Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

New Avios earning partner – Direct Ferries

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Avios.com has a new earning partner – Direct Ferries.

You can visit their website here.

Direct Ferries is a central booking site for 137 ferry companies around the world.  From the UK, they work with companies such as Brittany Ferries, P&O Ferries and Stena Line, as well as Eurotunnel.

The scale of the site is impressive.  You can book 1,770 ferry routes covering 516 ferry ports, connecting you to over 169 countries and islands.

The Avios earning rate seems decent – you will earn 4 Avios points for every £1 spent.

There is no special booking link.  Book as usual on the main Direct Ferries site.  When you create an account with Direct Ferries you will find a box to enter your Avios number.  Once done, you will automatically be credited with points from all of your bookings.

Remember that this is an avios.com partnership and not a British Airways Executive Club one.  You will need an avios.com account.  The points you earn can easily be moved across to BA afterwards using the ‘Combine My Avios’ function on ba.com.


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 (48)

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

  • ee says:

    O/T my daily emails from HFP and SP both failed to come thru yesterday and today! Is there an issue Rob?

    • Raffles says:

      I got all mine too!

      You may have accidentally clicked on the spam button in your browser whilst reading one, which probably blocks them at server level.

      No-one else mentioned anything and the open rate (yes, I know if you open them) was steady.

      • ee says:

        Strange, I don’t think I’ve spammed them away! I have another email address for the same account so I’ve signed that up and we’ll see what happens tomorrow!

  • harry says:

    Got all mine fine

  • Daniel says:

    F**k. I probably have spent close to 5k over the past 3 years and it seems that it will be it for some time…

  • Mikeact says:

    Excellent company. .have used them for last few years, US, Australia, Canaries, Greek Isles.

  • Henk says:

    I also checked for my eurotunnel trip in march, and directferries was £12 more than booking direct.

  • Andrew H says:

    Off topic – has anyone had a go at the offer of 4000 Tesco CC points for pet insurance?

    I gather quite a few people on hotukdeals are buyiing it despite not owning a cat or dog.

    It’s a matter of finding the pet details that offer the least annual cover apparently.

    http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/4000-40-00-tesco-clubcard-points-with-a-new-pet-insurance-policy-2368251?page=3#comments

    • harry says:

      Can’t until next quarter 🙂

      Healthy young kitten or dog with middle-aged married owners living in peaceful countryside gets you £5/ month. You can cancel after 30 days but I should wait for the points first.

      • Andrew H says:

        Next quarter? How come?

        Some people seem to be getting it down to £30! 🙂

        • harry says:

          £31/£38 (bit worried about that one lol)

          • Andrew H says:

            What data did you enter for that deal?! 🙂

          • harry says:

            Sorry meant £310/ £380 on clubcard.

            As for pets, I can’t see better than £5/ month for a young healthy non pedigree pet etc but I didn’t put in my clubcard number so no discount

          • Lady London says:

            do they cover gerbils?

          • harry says:

            jerboa believe it 🙂

          • Andrew H says:

            Tried one British Bicoloured Shorthair kitten, eight weeks old, with middle aged married couple…

            Extra – £10.21 per month
            Premium – £14.20 per month (they only give you the 4000 points if you choose extra or premium)

          • Andrew H says:

            Can get it down to £4.55 a month

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      Not sure why this hasn’t been covered on HfP. It was mentioned in the comments section yesterday and is covered in a lot of the usual places elsewhere. The offer does run for a while but I suspect it might be withdrawn before too long.

      Anyway, I have just insured my healthy, chipped, spayed, 3yr male indoor cat for £6.31 for the first month’s direct debit. A very good outlay for £40 of CC points. Now, where did I put my cat?

      • Andrew H says:

        Am assuming you might have to do two months before the points arrive.

        Although, can they take the points away if you cancel after a couple of months?

        • Mr(s) Entitled says:

          T&C’s with regard the 4,000 point simply state: “If you cancel your policy within the first 30 days you will not receive the Clubcard points.”. Within 30 days tells me that the 30th day should be fine but even with two premiums I’m still quids in.

          Also worth noting, that the premium I quoted was my first attempt. I wasn’t going to spend too long playing around with criteria to save a pound or two. Literally took me 2 mins.

      • Worzel says:

        Mr(s) Entitled, whereas I won’t be taking out the insurance, I am reminded of Mrs Slocombe, thank you 🙂 .

      • Rob says:

        I was in the Four Seasons Hotel in Hampshire yesterday, that’s why! Kids didn’t go back until today.

        It will run across both HFP and SP tomorrow.

        If I was even 50% on the ball I would have remembered the SPG closing date and saved myself the bother of knocking out the ‘bits’ piece at 1am ….

    • Jaz says:

      Are people confident that by paying monthly for pet insurance, and cancelling after the first month, there will be no further cost liability? I know that for (car) insurance paid fully in advance, the amount you get back on cancellation is often less than the pro-rated period remaining due to insurers’ admin fees.

      • harry says:

        Tesco themselves talk about customers cancelling, on the pet insurance website bit – so it will be perfectly ok

        you can cancel any uk insurance policy at any time – but not if you have entered into a finance vehicle (loan agreement) to pay the insurance – which won’t be the case here

        • Jaz says:

          From the policy agreement, it appears you are entering into a loan agreement, by paying monthly. Under Policy Payments:

          “If you decide to pay your premium in monthly installments under a linked loan agreement we continue to take payment unless you tell us to stop”

          However this clause also seem to imply that they will stop when you tell them to.

          • harry says:

            That’s to be avoided, just in case. A monthly direct debit arrangement with no linked loan is the way to go.

          • Mark says:

            They would have to allow cancellation if the cat/dog died…

    • Roberto says:

      Sorted out insurance for my daughters imaginary cat oddly called avios.. Thanks for the heads up.

  • Roger says:

    How nostalgic to see the stock photo of a company no longer operating – MyFerryLink – thanks to the daft decisions of the UK’s ‘competition’ authority. 🙁

    • Rob says:

      That pic is actually from the Direct Ferries website!

    • Lady London says:

      @Roger I couldn’t agree more. The moment the demise of myferrylink was certain the fares of other operators across the channel went up by £20 each way.

  • Daniel says:

    In relation to the Direct Ferries – from the booking page it would appear you can allocate your points directly to Avios, BA Exec, Iberia Plus or Meriidian Club.

    One question:
    When you book direct with a ferry company like Stena Line you can earn their own reward points scheme which at Gold level earns 10 points for every £1 spent
    • Redeem 1 point at a value of 1p
    • Free entry to the Stena Plus Lounge for you and a guest
    • No service charge for non-web bookings and booking changes

    If you book with Direct Ferry am I correct in thinking you be unable to claim points with the ferry company?

    • Frenske says:

      I would say you are correct. Furthermore you night want to compare the prices of DirectFerries with StenaLine prices. There might be a significant difference.

    • JQ says:

      I think you need to spend £5000 to get to Stena Gold. Their points expire in 2 years and basically amount to 5% or 10% rebate.

      I prefer to use Clubcard points for ferries, which works out at 0.8p per Avios of true savings

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

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