Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

How to earn Avios with your Caffe Nero coffee and other High Street retailers

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Avios wants you to hit the high street and earn Avios from your in-store purchases.

Sounds familiar? We were also confused by Avios’ announcement. Do they not have a partnership with Bink to do exactly the same thing?

Two weeks ago we ran a competition with Bink to promote their new app which lets you earn Avios points when shopping at Pizza Express, with more retailers and companies soon(ish).

Avios wing 15

Now Avios has launched their own in-store loyalty initiative, an addition to their e-store, with nine shops included so far.   If you have signed up with Bink you still need to register separately for this new Avios initiative – and vice versa.

The idea is simple:

  1. register your payment card on the Avios website
  2. shop in specific stores, paying with your registered card
  3. have Avios deposited directly into your avios.com account, based on what you spent

The retailers where you can earn Avios in store are:

American Golf (5 Avios/£1 in store – and 3 Avios/£1 online via e-store)

Barrhead Travel (2 Avios/£1 in store only)

Blue Inc (5 Avios/£1 in store – and 4 Avios/£1 online via e-store)

Caffe Nero (10 Avios/£1 in store only – obviously!)

Ernest Jones (3 Avios/£1 in store – and 7 Avios/£1 online via e-store)

H. Samuel (3 Avios/£1 in store – and 7 Avios/£1 online via e-store)

Habitat (5 Avios/£1 in store – and 2 Avios/£1 online via e-store)

Heal’s (2 Avios/£1 in store – 6 Avios/£1 online via e-store)

Officers Club (5 Avios/£1 in store only)

Did you notice the amount of Avios awarded?

I would have thought that those retailers that are on the e-store as well as taking part in the in-store programme would award at least the same amount of Avios to promote this new offer. Looking at H. Samuel, Ernest Jones and Heal’s this is not the case.

Given that the in-store rate is weak, compared to purchasing online, at H. Samuel, Ernest Jones and Heal’s, the most valuable partner seems to be Caffe Nero.

After all 10 Avios for every £1 spent can substantially improve the mileage account of a coffee addict ……

If you do want to collect Avios in-store with those retailers, you need to register your payment card and wait 24 hours before making your first purchase.

Once you have bought something, your Avios will show as ‘pending’ in the e-store within 7 days.  Purchases will be approved within 35 days and once approved will show in your avios.com account within 24 hours.

The best thing about these offers is that you can register your cards at the Avios site and then forget about it.  If you end up buying a coffee at Nero in three months time, when you have totally forgotten that this deal exists, you will still get the Avios.

Overall though, I’m not sure what the Avios agenda is here, given that they are providing competition for their existing partner Bink ……

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (46)

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

  • flyforfun says:
    19 Dec19 December 05:36

    The Costa one would be very attractive if only there coffee was better!

    I hope this is the start of a similar thing to idine in the US. Be nice to get points without having to go through websites or show particular apps.

    • Rob says:
      19 Dec19 December 06:31

      Makes sense that there would be less Avoid in store as 1) You don’t need to do anything to collect so how do they prove if a visit is incremental and 2) online your competitors are only a few clicks away but in store you need to actually move.

    • Rob says:
      19 Dec19 December 06:32

      Cafe Nero, not Costa. I wish it was Costa as they are everywhere.

  • Andrew says:
    19 Dec19 December 05:59

    Stacking with the 5% back on spends over £5 and 8% back on everything offers some of have on our Amex cards re. Caffe Nero and this could be very handy indeed. Gift card top-up anyone?

  • Concerto says:
    19 Dec19 December 07:49

    Costa is awful, like drinking acid. I can just about do Nero, but it’s so British and about as classy as the cheap flights they originally went on to wherever which showed them how beyond dreadful British coffee was until fairly recently.

    • Ro says:
      19 Dec19 December 08:04

      Nero/costa/starbucks…. they are all the equivalent of drinking malaena. Horrific.

      • Lady London says:
        19 Dec19 December 09:50

        Starbucks isn’t even coffee.
        Good to pop in there in the US if you need wifi in a hurry, though

        • the_real_a says:
          19 Dec19 December 10:02

          Ground and brewed forest woodbark isn’t it?

          • mark2 says:
            19 Dec19 December 11:35

            I read once that in order to get the same taste throughout the world they over-roast (burn) it. I was recently ‘forced’ to use them in a motorway services and it did taste like it. Going to Seattle in June so I may risk one cup while there.

  • vol says:
    19 Dec19 December 08:45

    The menfolk in my household like Blue Inc, so this is a good one for me. Sadly Blue Inc doesn’t accept Amex, but the extra 1 Avios in store makes up for that.

  • bill says:
    19 Dec19 December 10:31

    OT: Is anyone else still waiting for the £20 credit from the Moneycopr card offer

    • n says:
      19 Dec19 December 11:42

      I got mine a while ago. I chased via email 89 days after I’d registered.

      Also, top tip for clearing the card out – Any Moneycorp desk/branch can give you all the cash left on it, with no fees.

  • n says:
    19 Dec19 December 11:46

    OT: Thoughts on BA OB points value vs Avios?

    I have ~10k OB points, and 80k Avios in the bank.

    For a TXL-LHR flight, would I be better off paying 1600 OB to fly ET or 7,750 avios to fly CE? (fees are £25.20 with OB, or £25 with Avios)

    Still not got my head around what OB points are really worth….

    • n says:
      19 Dec19 December 11:47

      What I’ve currently done is booked the OB flight (100% refundable), with an EF alert set up for ET availability on the flight I want…

    • Rob says:
      19 Dec19 December 14:01

      OB has better availability than Avios. This means that I NEVER use OB if Avios is available (unless they are expiring) because one day you will need a specific flight, Avios will be sold out and OB will save your bacon.

      • n says:
        19 Dec19 December 14:56

        That’s sort of what’s happening here, there’s OB ET availability and Avios CE availability. Ideally I’m after ET Avios!

        I’ve done this before and it worked out ok – two ET RFA seats opened up a few days before my flight and I cancelled the OB ET seats.

        But this time I’m trying to decide between OB ET or RFS CE!

    • Alan says:
      20 Dec20 December 22:26

      They’re OK but massively devalued when they re-did the system. Theoretically slightly better availability than Avios but nowhere near as much as it used to be. Higher taxes than Avios in Europe (no RFS). Looking at a CE return they were ludicrously more expensive for a redemption.

  • Jo says:
    19 Dec19 December 12:12

    So if I register my airline AMEX card which gets me 2 miles per £1 on purchases, will I receive the avios in addition to these miles?

  • planesailing38 says:
    19 Dec19 December 12:50

    Cafe Nero drinking could become profitable using a rewards credit card and stacking with Heathrow Reward points at work!!

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