Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Avios hotels sale now live – get 50% off on cash as well as Avios bookings!

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The Avios ‘50% off hotels’ sale is now available for booking.  However, I recommend you use this ba.com booking link as that one seems to be working properly (ie displaying all the hotels, not just a few).

What I did not expect is that the ‘pay with cash’ price has also been halved

Avios wing 11

This means two things:

You are only getting 0.57p per Avios if you choose to use your miles to pay, since they have halved both the ‘pay with Avios’ and ‘pay with cash’ prices.  I wasn’t expecting that.

With cash prices halved, there are some exceptional deals to be had.

The super-luxe Conrad Algarve, for example, is available through the peak Summer season at half-price.  Even the half-board packages are half-price!  August 3-9th, for example, is £1,290 (or of course you can use Avios) for a Deluxe Double half-board. On hilton.com, you would be paying €3,546 Euro for (advanced purchase) dinner, bed and breakfast.

In Prague, 14-16 March, the InterContinental is available for 950 Avios and £105, the total for 2 nights, WITH breakfast.  The cheapest rate at intercontinental.com is €192 WITHOUT breakfast.

In Budapest, one of the best hotels in Europe – the Four Seasons Gresham Palace – is available for Valentine’s weekend (14-16 February) for £230 + 4,400 Avios for two nights, with breakfast.  fourseasons.com wants €590 for the same thing.

You need to book by noon on Monday for travel by 30th September.

The small print says “Amendments and cancellation are permitted subject to the Avios cancellation and amendment terms where a fee as stated on avios.com will apply.”  Not sure what these are though!

The participating cities in this round are, as a reminder:

Vienna
Dubrovnik
Prague
Copenhagen
Berlin
Budapest
Istanbul
The Algarve


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 (115)

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

  • Rich says:

    Some bargains to be had!

    • Ben says:

      Managed to book 6 nights at Berlin Intercontinental w/ breakfast in March for £330 + a tiny amount of Avios. Would have been £797 on Alpharooms.

  • Matthew Marsh says:

    I’m struggling to find any availability in the summer school holiday – using Avios.com – in the Algarve other than the Hotel Monaco. Am I looking at the wrong website?

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    Also cash bookings earn Avios (2/£) I think.

  • lostlamb says:

    Conrad Algarve is available if you select 2 adults , but if you enter 2 kids as well then its not bookable , any way around this ?

    • Rob says:

      You’ll need to book 2 connecting rooms. A King Grand Deluxe Suite (which avios.com does not offer) is the smallest room that they allow 4 people to stay in.

      • Tom says:

        Many of their hotels don’t seem to want to accept bookings for 2 rooms with 2 adults and 2 kids (i.e. 1 adult + 1 child per room, as they stipulate min 1 adult per room), but will accept 2 rooms with 4 adults.

        Can you see any reason why a 4 x adults booking wouldn’t work for a family of 4?

        • Rob says:

          Yes, this is a normal thing when booking 2 rooms. If you try to do a room just for kids it is rejected. Just do 1 adult and 1 child for each room, but specify one twin and one double bed.

  • pazza2000 says:

    Are these hotel reservations refundable?

  • Jens says:

    Smells like a glitch with cash payment!!

    Cancellation policy for Hilton Dubronic (as example)

    Changing your booking: You will not be able to change your booking when it has been confirmed. You will be able to cancel your booking, for a fee, and make a new booking. However, we cannot guarantee that the same hotel room or car rental option will still be available. Cancelling your booking: Cancellations made outside of 72 hours to travel will not be charged a supplier fee but you will be charged a cancellation fee of £25 or local equivalent. Cancellations made within 72 hours to travel will be charged 100% of the booking value and no refund will be made. Failure to cancel prior to scheduled check-in time will be considered a no-show and will not be eligible for refund. There will be no refund for unused services or early check-out. Cancellation fees: In addition to the hotel cancellation policy described below, there will be an additional fee equivalent to £15 for any cancellations made by an agent over the phone. Cancellations made online are only subject to applicable supplier cancellation fees.

  • Rob says:

    This is very odd. If you book for cash, Avios is taking a bit fat hit somewhere because they are definitely not making 50% profit usually on these bookings. If they are willing to throw money away like this, why not offer something more useful for the flight sales, like cutting the tax on long-hauls for a few days (which isn’t even a ‘real’ cash loss)?

  • cmcbugg says:

    Excellent. Just got a hotel in Copenhagen for 50% less CASH than the price yesterday and it’s a lot cheaper than any other site is selling the same room 🙂

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

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