Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

No Tesco / Avios bonus, no Tesco / Virgin bonus ….

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Both Avios and Virgin Flying Club have now emailed me with their ‘promotions’ to persuade you to convert your new batch of Tesco Clubcard vouchers.

Neither should tempt you.

Avios

Here is the Avios (avios.com to be precise) version:

Competition to win 50,000 Avios

Ten prizes available

One entry for every £5 of vouchers you transfer

Deadline for transfers is 14th June

This offer is not yet showing on the Avios page on the Tesco website but I doubt it is targeted.  Historically it has taken Tesco a few days to catch up.

Whilst this is certainly not an offer to justify a conversion in itself, if you were planning to convert to Tesco then you might as well do it via avios.com and not British Airways Executive Club.  You need to be in it to win it, after all ….  You can move your Avios back and forth afterwards via ‘Combine My Avios’.

Virgin Flying Club

Meanwhile Virgin Flying Club has launched something similar.

Competition to win 100,000 miles plus a ‘Guest List’ experience on your next flight (see this article to learn about Guest List)

Eight runner-up prizes of 50,000 miles

No minimum conversion amount

Deadline for transfers is 6th June

Virgin is also offering 1,000 miles for selecting ‘auto conversion’ for your future Tesco statements.  If you have a dormant Tesco Clubcard account, you can get an easy 1,000 Virgin miles here.  Go into your personal details and tell Tesco to auto-convert future points (which you won’t be earning, as the card is dormant!) to Virgin.  You will receive the 1,000 miles OK – I have done this in the past.

Selecting auto conversion will also enter you into the competition above.

Again, these offers are not yet on the Clubcard / Virgin website.


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 15,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

A generous earning rate for a free card at 0.75 points per £1 Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

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 comes with 40,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 40,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

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 Virgin Points

(Want to earn more Virgin Points?  Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Comments (44)

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

  • avstar says:

    if i select the auto-conversion for virgin flying club today any idea when the 1000 miles will be show up?

  • SingingDwarf says:

    I logged onto Tesco.com yesterday to check my points balanace and noticed I had over 60k points in ny account.

    Upon examination, they seem to have cancelled many over my vouchers (all outstanding vouchers from previous statements) and reissued as points. I haven’t checked numbers yet, assume its all…

    Any idea why this might have happened? I hope they dont enforce the 30k cutoff!

    • Jonny says:

      It could be to protect against fraud- this is what happened to me last quarter (knowingly) as someone kept nicking my vouchers…!

      • Dan says:

        All my vouchers we fraudulently spent on Tesco Direct by someone in the last quarter. After I contacted them, they refunded them to me as points. They have now converted back to vouchers in the latest statement. Shame no Avios bonus so I’ll probably hold on them in the hope that a bonus will appear at some point in the future.

        • Thunderbirds says:

          Or until someone nicks them again…!

          • Dan says:

            Quite! But, to give them credit, Tesco were very good about refunding them and the only inconvenience was waiting for the points to get turned back into vouchers again. They also seem to have upped the security very slightly, and I now have to enter some digits from my clubcard number when I log in.

          • Stu says:

            I also had several vouchers nicked last quarter. There seem to be a growing number of thefts occuring even since the extra security measures were put in place. It suspect Tesco may be looking in the wrong place for their culprit.

    • wilfred47 says:

      This has happened to my vouchers aswell, they seem to have changed the vouchers from the previous quarter back into points.

    • Jason says:

      What’s the 30k cut off?
      I’ve had some vouchers used this week £106.50(refunded straight away)
      They also tried to use £203.50 in vouchers but these are currently blocked, so were denied.

      • Singing Dwarf says:

        From the Terms and Conditions:
        “24. Members can earn a maximum of 30,000 points in any one collection period.”

        • Rob says:

          This is only occasionally imposed, note, but it IS imposed at times. Tesco seems to use it as a stick to block people they don’t like whilst letting others sail through.

    • Matt says:

      Although Tesco have added security when you log in, stupidly you can still just go and order your ‘boost’ items and your vouchers will show up at the checkout page to select, bypassing this security check, hence why they are still being half inched. So I just spend them ASAP before they disappear.

    • Gordon says:

      Same just happened to me.

  • geoffthesaint says:

    Also had vouchers stolen and spent, refunded in the same way – canceled then added on to the latest statements total.

  • Ben E says:

    Might as well give it a try

  • jimmyjimmy says:

    Have we all but given up on a tesco pts to BAEC/Avios bonu?s – that must be 2 years now with no bonus?

    • Tim says:

      I am sure a conversion bonus will come along when it suits Avios/BA/Iberia – perhaps when they need some cash? Pragmatism dictates only converting to Avios as needed. If the conversion rate were to be reduced, months of notice would have to be given otherwise Tesco’s name would be dirt. A bonus, however, may come along at anytime.

  • Kiran says:

    Now the May quarter vouchers are out, is it safe to turn on autoconvert and then off before the next lot come out? Or does turning on autoconvert convert your current stash of vouchers as well?

    • David says:

      Auto-convert should leave your existing vouchers safe including when the sweep is made. It certainly does not result in any immediate conversion of existing vouchers.

  • David says:

    The current Tesco > Monarch voucher conversion bonus (departures from selected airports) could be worth consideration, IF your travel circumstances allow you to make use of it:
    http://www.ukpoints.com/2014/05/05/tesco-clubcard-promotional-rate-select-monarch-flights/

    You would get 2p of value per Tesco CC point, compared with 2.4 Avios or 2.5 Virgin miles, to be comparable you would need to get about 0.8p each of value from the miles, you can get more of course – but you need the exact redemption seats to be available – and there is a inherant ‘minimum flight cost’ with Avios.

    I recently booked a £39 monarch flight at MAN, the cheapest Avios redemption comes in at £87.50 (including valuing the miles at 1p each). So the monarch (promotion) route is not bad value for Tesco CC points, and a BA cash fare might not go below £69, etc..

    (i.e. if you have Tesco CC points to convert, can fly from one of the departure airports included, and monarch have flights at a good price.

    • Brian says:

      True, but it’s quite easy to get 2p of value per CC point – with redspottedhanky, for instance. So the Monarch ‘bonus’ deal is perhaps not that special – unless, as you say, you’re going to buy the flights anyway.

      • Worzel says:

        Thanks Brian.

      • David says:

        Brian – as I said it does depend on the key ‘IF’s flagged, i.e:
        *if* your travel requirements fit, and
        *if* you have the Tesco CC to spend.

        I certainly spend no where near enough on train tickets to absorb my Tesco points, and I’ve already got a good stock of RSH points from all the promotions anyway. Although like any offer, if a better one fits your personal circumstances, then you obviously take it instead.

        However if you can satisfy the IFs, especially if the flight availability at good prices and you can book in the required period, I do think the monarch offer is a reasonable use of Tesco CC points and worthy of note.

    • Worzel says:

      Thank you for your useful information David.

  • MaltaPoints Tom says:

    By way of added security from points thieves, you also now can’t access your Clubcard account from abroad, which is not very convenient when you live in Malta.

    • David says:

      Indeed, but with easy to use VPN software (such as tunnelbear – with enough free data each month to manage your account it is not much of a problem.

      Although it is also a stupid security step – as anyone attempting to do something sinister will probably be routing themselves via somewhere else anyway, and won’t be affected.

    • Czechoslovakia says:

      Or the Czech Republic. Grrrrr. Have to use an IP address re-router now.

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