Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: lounge passes with O2 Priority Moments, bonus Avis Avios via Iberia

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News in brief:

Airport lounge passes for £15 for O2 Priority Moments customers

If you are an O2 mobile customer and are signed up to Priority Moments, you can currently buy airport lounge passes for £15 each.

The offer is here.  You are buying passes for any lounge in the Dragonpass network, which is quite a large one – but do check their website first.

Across Heathrow and Gatwick, it includes the No 1 Traveller lounges, Plaza Premium and – interestingly – the Regus airside lounges.

Dragonpass

500 extra Avios crediting Avis rentals to Iberia

Iberia Plus has launched a new promotion with Avis.  If you book a car for 2 or more days before 15th March, you will receive 1,000 Avios instead of the usual 500.

This is more generous than the offer for crediting to British Airways Avios, which is 3 Avios per £1 with a minimum of 500 for a 2 day rental.

Full details can be found on the Iberia / Avis website 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 (40)

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

  • Stu R says:

    Not wishing to dumb down the Iberia Avis offer, but worthy of mention that BA offers 700 Avios minimum for rentals greater than 2 days, plus 250 bonus Avios if you pay by BA Amex, and 3 Avios per £ spent via your Amex statement – all added together results in a minimal bonus booking via Iberia and having to deal with their customer service if the points don’t credit.

    http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/collecting-avios/car-rental

    • Peter Taysum says:

      Plus I think 5x bookings via BA per annum and you get a bonus? plus the additional driver bonus for being BAEC. Mind I’ve not had the Gold benefit of the car waiting at arrivals… (It’s only upstairs and with Avis Plus you queue jump).

      • Radiata says:

        AMEX Plat holders benefit from preferential Avis rates as well as comprehensive insurance from AMEX.

        My question thus: should one switch the AMEX Plat card stored on Avis Wizard profile for a BAPP AMEX, would one lose the rate and cover benefits of the Avis:AMEX Plat relationship?

        Secondly, four bookings in 2015 – credited on BAEC statement with requisite Avios – appeared not to have triggered 750 Avios bonus (as per their t&c on Stu R’s link above) so worth double checking one’s statement.

  • Sav says:

    A bit OT but Qantas will build a rather nice lounge at Heathrow T3 later this year, check out http://bit.ly/1QcYZQh

    Another great choice for Oneworld members?

  • Jonathan says:

    What would you recommend, No. 1 lounge, My Lounge or Aspire for Gatwick North at the moment? I recall one has been invaded by one world business customers since closing the BA lounge but can’t remember which! Thanks

    • Rob says:

      At peak times, No 1 and My Lounge will be overrun by BA passengers. Never been in Aspire but apparently it is perfectly acceptable.

  • Liz says:

    OT: sorry to go off topic but I need some help. We got our first free night Hilton certificate yesterday. Was going to use it for a night in Chicago but decided not to as we already have a great hotel booked for 5 nights and now reluctant to change it. So my question is – what is the best hotel for a free night in London. Alternately I was looking at the Hilton at Bankside which seems to be getting great reviews. We are looking at 3 nights in total. If we book two nights in my name (Diamond) then one weekend night in my husbands who has the certificte (Silver) can we link the booking together or would this jeopardise my points collecting for the first two nights? Also the Hilton site is charging £199 per night for a refundable room. Hotels.com is offering under ‘secret prices’ £259 for 2 nights refundable rate. Can I claim for best rate guarantee from Hilton. Don’t want to buy the cheaper non refundable rate if I can’t get a successful claim. You wouldn’t think getting a free night would be so complicated! Thanks.

    • Paul says:

      Don’t think your claim against a secret price will stand as it is a secret price offered to you and not the general public.

      • Liz says:

        Ok thanks – thought that was too good to be true.

      • Liz says:

        My husband has the voucher on his account – I can’t get the Hilton card as I have the IHG. So what is the best top Hilton hotel for the certificate – we could do the secret price for £235 non refundable rate now for 2 nights as it is such a great price then move to a different hotel for the free night certificate.

        • Rob says:

          Conrad hotel is also worth a look – this was an InterCon remember. I reviewed it on HFP.

          • ET0125 says:

            OT again but do you still get benefits of being a gold e.g free breakfast, if you are using a free night certificate?

          • Alan says:

            Yep, free breakkie on paid-for and reward nights as Gold 🙂

      • mark2 says:

        I agree about being careful with linking contiguous bookings.
        I have just had a very long battle with Hilton and Barclaycard about 2500 Barclaycard bonus when my wife’s stay got moved to my account.
        She got them in the end, but I would not bothered had I not been retired and become a Grumpy Old Man. She did get 3000 extra points from Hilton and £50 from Barclaycard but it should gave been more.

        • Liz says:

          Ok think we will split it and do the Conrad and Bankside. If we buy a drink and charge it to the room on the free night certificate will we still get the 2500 HH points for using the credit card in the first year?

          • Rob says:

            Possibly, no guarantee. You should get all the Conrad bonuses I list on the Hotel Promos page though.

          • Alan says:

            Yep, should do the trick – make sure you add the card to your HHonors profile too, I’ve found.

          • CDB says:

            I did Conrad end Jan free stay and got the 2,500 card bonus + 5,000 various other bonuses. Paid minibar on Hilton card.

          • Liz says:

            Brill – will definitely have a drink to get some points!

    • harry says:

      Yep zero chance of success on a claim vs secret prices IMV

  • Al Sng says:

    Regus has it cheaper at permanently £0 membership fee + £14.75 per lounge visit across the Dragonpass network, although you only get a digital card, no plastic 🙂

  • harry says:

    6 DP lounge cards for £13.50 (ie £2.25 each) if you time your Barclays Travel Plus pack for the 1 month you can use all 6 before cancelling, repeatable once every 12 months

    • Wally1976 says:

      Harry – I’m planning on doing that for a family trip in the summer. How long do I need to allow for the passes to come through? Don’t want to do it too early and have to pay a second month but don’t want to do it too late and the passes don’t arrive in time! Thanks.

      • harry says:

        They were q slow to post me the card. However, what you can do is get them to email you 6 lounge passes, they were very quick to do this when I asked and the passes worked fine. Just say you are travelling soon etc

      • John says:

        Sign up with Dragon/Barclays, go to apple/googleplay store and download the app to your smartphone. Virtual card and visit vouchers appear instantly, so you could leave joining until the day before you need access.

  • David says:

    Is the telegraph dragonpass lounge code which was printed last year still valid (for non-subscribers)? It gave access to £15 entries at the time, but the website suggests passes have since increased to £16.50. It appears subscribers can access the offer year-round.

    Another option would be to get an O2 PAYG SIM, however the offer ends soon.

    Are any other reduced price lounge access options available for the solo traveller who isn’t a member of Regus, a telegraph subscriber, or wish to take out a Barclays account? Perhaps an opportunity for a HFP/Dragonpass offer?

  • Laura says:

    Just got my first lounge pass for my first Virgin reward flight in June. Hoping it is worth the 15 quid. I’m not sure if the discount count works if you don’t click through the app, but the code is O2DP16 if anyone wishes to try.

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

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