Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get 500 Clubcard points (1,200 Avios) for joining TopCashback

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I have mentioned TopCashback a few times on Head for Points.  If you are an Avios collector, it MUST be your preferred cashback site!  Sorry Quidco ….

TopCashback, like Quidco, is a site which allows you to earn a small amount of cashback on your day to day shopping by clicking through to participating merchants.

Last year, TopCashback launched a feature allowing you to pay your cashback directly into your Tesco Clubcard account – and give you a 5% bonus on top!

This dramatically increased the value of TopCashback cashback versus Quidco:

£10 of cashback earned at Quidco earns you £10

£10 of cashback earned at TopCashback earns you £10.50 (with the 5% bonus) paid into your Tesco Clubcard account. That gives you 1,050 Clubcard points. These convert into 2,520 Avios points or 2,625 Virgiin Flying Club miles. You are effectively ‘buying’ Avios points for just 0.4p each.

I have had a ‘refer a friend’ link to TopCashback on the site for a while, and I am grateful to everyone who used it.  I am especially grateful because those who signed up did not receive anything extra for themselves.

Until now!

Until 10th February, if you join TopCashback via our refer-a-friend link you will receive 500 Clubcard points when you have earned £10 of cashback.

There is no time limit on how long you have to earn your £10 cashback – a month, three months, six months, whatever.  You therefore have little to lose, if you are not already a member, by signing up now.

Note that your 500 points are not deposited directly into your Clubcard account.  Once you have earned £10 cashback, TopCashback will put a further £5 in your TopCashback account.  However, you can only withdraw this £5 to your Tesco Clubcard account.

You can transfer up to £50 of cashback per year from TopCashback to Clubcard (a year runs from the date of your first Tesco transfer, not the calendar year or from the date you joined).  This means that you can earn up to 12,000 Avios per year this way!  Your £5 sign-up bonus does NOT count towards your £50 per year cap.

The only condition is that you join via a refer-a-friend linkIf you sign up directly on the TopCashBack site, you will not receive your 500 Clubcard points.

What next?

You should open a TopCashback account now and using it for your day-to-day online shopping instead of Quidco.

There are two membership levels at TopCashback – a free version and a £5 annual fee version.  The £5 level pays slightly higher cashback and has improved customer service if you have any problems.  However, you will receive the 500 Clubcard points whichever level you choose.  To be honest, I would start at the free level anyway and only upgrade when you have decided that you like the site.

Unfortunately, there is no notice on the TCB site that you will be signing up for the Tesco offer.  However, don’t worry, you will be fine!  ALL refer-a-friend transactions until 10th February will be receiving it.

Here is a quick tip – make your first Tesco transfer as soon as you can, even if it is just for £1. The ‘£50 per year limit’ runs from the date of your first Tesco transfer. The sooner you make your first transfer, the sooner your anniversary will come around!

You may want to take a look at some of ‘easy money’ offers on TopCashback, or even their ‘free money’ offers. If you know what you are doing, some of the gambling and bingo sites offer effectively free money for signing up and betting a small minimum.  You can minimise losses by having your partner sign up and then taking opposite win/lose bets on the same sporting event.

I receive a commission for referring you which helps to support HFP.  Thank you.


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 (38)

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

  • Jonny says:

    Liking the look of 18m 0% balance transfer with 50% of the balance transfer fee being refunded.

    Does anyone know if I could do a big spend on an amex then transfer that balance?

    • Rob says:

      No reason why not, they don’t really care where the balance comes from.

      Make sure you leave enough credit limit on the Post Office card so you can still put your new foreign spend through, though.

      • Trevor says:

        Don’t be too hasty… there is a reason to beware! Been wanting to report on this, but Tesco credit card closed for comments. I got Tesco credit card in Dec, claimed for referral and got each Clubcard a/c 1,000 points. Then did a balance transfer, for which I’ve just got another 1,000 points – great!

        But… when it came to doing the balance transfer, when I tried to transfer a large Amex balance, it wouldn’t allow it, saying that they don’t allow transfers to that card issuer!

        In the end I did a balance transfer from Lloyds (groan…) where I had a £0 balance, leaving me in credit. Multiple calls to Lloyds prior to transfer confirmed I could get a credit balance refund, so I went ahead. Then called for refund and it’s been a royal pain. I’ve had to go into a Lloyds branch twice to prove my ID and I still await the cheque…

        I also enquired with MBNA, and they refused a credit balance refund.

        Nowhere could I find Tesco stating who they’d do transfers to (and I also didn’t see this as an issue), but if getting a card for a balance transfer, be sure you know who you can transfer from and what your plan B is.

  • Jonny says:

    If I refer my wife – do I have to open a CC account for her?

    Or can I transfer another 350 to mine?

  • RussellR says:

    Will have to read the small print better, but still received £42 cash for 5mins work
    can’t moan…

  • Carpentr says:

    Equifax works for Tesco points – I cashed mine out yesterday.

  • Graeme says:

    Completely off-topic – and for that I apologise (a little, anyway!) – but I figured this is the best place to ask….

    I’m thinking of upgrading a Business Class Avios booking (from London to Beijing) to First, again using Avios – can someone/anyone tell me how much it costs to select your seat in First? I’ve read something that suggests it’s free, but that seems unlikely with Business being £60 a seat. I’d be dead meat if my stinginess led to my girlfriend not being next to me….

    Thanks a lot!

    • John says:

      I think the BA forum on Flyertalk would be as good a place as any to ask this…

    • nux says:

      Free seat selection in F.

    • Rob says:

      Seat selection in First IS free, whether on a cash or award ticket. Don’t ask why.

      Ironically, before we had kids and still flew F, my Mrs and I preferred to sit behind each other (eg 2A and 3A) so we both got a window. If you insist on sitting next to each other then you need to sit in the middle block.

      • squills says:

        Hmm, no Fs for the Squills mob these days but we’ve taken to flying the 5 of us out & back with 4 x windows in a column + 1 middle 😉

        We get a few ‘looks’ as other passengers realise we’ve nabbed a load of window seats and aren’t sitting ‘properly’ together as a family, but it sure stops a few kid arguments before they even get going.

      • Mark says:

        We do likewise. On the 747 1A and 1K are good for a couple if you both want window seats if you can get them as they are reserved for golds from about 3 days before. We usually start with 2A and 2K which aren’t bad though a bit further apart, then swap either or both for row 1 if we can.

        On other aircraft its always one in front of the other.

        On a different note is it possible to upgrade redemptions with Avios? I realise you can amend bookings if there is availability in a different class on payment if the change fee.

        • Rob says:

          Sometimes you will be offered a cash upgrade via MMB on Avios tickets, or at check in.

          Any other sort of upgrade is effectively a cancellation and rebooking.

        • Mark says:

          That of course should say until three days before, not from….

  • Graeme says:

    Well I’m sure there are better places, but I don’t like to sign up somewhere just to ask one question. It feels rude.

  • Alan says:

    Nope 🙂

  • Andy says:

    On an unrelated matter I won 500 points today in the Tesco My Kitchen Promo posted on here a couple weeks back. Says can take 6 weeks to show.

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

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