Is Avios Recycling a decent way of earning points?

It is over a year since I last looked at Avios Recycling, so I thought it was worth revisiting it again to see if it offers a decent way of earning extra Avios points.

The site is run on behalf of Avios by a firm called Anovo, who operate a number of gadget recycling businesses including Weebuy. Initially only accepting old mobile phones, they now accept digital cameras, consoles, laptops, MP3 players, sat navs and tablet PC’s.

In theory, these services SHOULD be a good deal for you. Why? Because Anovo presumably buys Avios from avios.com at a highly discounted rate (lets say 0.5p per Avios) and you value them more highly. In a perfect world, this service should thefore be a better deal than taking cash from a competing recycling service.

In reality, it didn’t work like that.

You should never do a trade like this before looking at the excellent Mobile Valuer site, run in conjunction with MoneySavingExpert. Here are a few tests I did:

Blackberry Curve 8520 – £37.25 from MobileCashMate or 3,000 Avios (so 1.24p per Avios)

Apple iPhone 4S 16gb – £210 from RPC Recycle or 20,000 Avios (so 1.05p per Avios)

Canon IXUS 900 Ti camera – £24.50 from Asda or 2,150 Avios (so 1.14p per Avios)

These are not terrible results, by any means – the effective price per Avios is less than you would pay if you bought them from avios.com directly. However, I am not a buyer unless the price drops below 0.75p per Avios, because I know at that level that I will always come out ahead.

It will, at the end of the day, depend on how much you need the Avios points as to whether Avios Reycling is worth a look. And, of course, it depends on how you plan to use them – someone who redeems for ‘Upgrade Using Avios’ is likely to value them more highly than someone who uses 100,000 outright, without a 2-4-1 voucher, to fly to San Francisco in Club World for example.

My old post on ‘What Is An Avios Point Worth? is here.

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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:

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

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.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

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.

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