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Get a 20% bonus on Tesco Clubcard conversions to Avios

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British Airways Executive Club has announced the first “open to all” transfer bonus from Tesco Clubcard to Avios since, I think, July 2012.

From 1st November – so DO NOT CONVERT TODAY – until 30th November, you will receive a 20% transfer bonus on conversions from Tesco Clubcard into British Airways Executive Club.

Auto-convert members are OK as transfers which were made after 20th October will also receive the bonus.

Tesco Clubcard

There is a cap of £100 on the amount of Tesco vouchers that can be transferred.  You cannot get around this by sending £100 to BA and £100 to avios.com, because avios.com is not participating in this offer.

Full details can be found on the Clubcard website here.

Note that the wording between the site and the rules is not exactly the same.  The site says that you must convert in multiples of £10 to get the bonus.  The small print simply says that you must convert a minimum of £10 – and that once you are above that, you get the bonus on whatever amount you send over up to £100.

This bonus is not entirely unexpected.  I know that the Avios devaluation has impacted the willingness of some people to collect Avios from third parties.  This is purely common sense – if you believe that an Avios point is worth less than it was, other Clubcard redemption options or credit cards begin to look more attractive.

Avios, on the other hand, relies on income from third party issuers of Avios points.  The points issued from British Airways flights are a cost whilst the points issued via third parties are a revenue stream.

The only way to overcome this impact is to offer a transfer bonus which lessens the devaluation.  Where BA has gone wrong here is in capping the transfer at £100 – it was Club World redemption pricing which took the biggest hit, and only being able to transfer £100 of vouchers (28,800 Avios) is not going to make much impact.

Remember that Virgin Atlantic is also offering a 15% conversion bonus.  This is the first time in a long, long time that Virgin has had a poorer offer than BA!

The other thing to bear in mind is that Clubcard Boost returns on Monday, allowing you to get double the face value of your vouchers at Tesco Direct or for certain products in-store.  You should consider if this is a better deal or not.  Avios probably win out – a £10 Clubcard voucher would be worth £20 in Tesco Direct or 2,880 Avios points so you are effectively ‘buying’ Avios at 0.69p which is a good deal.


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 (220)

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

  • Clive says:

    Too many questions. Is it open to all or not? Is it £100 per CC account or per BAEC account? If per CC account what happens if it is a family account? Oh how I love conundrum on a Saturday morning.

  • GazTodd says:

    Avios used to be great but with the devaluation it’s pointless for anyone in the northwest /north collecting them for flights.

    Better off taking virgins offer and flying from Manchester. Lower taxes and always a great experience.

    • Callum says:

      You can fly directly to far more places with Avios from Manchester than you can with Virgin…

  • Mike says:

    Mixed emotions. On one hand whoop for a conversion bonus but seriously a £100 limit !!!!!! I have nearly £2K in club card vouchers that I have been hoarding waiting for a bonus to make up for the 50 percent increase in club/first redemption cost. I only hope it is £100 limit per club card account (er I have several) not per BAEC account.

    • harry says:

      Ditto on the £2K, I think the dog may join our BAEC household a/c, along with my gran & gramps (sadly deceased but living with us here in spirit), cousin James from New Zealand and maybe my imaginary friend Billy.

    • Andrew says:

      Mike,

      £2K in vouchers? I’m doing something wrong here…?

      Mind sharing your tips?

      Cheers,
      Andrew

  • Lady London says:

    This does not change my opinion on the miserable value of Avios. It shows they’re not really trying.

    After the changes to shorthaul in the US this week, who knows what other value they’re about to remove in Europe.

    Pathetic and I’m not impressed.

  • Duncan Stevenson says:

    Damn it! I auto-convert to Avios (NOT BA) and just sent 16,000 Avios across. Frustrating!

  • tall trader says:

    Tesco is as honest with their customers as they are with their accounting…

    They auto-transferred my points to Avios (not BA) the VERY DAY before announcing this deal !
    Even though I repeatedly emailed their “customer service” in the past few weeks about the date of the quarterly transfer (I got a different responses from different people working at Tesco….)

    What is the point of having a special offer if you don’t let your customers use it !?
    Can’t wait for them to go bankrupt.

    • pauldb says:

      The point of a special offer is to incentivise you to do something. If you are already auto-converting, why would they offer you an incentive.

    • Brian says:

      If you were worried that you might miss out on something (which is presumably why you kept on emailing them), why didn’t you just switch off auto-convert? Once you have banked the bonus for activating auto-convert, there is nothing to be gained by keeping it on (other than perhaps convenience, but I’m not sure the HfP readers are too worried about convenience, given the lengths we will go to in order to get points) and there is potentially something to lose – as you have in this case.

  • tall trader says:

    and about the “have you received the email” thing… my strong feeling is Tesco will just use this as an excuse for people who will complain that their extra points haven’t been received…

    • Daniel says:

      Given the text shows up on the page even if you just navigate through the menu …. I can’t see how that could be valid! More than likely a promo open to everyone.

    • Callum says:

      My strong feeling is that you messed up and want to blame tesco for it so from now on always believe the worst.

      Why on Earth would they advertise it so prominently if they had such a ridiculously sneaky plan?

  • Waffles1 says:

    I’ve just had a reply on twitter from Tesco – I never received the email, but they have said that I will receive the bonus, but it won’t be paid until the end of the promotion.

    • Rob says:

      That is almost certainly untrue. Conversion bonuses have always been added automatically. We will be able to see from tomorrow whether that is still the case here but I am guessing it is.

    • CV3V says:

      this is a standard response from Tesco customer services – that it will all be ok by end of quarter, proven so many times not to be the case. Get Clubcard to add them manually.

      As Raffles says, will get a better idea in the next few days when people start doing conversions.

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

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