Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Earn double Avios on restaurant bookings for the rest of the year

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Back in April, Avios launched Restaurant Circle, a new restaurant booking portal that would let you earn Avios when making a reservation.

You will earn 250 Avios every time you make a restaurant booking through the portal.

Avios restaurant circle

How does it work?

You need to create a Restaurant Circle account and add your Avios or BA Executive Club membership number to your profile.

If you live in Ireland, you can add an AerClub number.  There are a large number of Irish restaurants included.

For every booking you make via the site, you will receive 250 Avios.  As long as you turn up for your reservation (!), the Avios will be added to your account within two weeks.

Where can I dine and earn Avios?

You can search for restaurants on the Restaurant Circle website by postcode, city or restaurant name.

And here lies the problem.  The selection of restaurants is not as comprehensive as, say, OpenTable or even ResDiary, the company that runs Restaurant Circle.

No reader has ever told me that they have earned Avios booking a restaurant via Restaurant Circle.  I can imagine that people took one look at the weak selection – if they bothered to look at all – and decided that it was too much trouble.

The problem is partly self-inflicted, because Avios was charging restaurants a monthly fee to be included on the Restaurant Circle website despite the fact that they were already paying be on the parent ResDiary site.  This does not seem to have proved popular.

But things are picking up …..

From this Friday (note: this is not live today), you will double Avios on all restaurant bookings until the end of the year.   That means 500 Avios per booking.

In parallel, Avios is waiving the monthly fee charged to restaurants to be listed on the Avios portal.  This should mean that there is a far greater choice of restaurants to choose from on the Restaurant Circle site.

If anyone gives it a go, please let us know how easy you found it and how quickly the Avios arrived.  Remember that the double Avios offer isn’t live until the end of the week.

You can read more about this partnership on the British Airways 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 (22)

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

  • Darren Ward says:

    The sign up on restaurant circle does not work. When I try and link my BA account it just goes into an endless loop of signing into res circle. Given up!!!

  • Carl says:

    Pretty crap, tried searching and in order to find a restaurant I had to check the longest distance of 50km.
    I am not driving 50k to get 250 airmiles points

  • Colin JE says:

    I registered for this a couple of months back and linked my account to Res Diary. I had favourited a few restaurants in Edinburgh that I liked, from ResDiary I think. Now when I look on Restaurant Circle I see a few high end restaurants in Edinburgh, but my favourites show other restaurants that aren’t listed when I search. If I click on one of them to book I get a 404 error.
    This site is really badly put together from a technical perspective. Every time I go to the home page it asks me to link my account to Avios, but my profile shows my Avios number already. It would have been so much better if ResDiary just added Avios to its bookings if you set up an account and linked your Avios number. Having a second site that is sort of integrated but badly is so frustrating.

  • @mkcol says:

    I’ve noticed the search function is far from ideal on Restaurant Circle – type in Luton as a town location it says there are none, yet it offers Luton Hoo as an option…..

    I found the search works best when you enter a county as a location & maximise the distance to 50Km

  • Stan says:

    Has everyone received their 18000 Avios from the irish newspaper promo? I purchased on 31st and have not received anything.

  • Matt says:

    Only 1 restaurant in Manchester on Restaurant Circle…
    D’oh

  • Tonya says:

    Just like others have stated the sign up on restaurant circle does not work. When I try and link my BA account it just goes into an endless loop of signing into res circle. Any ideas how to solve this problem?

  • Chris says:

    I’m an AerLingus AerClub member from Dublin.

    One restaurant listed on RestaurantCircle is 10min away from where I live. Others are in the city centre. Made 6 reservations. The 1st one is today @ 5.30pm.

    Will let you know how I get on.

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

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