Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Applying for credit cards? Check your full credit report online, for free, with Noddle

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A lot of posts on Head for Points are dedicated to collecting miles and points from credit card sign-up bonuses.  And there is a good reason for this – credit card sign-up deals are by far the easiest way to accumulate a large number of points quickly.

Your credit record is very important, and it is well worth taking a look at it every so often to ensure that it is up to date.  You want to ensure, for example, that no erroneous information is listed against your name, in terms of missed payments or cards you have.  It also enables you to watch out for any attempts at ID theft.

You have always been able to order a copy of your credit record by post from Experian for a small fee.

A website called Noddle (www.noddle.co.uk), though, takes this one step further in two ways:

  • You can view your credit report immediately, online
  • There is no fee whatsoever, ever

Noddle will automatically update your data as long as you log-in to the site once every three months

I have using Noddle since I first mentioned it on HfP 18 months ago.  It is far better than the ‘one month free trial’ offered by Experian on their comparable offering.

If you are churning credit cards to build up your miles, it is worth taking a look at Noddle and see what data the banks already hold on you.  (You need to be on a UK computer for it to work, note.)  You’ve nothing to lose and you may be surprised by what you find.


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 (38)

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

  • James says:

    Noddle is only one service. You could potentially have a very different score on Experian and that is used by most banks. It’s not as comprehensive.

  • Kathryn says:

    Useful to know that these things are available for free. I tried to switch my electricity last year and got rejected on the credit check which seemed bizarre – I already pay for Experian and that said I had an excellent rating.

    So I found out that the electricity company used call credit and signed up with them too. Turned out that someone had recently opened a TSB bank account in my name, so had to get the identity fraud people involved.

    All the other credit stuff was consistent, but I still had a poor rating with one and an excellent rating with the other which I couldn’t get my head around!

  • http://finchannel.com/ says:

    http://finchannel.com/

    Check your credit report online FREE with Noddle

  • Pug106 says:

    OT, please, have spent the required amounts on Amex Prem and Gold cards to receive the miles and a 2-4-1. Would like to carry on using a credit card for rewards. Where should I go next please – Virgin cards? TIA

    • Genghis says:

      Depends what you want to earn. SPG? The Hilton card for free night weekend stay?

      • Pug106 says:

        Thank you. Yes, I’ve just received Hilton cards for OH and me.

        • Genghis says:

          Have you already recommended your OH for the BAPP and the Amex Gold/Plat? Playing referral ping pong with the OH can earn serious points.

    • Rob says:

      As you only have a few months, I assume, until your BA Amex 241 year re-starts for the next voucher, you might as well go for something which can give you a miles or bonus hit in a fairly short period. Virgin is OK but only if you think you’d earn enough miles for a good redemption. Otherwise, you might as well get, say, SPG Amex to trigger a bonus you can convert to Avios.

  • George says:

    Back in the days that I was going for a mortgage (dark days indeed – I didn’t have any credit cards at the time.. ) I signed up for Checkmyfile. It delivers reports on what Equifax, Experian and Callcredit have on you, so no stone left unturned. Very happy with their service and their comprehensive breakdown of accounts. Considering I have an aversion to credit scoring agencies, I’m happy to give my money elsewhere.

    On a seperate note, does anyone know if using a charge card on an everyday basis, has a smaller effect on your score (positive or negative), than if you were to use a credit card?

    Also, if you take out a credit card and cancel it within 15-20 days, (eg I took out the SPG card, hit the 2k, paid it in full, cancelled it before the statement even had the chance to show up) how does it affect your score? I’m asking because the SPG card that I took out and cancelled, never even made an appearance in my credit accounts.

    • The_Real_A says:

      A charge card appears as an open line of credit, and the amount of the “bill” is sent to the agency each month. This impacts:
      1) Number of credit searches in last 6 months
      2) Skews your rolling average of open credit for 36 months
      3) If you have multiple AMEX cards, each one shows as a new search and a seperate account on your file.

      I have tested with MBNA and AMEX – If you clear your balance before the date that the statement is produced then the “debt” does not appear on the credit file. Its the staement balance that is transferred across.

      • Talay says:

        This is true as I have large transactional balances each month but clear them monthly also. Yet for the purposes of someone viewing my file, it may look like I have a permanent debt of tens of thousands which goes up and down a little each month.

        The picture to the observer is quite different to the reality !

  • David Douglas says:

    I would comment that I am not impressed with the Noddle website compared to other free products available. I signed up for it and Clear Score and the trial Experian product to identify errors that one financial institution had made, (and though the institution did compensate me, they did not tidy up the information they sent to credit agencies, so I had to do this).
    Experian and ClearScore (Equifax) corrected the information within a few days of being advised,after 1 e-mail,but Noddle seemed to do everything they could to avoid the correction, leading to protracted e-mail correspondence over a number of weeks.

  • chaz says:

    You need a bionic memory to verify your ID. Having / had a heap of bank accounts and credit cards I just couldnt remember when so and so account was opened…and so Noodles said ‘non’ 🙁

    • Talay says:

      You can obtain a credit file from another provider to give you the information you need to bypass the Noddle Q&A nonsense.

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

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