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50% bonus on Heathrow Rewards transfers to Avios – sign-up promo now worth 4,500 Avios

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Heathrow Rewards, the loyalty scheme for shopping at Heathrow, will today launch a 50% bonus on transfers to Avios.

Heathrow Rewards gives you 1 point for every £1 spent in Heathrow (1 per £10 on foreign exchange) or on Heathrow Express tickets (online bookings only). Once you’ve earned 250 points you can exchange them for miles or shopping vouchers.

The offer should be clearly flagged on the Avios page of the Heathrow Rewards site when you log in.  If it isn’t showing, wait a couple of hours as it may not yet be live.

Heathrow Rewards

This offer ONLY applies to Avios and does not apply to:

Emirates Skywards

Virgin Flying Club

Etihad Guest

Lufthansa Miles & More

…… although there is an existing 50% transfer bonus to Lufthansa which is still running for another week.

The bonus applies to all transfers to any of the Avios schemes (AerClub, British Airways Executive Club, avios.com) made before 30th September.

The minimum transfer is 250 Heathrow Rewards points which, with the bonus, will get you 375 Avios.  The main alternative to taking miles is waiting until you have 500 points and exchanging them for a £5 Heathrow shopping voucher.

Do NOT convert Emirates Skywards or Lufthansa Miles & More miles into Heathrow Rewards in order to send them on to Avios, as that isn’t possible.  Transfers into Heathrow Rewards from Emirates and Lufthansa can only be used for shopping vouchers.

This is why the deal is especially interesting:

You can currently earn 3,000 Heathrow Rewards points by opening an account and spending £150 in one day.

This is a very generous offer – as good as it has ever got with Heathrow Rewards.

You can combine these two deals as long as you do your qualifying spend this month.

Open a Heathrow Rewards account, spend £150 in a day and you will receive your 3,000 points.  Convert these to Avios before 30th September and you will receive 4,500 points!

The link to the 3,000 point sign-up offer is on the avios.com 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.

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, Heathrow Rewards

Comments (67)

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

  • Lee says:
    24 Aug24 August 06:00

    Maybe my Teddy needs a Heathrow Reward card? Afterall he does go through Heathrow on a regular basis. Can’t see anything in the rules that exclude bears!

    • Roger says:
      24 Aug24 August 07:09

      But the key question is where do you spend £150 on the day?
      I have flown for last 2 consecutive weeks and could not see anything that I needed could be bought at LHR.

      I also tried to buy Curry/PCW gift card at Dixons Travel and was told cannot be used to get Heathrow Rewards points.

      Any ideas which other potential Gift cards can be bought at LHR?
      I am flying later today.

      • Genghis says:
        24 Aug24 August 07:27

        Don’t WH Smith’s sell gift cards?

        • Roger says:
          24 Aug24 August 07:29

          They do.
          But again don’t know whether I will be able to spend £150 over next 2 years.
          It cannot be used to buy further GC etc. in store.

      • mark2 says:
        24 Aug24 August 07:28

        Do they sell gift cards at WH Smith at Heathrow?

        • AVM says:
          24 Aug24 August 08:04

          As reported before – lots of them, I prefer Waitrose/John Lewis one.

          • Harpo says:
            24 Aug24 August 08:56

            John Lewis gift cards via WH Smith @ T5 did me about 3 months of Waitrose shopping earlier this year – helped everyone in our house (minus teddy) get a signup bonus.

      • zsalya says:
        24 Aug24 August 11:40

        If you drink champagne, then three double packs in the arrivals “duty free” shop gets one to GBP150 and is feasible for most people to get home.

        • ankomonkey says:
          24 Aug24 August 21:13

          Get home staggering I assume, after 3 double packs of champagne…

      • Lee says:
        25 Aug25 August 14:47

        Teddy has said he wants to buy his mum a nice handbag from one of the posh stores so he can travel in it!!

    • Fenny says:
      24 Aug24 August 13:19

      Hmmm, perhaps my Action Man should join too. As he’s going to be 50 next year, I think it’s about time he started adulting a bit more. Not that he travels much these days. He comes to work with me occasionally, but we stopped going on holiday together about 40 years ago!

    • the_real_a says:
      24 Aug24 August 14:05

      WH Smiths also sell stamps…

      • Genghis says:
        24 Aug24 August 14:14

        That’s a lot of stamps! Especially when I buy them half price on shop small.

        • Roger says:
          24 Aug24 August 18:27

          Bought JL cards.
          There is also an UBER card if that is your thing.

          Prepaid cards limited to£25 with usual fees

  • Alex W says:
    24 Aug24 August 08:06

    Any ideas if/when there might be a HR transfer bonus to Virgin?

  • Amex Platypus says:
    24 Aug24 August 08:16

    OT: Just booked Virgin Atlantic Shanghai-London economy one-way for only 12,500 points. Seems very cheap. Fees were reasonable too, only £97.

    • Frenske says:
      24 Aug24 August 10:06

      Well depends how much effort you put into getting the Virgin miles.

      That said, I switched my air miles earning focus from Avios earning to Virgin Miles. We have friends in Yucatan and with BA it’ll costs 300.000 Avios and with Virgin it will costs 120.000 for the whole family and probably lower taxes too.

    • John says:
      24 Aug24 August 19:51

      One word. ‘Economy’.

  • Brighton Belle says:
    24 Aug24 August 08:20

    Is there anything like Heathrow Rewards at Gatwick? I use Gatwick once a month and Heathrow once a decade.

    • Rob says:
      24 Aug24 August 08:48

      No, not since Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick were broken up.

    • Fenny says:
      24 Aug24 August 13:21

      I’ve just joined “My Gatwick”. No points on things, but they do some passable discounts. I’ve already booked vouchers for discount on breakfast and assorted other bits & pieces for when I’m there next month.

  • bill says:
    24 Aug24 August 09:15

    OT – Avios related.

    Vueling is joining Avios

    • bill says:
      24 Aug24 August 09:16

      Just like you did with Punto, you can book flights using Avios for yourself or whoever you want, with no restrictions on dates or destinations.

      Plus, with Vueling Club you’ll still be able to receive any Avios you forget to collect when booking your flight.

      So what will happen to your Punto points?
      Don’t worry, we’ll handle the “currency exchange” and, as soon as the exchange is made, all the points you had in your account will become Avios. In the next few days we’ll send you an email with the Vueling Club launch date and the steps to take to start enjoying your Avios.

  • Liz says:
    24 Aug24 August 10:45

    Rob, do you think they will ever run the 100% bonus offer again?

    • Rob says:
      24 Aug24 August 12:26

      They seem to be settling down to 50% although it is still early days for their bonus offers and they may still be testing.

      What they are going to realise soon is that people stop converting at all outside of bonus periods, because they get used to expecting another bonus to come along if they wait, which will mess up the economics of the scheme ….

  • xcalx says:
    24 Aug24 August 10:52

    “Open a Heathrow Rewards account, spend £150 in a day and you will receive your 3,000 points. Convert these to Avios before 30th September and you will receive 4,500 points!”

    Hi Rob. It’s possible to squeeze an extra 375 Avios out of this offer. Eg HR signup bonus = 100 HR. Spend £150 =150 HR. £150 spend offer = 3000. Total 3250 x 50% transfer bonus = 4875 Avios.

  • Matt says:
    24 Aug24 August 11:18

    Has anyone pre-booked car parking on the official Heathrow site and had that count as a £150 spend in one day? We need parking but not until May next year…..I wondered if prebook qualifies?

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