Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

It’s back – buy up to 100,000 Avios, from 1.02p, via Groupon

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

It’s back (again).  You can buy cheap Avios points simply by heading over to the Spanish version of Groupon.

The fall in the £ in recent months means that this deal is not as good as it was last year, where you were paying as little as 0.7p per Avios.  The prices are the same as the September 2016 version although, as the £ has strengthened a little, the Sterling equivalent is cheaper.

This is an Iberia Plus deal.  This means that there are two hurdles to jump:

You need an Iberia Plus Avios account (easily fixed by going to iberia.com if you don’t have one)

Your Iberia account will need to be 90 days old before you are allowed to use ‘Combine My Avios’ and send your points across to your British Airways Executive Club or avios.com account

Click here for the Avios page you need on the Spanish Groupon site.

It is best to use Google Chrome to open it.  Chrome should offer to translate the text.  If it doesn’t, right click on your mouse and a translation option will appear.

There are five price levels.  The 2,000 Avios deal is the cheapest but the prices are well above previous deals:

2,000 Avios = €24 (£20.36) = 1.02p 

4,000 Avios = €59 (£50.05) = 1.25p

9,000 Avios = €119 (£100.96) = 1.12p

15,000 Avios = €189 (£160.35) = 1.07p 

20,000 Avios = €249 (£211.26) = 1.05p 

34,000 Avios = €429 (£363.98) = 1.07p 

You can buy a maximum of five packages AND 100,000 Avios per Iberia account.  However, you are restricted to just one of the ‘2,000 Avios’ packs.  The maximum number of Avios you can buy is therefore (20,000 x 5) 100,000 points for €1245.

You can pay by PayPal which may be easier – I did during the previous promotion – although you get legged over on the exchange rate.  All other credit cards are accepted including American Express.  If you do not use a 0% payment card, remember to factor in the 3% FX fee to the prices shown above.

About 30 minutes later you will receive an emailed voucher.  If you don’t, the voucher will also be showing in your account on the Spanish Groupon site.  There is a link in the voucher to a page on the Groupon site where you need to input the codes.

You are told that your Avios will take 30 days to appear but, in reality, they have historically turned up quicker.

The big question ….. is it worth it?

For most people, probably not.  It isn’t the most straightforward promotion ever.  The exchange rate is moving around daily.  Paying over 1p per Avios point is also above my comfort zone.

If you need to top off your account or if you have a very specific use for them – where you know you will receive well in excess of 1.1p of value – you may think differently.  Double check your maths first though.


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 (49)

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

  • John says:

    BA have 50% bonus on Avios purchases at present…

  • Joe says:

    I have to admit I’ve only been collecting Avios for a year so I’m quite new but I recently made my first redemptions. I got a £1400 discount on Club World flights to Cairo for 43,500 Avios (i.e. 3.21 pence per point; weirdly I’m flying there on the A321) and a £1,660 discount on Club World flights to the UAE for 39,000 Avios (i.e. 4.26 pence per point).

    So I’ve just gone ahead and bought 60,000 Avios on the Groupon offer for €747 (ironic) / £632. My thinking is that if I can redeem for the average of 4.26p and 3.21p (again weirdly, 7.47 ÷ 2) then I should be able to get £2,241 worth of discounts out of those points. Seems like a no brainer.

    I’m annoyed at myself for not spotting the Iberia Shopping Portal option! Damn it.

    On the plus side I called up to cancel my AMEX Gold the other day (because I already triggered the bonus and I always use the LBG card). When I told them why I wanted to cancel they bumped my Membership Rewards earning rate to 2 points per £1 until end of Feb. AMEX MR Points transfer to Avios 1:1. Worth doing if anyone’s in the same boat.

    • HIDeHi says:

      Club world on an A321?

      I don’t really understand your discount but if flights to Cairo in Club World on an A321 are £1400+, for one person then they are way overpriced.. Maybe its for more than one person?

    • Genghis says:

      Hi Joe. It looks like you’ve overlooked the taxes? Also it’s best to consider what you would have paid for the flight and value points accordingly. For instance, id never pay £1,400 to Cairo…

      • Joe says:

        Hi @HIDeHi @Genghis

        It’s just one traveller and taxes not overlooked.

        I absolutely needed the flights to Cairo and I had no real flexibility because I’d booked a mix of First and Business with Qatar from Cairo to New York via Doha (for £900 return cash!). It’s an absolutely mental route but I really wanted to try the First Class Al Safwa Lounge in Doha and also Qatar’s Business Class on its A350 which Skytrax has just awarded world’s best business for 2016. I’m also stopping in Cairo for one night each way and managed to get into the Kempinski for £70!

        Anyway, I recently saw some photos of BA’s A321s which are former BMI planes and fitted with a different type of hard product than BA’s usual Club World seat in a much more spacious config. I really wanted to try that too so decided to go Club both ways to Cairo. My dates are out 15th March, return 29th March and the tickets have been priced at £2001 for a while (and still are now; you can check on Google Flights). I was going to pay with Avios in full for 62,500 + £300 taxes. However I realised that if I did ‘book with cash, upgrade with Avios’ the fare was going to be £600 + 50000 Avios (but because I was doing it this way I would earn 6,500 Avios back because I’m essentially on a ‘cash booking’ not an Avios booking. So the offset cost was 43,500 Avios + £600 cash. Hence the calculation that I got a £1400 discount (on a £2001 fare) for just 43,500 Avios).

  • CardiffJock says:

    Hi Joe

    I can certainly see the benefit of using Avios instead of paying a salty £2,001 for a BA Business class return to Cairo.

    However, I’d count 62,500 Avios plus £300 as a better deal than 43,500 Avios + £600. Doing the latter means you’re essentially spending an extra £300 of hard cash in order to save yourself 19,000 Avios. Put another way, by doing it this way you’re effectively ‘buying’ 19,000 Avios for £300, which means each od those retained Avios is really costing you 1.58p… which is pretty expensive. Most on here wouldn’t pay more than 1p an Avios.

    That said, I appreciate there could be Tier Point/status considerations, as you wouldn’t earn TP for a redemption.

  • Nova oferta de compra de Avios via Groupon: 100 mil Avios por 1.245 euros (~R$ 5.099,05) | Meu Milhão de Milhas says:

    […] Fonte: Head For Points […]

  • Craig Strickland says:

    Avios seem to be a little slower this time, has anyone had theirs credited yet?

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.