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72 people will win 1 million Avios points with Shell Drivers Club

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Shell Drivers Club is a partner with both avios.com and British Airways Executive Club.  In December, they are giving away 72 million Avios points in a major competition.

First, a quick reminder of how Shell Drivers Club works.  It is a simple system.  You earn 1 Shell Drivers Club point for every litre of basic fuel you buy and 2 points per litre of V-Power premium fuel.  When you have collected 500 points, you can exchange them for:

250 Avios points (see the BA website for the official details, scroll down)

£2.50 Waitrose voucher

£2.50 Shell voucher

It is worth noting that, because of the relatively poor conversion rate, you may want to take the Waitrose or Shell vouchers instead.  You are effectively ‘buying’ Avios points for 1p by taking the miles option, and that is not the cheapest of prices.

The only advantage of taking Avios is that it is a better deal for small spenders.  If you set up auto-convert, you only need as few as 20 Shell points to qualify to receive Avios (in this case, 10 Avios) at the end of each quarter.  You need to buy 500 litres of fuel to get enough points for a Waitrose voucher!

Shell has launched a big competition for Christmas

Every day until Christmas Eve, Shell is giving away 1 million Avios points to THREE people.  This means that 72 people are going to become Avios millionaires.

Entering is a little tricky.  You need to visit a Shell garage and pay for your fuel with Paypal via the Shell Motorist app on your smartphone.  This instantly knocks out people without a smartphone or who live in rural areas with poor mobile reception.

The minimum purchase is £20.

I have never tried this app, but it apparently allows you to pay without having to visit the cashier.  This could be a handy time saver and will cut down on random junk food purchases in the shop as well.

You can find out more on the Shell Drivers Club website here.  Good luck – it would be fantastic if a Head for Points reader was a winner.


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 (83)

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

  • Nyul says:

    I got the £5 offer to pay with the app, so drove over there a few days ago in the rain & traffic. I got to the garage to find the whole Fill & Go system was broken displaying an “Out of Order” message. It was like that the week before too. As others have said Shell is also ALWAYS the most expensive around me (North London) by about 2% so I’ll be switching to Esso/Tesco.

  • Sussex Bantam says:

    Great. If none of you lot enter I’m BOUND to win !!!

  • oyster says:

    OT but has anyone received the Tesco>Avios 20% bonus yet?

  • SimonB says:

    I think it’s all rather exciting. I do love a good competition. I never ever win any of them but never mind! Have downloaded the app no problem, so let’s see how it goes this afternoon at the pump!

  • EvilGazebo says:

    Just in case it helps anyone else: I set everything up fine, started the app and it switched to camera fine.

    Trotted off to Shell later to make an unnecessary fuel purchase. Started app, entered PIN, got “Sorry, there is a problem please try later endlessly”. Didn’t fuel and went home annoyed.

    Only way to fix seems to be a complete uninstall and reinstall of the app. Only cause I can think of is that my Android phone battery level had dipped to a level where the camera could not start – I can only think that for some reason even when the battery was OK again the app never quite recovered from not being able to launch the camera

  • Dale says:

    SOme doubt whether this system has got the required approval from national weights and measures authority. Seems like a complete shambles.

  • StevieM says:

    WHAT A FAFF!
    Oh, and BTW, your location finder i.e. GPS HAS to be on to be able to use it. Not something I have switched on all the time.
    So, having spent the last 45 mins linking my Pay Pal to my Shell App (had to update my Shell App AND my PayPal account, manage the settings, etc.), whenever I fill up I have to :
    1. Enter my phone code
    2. Turn on GPS
    3. Open the Shell App.
    4. Log into my Shell App.
    5. Select ‘Fill My Car’ or whatever it’s called
    6. Sit in my car
    7. Hope it picks up the QR…..from the car
    8. Wait for it to authorise
    and Hey Presto….the person who pulled in behind me has already driven passed me having paid in store!
    Anyhoo, I’ll give it a bash for December for the competition.
    Great prize it has to be said!

    • TimS says:

      My GPS is NEVER turned on and I was able to use the app fine & complete a transaction using it last week.

      It isn”t quite as complicated as you suggest. The actual steps when I used it were:

      1. Unlock phone screen
      2. Open the Shell App.
      3. Enter 5 digit passcode.
      4. Select ‘Fill My Car’
      5. Scan QR code from inside the car
      6. Wait 20 seconds or so for it to authorise
      7. Get out of car & start filling up.

      In my experience, it took about the same time as had I gone into the shop to pay and there was no queue at the till. If there was a queue in the shop, the Fill & Go would have been much quicker than queueing.

      • GraemeC says:

        you can also use finger print recognition for the app if your smartphone supports that, saves an additional 0.5 seconds

  • EvilGazebo says:

    This promo is obviously following the universal marketing rule which states: “The value of the competition prize is inversely proportional to the usability and/or utility of the service it is promoting”

    And it works – for 1M Avios I will be living in my local Shell for the month of December 😀

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