cash poor, then obvioulsy you’d be mad to get rid of them at that value.

  • R0Ck5TaR says:

    Thanks

    Thats interesting. Just tried Monarch for an eg 23 Sep 13,LGW- DLM, shows 10,000 Avios + £59 (Taxes,etc)

    Same flight through Monarch direct, £57.49 + £26.50 ( Taxes, charges).

    I can understand fares being different, just wondering about the difference in the taxes+charges through Avios compared to the airline direct. The taxes+charges was the same on other dates as well, as in remained £59 (Avios) and £26.50( Monarch)

    Does that mean Avios are allowed to inflate actual taxes+charges ? Or rather the other way around….Monarch bringing it down artifically to compete?

  • tangey says:

    just tried november flights to cancun “TasteCFSZH05, may not be used when flying to this arrival point”

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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