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EXCLUSIVE: Earn 250 Avios when dining at local restaurants from 1st October

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Avios is gearing up for the launch of a new feature on 1st October – a new restaurant-booking portal called Restaurant Circle which will give you 250 Avios points with every table booked.

The system is being run by ResDiary which handles bookings for 5,900 independent restaurants.  It will be branded as Avios or British Airways Executive Club depending on which site you visit from.

The economics is interesting:

Not all 5,900 restaurants who use ResDiary will offer Avios.  It will be restricted to those who pay a £25 per month listing fee.  This fee is chunky when you consider that restaurants can pay as little as £49 per month to ResDiary for a fully functioning online booking platform.

The restaurant will pay Avios £3 per booking in return for awarding 250 Avios points to the booker

Different restaurants may appear on the Avios and BA-branded sites

‘Earning whilst dining’ programmes have been very successful in other countries but have never taken off in the UK.  The attraction for the restaurant is fairly clear:

The ability to attract extra customers to a business which has high fixed costs but low marginal costs

May attract additional business customers who are often less price sensitive than the general public

May attract a wealthier client base, given the British Airways Executive Club demographic

I don’t know if there will be any special launch offers available or not.  More details on Restaurant Circle should become available nearer 1st October.


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 (35)

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

  • Rob says:

    Why? All that would happen is that Curve would take your cash and buy Avios from IAG for 1p, or probably a bit more than 1p, each.

    As you can struggle to get more than 1p of value from them, you shouldn’t complain about getting cash which is more flexible. Feel free to use your Curve Rewards cash to book a BA flight for cash, with no availability issues!

    • Andrew says:

      I wasn’t complaining, I was thinking long term if the amex rate drops and the visa gets worse due to interchange fees etc. It may be a option if they did bonus transfers etc or maybe, I am thinking hopefully. Reading the blog it does say that you can’t use the rewards as a part payment yet, if the amount of rewards doesn’t cover the purchase amount it declines the payment. Their scheme looks interesting, it will be good to watch it evolve.

      • Johnnycl says:

        Not sure how they’ll be able to manage authorising transactions below the reward balance when using contactless. I guess it will revert to the next saved card for the balance but it will be interesting to test this.

  • Nick says:

    Sorry, O:T, is anyone still waiting for their £20 credit to their moneycorp account?

  • roger says:

    +1

  • flyforfun says:

    American Airlines used to (or maybe still does) have the iDine program that gave your points just for using your card at the eating establishment. You needed to register a card with iDine and you automatically got the points when you used it at the place – no need to book.

    I used it a few times signing up my UK card when on holidays there and racked up a 5hitlo@d of miles at places I wouldn’t expect to have offered miles. Given the points were on spend as well, it was very generous, sometimes like 5 points per $ spent.

    Alas, when I went to register my next card, they seemed to have twigged it wasn’t a US card or that the address I was using was a hotel. If it does exist I’ll see if I can get a pre-paid mastercard or similar in the US and see if that works!

    • Daniel says:

      Make sure with the Idine thing that you live in Beverly hills..90210.. that’s the trick…

  • Roger* says:

    Thanks for the Idine update, flyfor fun. i just checked my details and they are still valid. (My address ends in 00000.) Last used in 2015. The credit card number, used for logging award details, doesn’t need an expiry date as Idine don’t take payment. If people are already registered and use the same credit card for restaurant payment, they’re all set.

    Idine also operate several other miles-earning schemes via rewardsnetwork.com: Alaska, American, Delta, jetblue, Southwest, Spirit and United.

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