Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Doing the Shell / Foursquare / Amex £15 off £50 deal? Earn Avios via Shell Drivers Club

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

Last weekend I posted about a new Foursquare promotion, in association with American Express.

Basically, until mid April, you can save £15 off a £50 spend at a Shell garage when you open a Foursquare account and link your Amex, Lloyds or MBNA card to it.  You can open as many accounts as you have Amex cards (including supplementary cards) so there is the potential to get this saving 5 or more times, depending on the Amex cards your family has.

If you are not a normal Shell customer, you may not know that you can collect Avios via Shell Drivers Club.

Joining is simple.  Pick up a card at a Shell garage and register it when you get home.

You earn 1 point for every litre of standard Shell petrol you buy, and 2 points per litre of V-Power fuel.  If you select to receive Avios as your rewards, your points will be converted into Avios once a quarter.

The rate is not life changing (20 points = 10 Avios, minimum 20 points needed to convert) but better than nothing.  You also receive 50 bonus Avios just for registering.  The club will also email you occasionally with special offers for bonus points when you hit certain targets for buying petrol.

Combined with the Foursquare discount, this could work out nicely.


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 (17)

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

  • pauldb says:

    Can you use each Amex card just once, or is it once per Shell garage?

  • Alan says:

    Did this on Sunday – not amazing earning, but better than nothing! Also remember although it wont earn Shell points you can also apparently buy gift vouchers (inc for Amazon) at some of their garages!

    One thing to watch though – some dont show properly on your statement as Shell, requiring a claim to 4sq, which is a pain if using multiple cards.

  • Simon says:

    I must have a bit of an anomaly here; I upgraded to Amex Platinum recently so I have these new cards, but the old cards are working as well.

    Do you think it would be possible to sync the new Amex Plat card with a new Foursquare account and get the offer?

    • Alan says:

      Yes as long as your card is still active and you register each card to a separate 4sq account you should be good to go!

  • Martin N says:

    It’s also worth noting that Shell Drivers Club have an app (Iphone etc) and you get 50 bonus points (I think) for downloading and the very occasional bonus offer on your phone.

  • inflationbusting says:

    I would play it safe. When the offer came out I checked in and ‘loaded offer to card’.
    On arrival at the petrol station last night, I checked foursq and I had to sync the card and claim the offer again. Weird.

  • Raffles says:

    You can check in whenever you want. All of my Harvey Nichols ones before Christmas were done from home, as I don’t have a smartphone!

  • will says:

    For those with multiple amex cards you can buy argos/amazon + many other vouchers at shell. I’m stocking up on argos vouchers for the new ipad from argos when its out.

  • Oliver says:

    Thank you for all of your extremely useful help! It;s slightly off topic but RE Amex cards, is there a minimum amount of time you can must hold a card before you cancel?

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.