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Earn bonus Avios from Shell via a very silly promotion

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Shell Drivers Club is the loyalty scheme for Shell garages in the UK.  Joining is simple – pick up a card at a Shell station when filling up and register it online.  You earn 50 Avios just for registering your card so it is worth doing this even if you switch to a different reward later.

Shell has now launched a silly but fun promotion to earn bonus points:  The Pump Challenge.

The person who devised this should be congratulated for appealing to the inner child in all of us.

This is how it works.

Next time you visit a Shell garage, you need to get your petrol or diesel bill to land on an EXACT amount of money, to the nearest penny.  Manage it and you get a bonus.  Miss it and you don’t.

Here are the bonuses available (remember that 2 Shell points = 1 Avios point):

£30.00 – 50 Shell points

£40.00 – 100 Shell points

£50.00 – 150 Shell points

£60.00 – 200 Shell points

£70.00 – 300 Shell points

£80.00 / £90.00 / £100.00 – 500 Shell points

The logic is interesting.  Whilst some people may spend less than usual (if you tank only takes £45 of fuel you will stop at £40), some others will spend more.  There will also be ‘breakage’ from people who fail to hit the target.  Some people may miss one target and then decide to spend another £9.99 trying to hit the next one.

The bonus points are on top of the standard points.  You earn 1 Shell point for every litre of petrol you buy, and 2 points = 1 Avios.

As well as Avios, 500 points can be turned into £2.50 of Shell vouchers or £2.50 of Waitrose vouchers. The benefit of taking Avios is that Shell converts (once a quarter) your points in multiples of 20 (ie 10 Avios) with no minimum, unlike the 500 point minimum for other rewards.

Of course, if you buy enough Shell fuel to get to 500 points on a regular basis, you will effectively be ‘paying’ 1p per Avios (since 500 points is worth 250 Avios or £2.50 in Shell or Waitrose vouchers).  This is not necessarily a great deal.

The Pump Challenge runs until 22nd July so heavy drivers could do quite nicely out of it.  More details can be found on the Shell website 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.

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.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (54)

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

  • Darran says:
    26 Jun26 June 10:39

    I usually always try to end on a round number. But in my experience I find this isn’t always possible no matter how gentle on the leaver you are. eg. Fuel could go from 44.10lt to 44.11lt but cost could go from £51.99 to £52.01. I’ve put it down to the rounding off effect as fuel is above a pound a litre and is only measured to two decimal places – the same as pennies at some point there must be gaps in the cost.

    • JQ says:
      26 Jun26 June 11:33

      I filled up with exactly £50.00 six times to get my Amex £10 off… if you’re worried then it’s just a matter of working all values out in advance, i.e. if it’s 117.9ppl, then you can get to all of the above values except £30

  • planeflyer says:
    26 Jun26 June 11:19

    Nice to see this game bring promoted! I play this all the time (well, to the nearest full £ anyway) seeing as Amex only reward points for a full £. No point in spending £9.99 and getting 9 Amex points, when you can spend £10.00 and fget 10!

    • JQ says:
      26 Jun26 June 11:27

      You mean 36 vs 40 MR for Shell purchases (or 27 vs 30 for Tesco fuel…)

      • bob says:
        26 Jun26 June 11:33

        heh heh 🙂

        You made him feel bad now lol

      • mark2 says:
        26 Jun26 June 11:34

        I am pretty sure that Tesco gives you 20p per litre on part litres.

        • The_Real_A says:
          26 Jun26 June 12:32

          Only at the new “pay at pump” which take fuel save off BEFORE filling.

          I have not received it in-store or the old style pay-at-pump.

          • Jason says:
            26 Jun26 June 20:02

            I always pay in store, to use my tesco cc as a clubcard, and it always gives me 20p off a litre or part litre.

  • Tilly71 says:
    26 Jun26 June 12:45

    Do you get 4 x Mr points at tesco garages if you pay in the shop rathe than at the pump?

    • TimS says:
      26 Jun26 June 13:23

      No, the 4x at Shell is a glitch in the system that could be corrected/stopped at any time. It should be 2x at Shell (base & travel points), regardless of where you pay for your fuel but for some reason it is coming out as 1x base point and 3x travel points if you pay in the shop.

      Tesco is 3x as you get the base point, the travel point and the supermarket point.

      If/when Amex do stop the shell glitch, history suggests that they won’t go back and historcially correct the points earned.

  • Fenny says:
    26 Jun26 June 17:07

    Just put in exactly £50 and got my Amex credit. Also got triple points on what was effectively a free car wash with the £10 off.

    • bob says:
      26 Jun26 June 19:33

      you must have a very delicate touch 🙂

      • Fenny says:
        26 Jun26 June 21:26

        Snot hard! Stop at 49.90 and then blip it through to 50.00. I remember the old NTNON sketch, too.

  • Ben says:
    26 Jun26 June 20:21

    Anyone know the maths??

    I fill a lorry up with 200 litres every day, sometimes more. Normally at tesco with the gold Amex, and tesco credit card as club card.

    Would I be better off using shell for this promo?

    Cheers

    • bob says:
      26 Jun26 June 20:25

      Can we assume your Gold Amex is now 1 point per £1?

      • bob says:
        26 Jun26 June 20:26

        And how good would you be at getting EXACTLY 190 litres or 200 litres?

        Overages don’t count.

        • bob says:
          26 Jun26 June 20:27

          OK lots of £80 transactions 🙂

          • Ben says:
            26 Jun26 June 21:15

            First year gold! So still 4 MR! The pump stops once you reach 100 litres so it will be exact.

          • bob says:
            26 Jun26 June 21:19

            good = 4x

            but it has to be £80 on the noddle

            £80.01 gets you no bonus

          • bob says:
            26 Jun26 June 21:29

            On reflection, given the difficulty of hitting EXACTLY £80/£90 every time, you’d be better off on the Amex @ 4x

          • Dan says:
            26 Jun26 June 23:13

            Pretty nice MR from that I imagine! £200 litres a day at approx £230-£240 cost at the pump…..c.1000 MR points per day!

  • Fenny says:
    26 Jun26 June 21:30

    OT: Can Argos gift cards be used for online purchases as well as in store? And can they be used to purchase other gift cards?

    Need to spend my £70 and Argos seems to be a well priced source of SodaStream syrups, but the flavours I want are only available for delivery, not in store. If I get an Argos gift card, I can spend the £70 now and order more drink as and when.

    • bob says:
      26 Jun26 June 21:47

      Answer definitely NO as of last year but you can see latest online. I checked it out LY and negative.

      • Fenny says:
        26 Jun26 June 23:56

        Thanks. Bit of a bugger. Why don’t companies realise we want to spend gift cards online?

        • bob says:
          27 Jun27 June 00:11

          You can spend your £70 by buying the NowTvs @ 9.99 and reselling them for a miniscule profit after post but you’ll get the credit

          • Fenny says:
            27 Jun27 June 01:11

            Too much like hard work, especially as I bought 3 at Christmas and I’m only just getting to the end of the first Entertainment pass.

          • bob says:
            27 Jun27 June 09:32

            Not that much hard work. I had £70 in Curry’s vouchers, £75 in Argos just sitting there unused (wasted). Turned it back into real money and turned a small profit for my trouble – all sold easily. Also liberated the new £10 Argos credit (though I didn’t actually buy anything as they had to refund me on the spot but Amex doesn’t see that) and when I was in town also bought £15 of M&S chickens to liberate that voucher plus found £600 of pay.coms in Tesco.

            All in all a successful day.

  • Kip says:
    27 Jun27 June 15:28

    Looking at the Shell website it says to the pound – not the penny – so £50.00 to £50.99 should trigger the bonus points.

    • bob says:
      27 Jun27 June 17:00

      needs testing

    • Gavin says:
      27 Jun27 June 18:53

      That’s not how the “practice” game on their website works. I managed to get spot on £50.00 today but £60 or more wouldn’t fit in my fuel tank!

  • Geoff says:
    8 Jul8 July 23:55

    Looks like not many people having being trying this….

    They have changed the rules:

    “We wanted to make sure that as many of our customers as possible could enjoy extra Shell Bonus Points when they played our Pump Challenge*.

    We’ve now widened the bands where you get to earn points. So instead of having to land exactly on £30.00, say, you can pick up Bonus Points if you hit £29.50. Or if you go over and hit £30.50 you’ll still collect Bonus Points.”

    • Lionel says:
      9 Jul9 July 02:23

      Interesting. Was always a sackable promotion idea to have to land exactly on the x.00 point, which idiot suggested that?

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