Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Earn 5,000 Avios on ANY hotel booking with new BA Amex / Kaligo.com promotion

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If you have a British Airways American Express card and are opted into emails, you should have received details yesterday of a tie-up between online hotel booker Kaligo.com and American Express.

It is a very good deal.

You will receive 5,000 bonus Avios points for ANY hotel booking made via Kaligo.com before September 30th.  The stay itself does not have to be made until July 1st 2016.

Kaligo 350 2

The stay must be paid for with a British Airways American Express card.

You can only earn the bonus once per person.

Anyone can take part, even if they are an existing Kaligo.com customer.

You must register in advance for this deal via this link here.

You can see that there are some exceptionally good deals to be had here.  For a random July weekday in Sheffield I had no problem finding a number of decent hotels for under £50 – all of which would earn you at least 5,200 Avios points.

If you value an Avios point at 1p, this offer even creeps into ‘mattress run’ territory.  It may be worth booking a cheap room, checking in and leaving immediately with no intention of spending the night.  That said, I’m pretty sure that most HfP readers could divert one night to a Kaligo.com booking over the next few months.

There is also a generous cumulative promotion for bigger spenders which could earn up to 20,000 additional Avios points.

The cumulative bonus is based on your spending with Kaligo.com over July, August and September.  It is based on booking and not stay date, which can be as far out as 1 July 2016, although you will not receive the Avios until after your stay.

The bonus below does NOT require you to use a British Airways American Express card and is open to anyone who is a member of British Airways Executive Club.  The cumulative bonuses you can earn are:

3,000 Avios if you spend £250 – £499

10,000 Avios if you spend £500 – £999

20,000 Avios if you spend £1,000+

This is on top of the 5,000 bonus Avios points you earn with your first BA Amex-funded booking.

As usual with Kaligo.com and its competitors PointsHound and Rocketmiles, you should check competing sites before you book.  They will not always be the cheapest every time, but if you factor in the value of the Avios points then they should be very competitive.  Business users should note that none of the sites above can provide VAT receipts – if that is an issue, you should wait until you need to book a hotel outside of the EU.

You must register for this promotion in order to receive the bonus Avios.  If you don’t have a BA Amex card, you can register for this promotion on its own here.  BA Amex cardholders will be automatically registered when signing up for the ‘5,000 Avios in one stay’ promotion.

If you do not have a British Airways American Express card, you could think of this promotion as an additional 5,000 Avios sign-up bonus.  You would receive your card within 7-10 days of applying which would give you plenty of time to make a booking via this promotion.

My review of the free BA Amex is here and my review of the Premium Plus fee-paying version is 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 (59)

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

  • Trevor says:

    Hi folks
    Worked a treat and got a cheap room in Brighton [£88] and 5300 Avios. Thought I would try Kaligo for our Chicago trip next May. Booking direct with the Allegro Kimpton in Downtown 2 rooms for 3 nights is costing us £1200. Booking through Kaligo? £2500 although I would get 30,000 Avios. Those points are pretty expensive in the Windy City. I’ll stick with booking direct. One other thing, a really useful feature would be to see all the hotels on a map after the search. Trying to see where the hotels are in a district is pretty arduous one by one.

  • alan says:

    The email this morning was timely as I’m just about to book 7 days at Shangri-La’s Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa in Penang – booking on booking.com or even the own website is £54 cheaper than than Kaligo. I’ve emailed them but I guess there is slim chance of a price match.

    Seems massively inflated booking.com even has a book now pay later option that’s miles cheaper.

    • Rob says:

      Shangri La offering double points until end September. May make booking direct worthwhile. See article over weekend.

  • Steve says:

    I tried really hard to use Kaligo to boost my Avios points a few months back when I was travelling through Asia and NZ but every time they were considerably more expensive than booking direct. It might be worth a punt with this bonus offer, but I’m not convinced their prices are competitive enough to justify the Avios earned generally.

  • Dan says:

    Just checking – do you receive the 5000 Avios at time of booking or post check out? Might affect when I book my stay!

  • Brian says:

    Hi, can you use the same BA Exec number twice and get 10,000 avios as long as you register under different emails?

    • Sebastian (COO, Kaligo.com) says:

      Hi Brian, the offer is available once per Card and per registered email address. Supplementary cards do qualify, so each supplementary cardmember can take advantage of the offer as well.

      • Brian says:

        Hi Sebastian thanks for the reply. To clarify, can you use the same BA Exectuive Club Member numbership mote than once in the Amex promotion, if used under different email addresses? I have four bookings to make. E.g. could I use my BA number four separate times and earn 20,000 Avios? Or would I have to use different BA numbers each time? Thanks

  • John Brett says:

    The problem with this site is its very basic – no contact page that I can find, no T&Cs that I can find, and as has been said by another poster, the room descriptions are vague and don’t match up with the hotels’ own descriptions which can make it difficult to work out what you’re getting.
    I’ve just completed a stay from a previous promotion but am reluctant to try more because of these issues with the website. Other than cancelling or reseeding confirmation I’ve really no way to contact them if need be. I tried posting to their Facebook page but the post disappeared into cyberspace.

    Is Kaligo going to do anything about this? The site is too basic.

  • mkcol says:

    Fortuitous posting.
    I need to stay for a short night at LHR on 18th August.
    I’ve chosen the (rather woeful) Thistle based on plenty of parking at decent rate & ability to use the Heathrow Pods which are super-easy.
    Booking direct with Thistle is £81
    Booking via Kaligo is £68 – plus I earn 5200 Avios as paying with my BAPP AMEX.

    Given I’m staying there anyway, I think I’m onto a winner!

  • Mikee says:

    Had a brain failure and just booked a non-refundable stay in Berlin…but using my Amex Gold card and not my BA Amex 🙁 I presume the points won’t post?

    • Rob says:

      Nope, they will be tracking the first six digits of the card charged. Unfortunate ….!

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

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