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Should you redeem BAA WorldPoints now before the Avios redemption rate is cut?

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When BAA WorldPoints ran their recent conversion bonus to Avios points, there was a reference in the email to the exchange rate moving to 250 : 250 from the current 250 : 300.  However, the small print of the email contradicted the main email so it appeared to be a typo.

With no fanfare, though, the following statement has now appeared on the WorldPoints website when you try to redeem for Avios:

From 14th May 2013 the conversion rate for British Airways Avios will revert to 250 WorldPoints for 250 British Airways Avios.

To be fair, this is just going back to how things used to be.  Before the launch of Avios, WorldPoints had a more generous conversion rate to (the old) Air Miles than for BA Miles.  After November 2011, the more generous Air Miles rate stuck and the Avios rate became 250 : 300.  This is now being taken back to where it was.

If you had a large WorldPoints balance, you probably converted it in the recent 100% bonus promotion.  If not, you now need to decide whether to lock in the 250:300 rate, or hold your points and hope for another 100% bonus later in the year.

If this happened, of course, you would be getting 500 Avios points per 250 WorldPoints.  That is only equivalent to a 67% bonus based on the 300 Avios points you would get today.

Given the WorldPoints to Avios conversion bonuses have become fairly regular over the last 18 months, I would still wait.  Locking in an extra 50 Avios per 250 WorldPoints now will not make up for missing out on a conversion bonus later.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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

Heathrow Rewards

Comments (6)

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

  • Alan says:
    28 Apr28 April 11:33

    Sadly my most recent LHR trip (complete with purchase of some brilliant Bose noise cancelling headphones in Dixons making use of my previous voucher from the Xbox-4sq deal!) came in a couple of days after this current transfer bonus finished, so I think I’ll take your advice and sit on my new much smaller stash of WPs! I used use them for car parking, but since EDI was sold off that’s no longer an option for me so Avios are probably the best redemption deal. Oh and I did earn WPs on both purchase and use of the Dixons gift card… 😛

    • Sir Stamford says:
      28 Apr28 April 12:43

      Good to know that their system may not be sophisicated enough to pick on up on these transactions since you strictly don’t earn WPs!

      Extracts from 4.1 of their terms and conditions
      Members will not be awarded WorldPoints for expenditure … for the following transactions … the retailer’s own pre-paid gift vouchers.

      Sir Stamford

      • Alan says:
        28 Apr28 April 12:46

        Oh indeed – I was quite aware of that 😉 Of course the system is entirely manual – they take your WP card, swipe it through a separate machine and tap in how much you spent. It would therefore rely on the Dixons sales agent to manually deduct the GC amount from the sale total – they don’t bother doing that and also didn’t seem to know not to swipe it when purchasing a GC either 😉

        • Sir Stamford says:
          28 Apr28 April 12:54

          Excellent!

          Now … if only Dixons Travel prices are competitive enough (they seldom are) to tempt me to purchase 🙂

          Sir Stamford

          • Alan says:
            28 Apr28 April 13:11

            Yes, I find it does rather depend on the item! In this case (Bose NC headphones) they were actually £20 cheaper than Amazon, with the bonus of using up my £50 GC (only £25 cost thanks to Amex) and 540 WPs to boot so was a fairly straightforward decision! They’re not universally bad value by any means – I tend to check prices of anything I’m thinking of buying on my mobile though – occasionally they’re shockingly overpriced, but generally I find their fair (with the bonus of WPs) or for some items (esp iDevices) actually properly discounted. It’s one of the few shops I’ll actually spend money in at T5! (most I just walk straight past on the way to the lounge) – they’ve got a store in EDI too but no point using that as I get the WPs in LHR.

  • David says:
    28 Apr28 April 12:21

    The one other thing worth a mention is possibly a reminder to check your expiry dates. Regardless of activity on the account, individual WorldPoints expire 3 years after they were earned.

    The current rate relative to the future rate is obviously not worth taking for itself if you can hold on for a future bonus, and hopefully if you had a large balance or a historic one you got rid of it during the recent promo.

    But if you didn’t get it away during the current bonus, or for any reason you have a small balance that you could not round up to the 250 in time for the previous bonus period, check the age of the oldest world points are that are still contributing to your current balance.

    If you have any that are going to expire reasonably shortly, it could still be worth doing a redemption now.

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

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