Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Did you get a present from Avios yesterday?

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Did avios.com send you a little gift yesterday?

My wife got a little package in the post, with a covering letter headed:

We though we’d send you this little note to thank you for collecting so many Avios“.

Avios wing 6

(It was a shame that on the cover letter, directly above this, it said:  “Balance as at 22 January 2013: 0”.  It would have been better if they had said how many Avios points she collected via avios.com last year!)

And, with the package, came a copy of “Lonely Planet’s Best In Travel 2013“.

Now, as my wife collected over 1 million Avios last year, this book was clearly the best thing they were sending out.  I was therefore intrigued to see elsewhere on the net that other people were receiving gifts of 1,000 or 2,000 Avios deposited in their account.

I wonder who got the book and who got the miles?  And, indeed, what the cut-off was?

Nice thought, 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 (16)

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

  • Ei says:

    I got the book, I would have preferred bonus points instead

  • Neil Spellings (@neilspellings) says:

    I got nothing..no book or bonus points.

  • Ninmurai says:

    Zilch. I probably collected 15,000 or so through Tesco last year.

  • Marcel says:

    I got the book too – I guess I earned around 80K with the Lloyds Amex promo. Other than that I have not earned anything via avios.com

  • Freebs says:

    Nothing here and I collected 75K

  • inflationbusting says:

    1M Avios! That is incredible. How about a breakdown of where they came from – that would be an interesting post.

  • CC says:

    I got a 2 for 1 Eurostar offer the other day – 9000 avios for 2 return tickets to Paris brussels and Lillie dont know if something related to this?

    I have 81000 avios and 25000 BA . Also more to come from Amex gold and SPG but they wouldnt have known about them yet.

    Will be definitley using the offer.

    • rykk says:

      Just to confirm, thats 2 return tickets for Paris or Brussels or Lille, can only be used once!

      • inflationbusting says:

        I’d be wary of the Eurostar offers – it sounds really promising, 9000 Avios return, but the prices aren’t fixed like they are for flights.

        I called up for a weekend trips but the price was something like 50,000. If you go on the Eurostar website I guess that the 9,000 Avios fare refers to timings you can get at the very cheapest (£69) fares.

        • CC says:

          Thats someting I hadnt thought of. Im planning on going on a week day so hopefully it will be the 9000 avios as advertised, anymore and they can get stuffed!

  • andygwp says:

    nothing here yet, but our post is notoriously slow! 🙁

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

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