Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

New Avios collection partner announced: Dixons Travel

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Starting tomorrow – and just for the Summer peak – Dixons Travel is letting you collect Avios points on all of your duty free electrical purchases in Heathrow Terminal 5.

Coupled with the potential to earn additional Avios via Heathrow Rewards this could potentially be very lucrative.

The earnings rate is surprisingly decent.

You will earn 2 Avios per £1 on transactions up to £500 and 4 Avios per £1 on transactions over £500.  All products at Dixons Travel are included.

You will need to show your British Airways Executive Club or avios.com card when making your purchase.

You will also earn the standard 1 Heathrow Rewards point per £1 spent, doubled to 2 points per £1 for those on the ‘premium’ scheme who spent over £500 last year.  These convert 1 : 1 to Avios points, as well as Miles & More, Virgin Flying Club or Etihad Guest miles or for Heathrow shopping vouchers.

If you are on the Heathrow Rewards premium tier, you could potentially earn (4 + 2) 6 Avios per £1 for your spending – plus any Avios earned via your credit card!

Remember that you can arrange for purchases of £300 or more at Heathrow to be delivered FREE to your home.  This saves you from taking a new product with you on holiday.

Dixons is only offering Avios points from 1st July to 31st August – it is not going to be a permanent deal.  It is also only valid in the two airside shops at Heathrow Terminal 5.  No other airports or terminals are participating.

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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

British Airways and Avios

Comments (32)

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

  • Andrew S says:
    30 Jun30 June 08:22

    Airport outlets much have huge revenues to support the IT investment of this…

    • Fenny says:
      30 Jun30 June 21:06

      Well, they certainly have huge prices. Even “duty free” prices tend to be substantially higher than anywhere else.

  • Roger says:
    30 Jun30 June 08:25

    Hmmm.

    This could possibly be useful if you have checked prices for a particular product in advance and found Dixons Travel competitive.

    Since they no longer offer so-called ‘duty-free’ prices which varied depending on your destination – I am among those whose receipt showed ORD instead of my Euro destination! – prices don’t seem to be competitive.

    And if you remember when they had a full selection of a wide range of products, that’s no longer the case. I wanted to buy a portable radio recently. The had none. 🙁

    I guess I’ll have a look next week, remembering to take my EC and/or Avios cards. It would be nice to be surprised.

    • K says:
      30 Jun30 June 08:46

      What’s a radio? 🙂

    • Hugo says:
      30 Jun30 June 09:23

      Roger – I have been comparing prices at Dixons Travel on Macs…the iMacs and MacBooks are all at least 10-15% cheaper at Dixons Travel than almost anywhere else

      • Roger says:
        30 Jun30 June 09:28

        Good to know, for i-people anyway.

        I’ve also been checking prices for other brands and can’t share your experience. Their range is also much reduced compared with when they offered ‘duty-free’ prices.

        I’m intrigued by your comparison with ‘ALMOST anywhere else’. I think this means that if you are prepared to shop around, Dixons Travel are indeed uncompetitive.

        • Hugo says:
          30 Jun30 June 11:02

          other than Macs I have only been looking at bluetooth speakers and those seemed to be competitive as well

          when I say “almost anywhere else”, for Macs I have been shopping around a lot, and if you are buying in the UK (e.g. not the US) they are the cheapest I have found so far

  • squills says:
    30 Jun30 June 08:26

    How would I get an Avios or BAEC card? As a humble bluey, BAEC doesn’t send me anything in the way of membership cards – and Avios never has, either.

    • Brian says:
      30 Jun30 June 08:56

      I’m a humble bluey, too, and was sent a card. And I was sent Avios cards as well. So probably worth chasing up for occasions such as this.

      • Head for Points says:
        30 Jun30 June 09:52

        I assume Dixons won’t have a card swiper and need to input the number manually, so actually having the card is not that important I guess.

        • John says:
          30 Jun30 June 11:32

          Download phone app and hand over phone. Or go to ba.com click on My executive Club and select Order Executive Club Items towards the bottom of the left hand column

    • TimS says:
      30 Jun30 June 17:17

      I’ve got a blue BA card but never got sent a card for my Avios.com account.

      • Ray says:
        30 Jun30 June 18:04

        Same here, anywhere on the Avios site to order a card ?

        • Callum says:
          30 Jun30 June 18:32

          That’s hardly surprising. Portable radios are a rather niche product that must have virtually no demand.

        • Guesswho2000 says:
          30 Jun30 June 20:21

          I’ve never seen a link to order one, but I was sent one automatically when they changed from Airmiles. I had a physical Airmiles card too back in the day.

          BA sent me a card when I joined BAEC, but have never sent a new one, same with Iberia.

          • Fenny says:
            30 Jun30 June 21:09

            I got an Iberia card when I joined a couple of months ago. I’ve always had BAEC (lowly blue, reissued not that long ago) and Avios cards (since they launched). But just taking in the account numbers should work.

  • Andrew says:
    30 Jun30 June 08:43

    The upgrade to premium Heathrow Rewards is triggered as soon as you spend £500 and is valid for the remainder of that year and the whole of the following year. The upgrade even happens mid-transaction ie spend £1000 in a shop and you would earn 1 point for the first £500 and then 2 points for the other £500. You also get a one-time 100 point bonus on upgrade.

    • Head for Points says:
      30 Jun30 June 09:53

      Even better! I was wondering how that worked to be honest – we have been premium tier for a few years but I couldn’t remember what happened when we first went onto it.

    • M says:
      30 Jun30 June 12:03

      Does the premium membership show on the account?

      • Rob says:
        30 Jun30 June 12:29

        Not as far as I know. You don’t get a different card either.

        You only notice it when the points post at double the normal rate!

  • squills says:
    30 Jun30 June 09:10

    I’ve also noticed that DT prices can be pretty hit & miss in terms of competitiveness vs UK high st or online. In many cases out by significant £££s, certainly so much that you’d be foolish not to check it all out first.

  • matt says:
    30 Jun30 June 09:10

    And all items are refundable in non airport locations I presume? How would that then affect the heathrow rewards earnings?

    • Head for Points says:
      30 Jun30 June 09:54

      You will presumably keep the Avios and the HR points ….

      Heathrow Airport also has a ‘refund guarantee’ scheme which allows you to ship items back to airport stores.

      • matt says:
        30 Jun30 June 10:07

        I didnt want to presume, so its good to hear another presumption. Perhaps I should order something for home delivery and find out if our assumptions are correct.

  • Hugo says:
    30 Jun30 June 09:21

    Hi Raffles
    Is there an announcement somewhere that can be read?
    Just so happens I was planning to buy a laptop at Dixons Travel at Heathrow T5 this evening! Downside is I don’t know when I will be going to Heathrow T5 again…

    • Head for Points says:
      30 Jun30 June 09:54

      Today is the 30th. Tomorrow is July 1st. So I think you are stuffed!

      The press release I got is dated today so I imagine emails will go out today.

  • David says:
    30 Jun30 June 14:55

    Unloved T3, never loved T1 all with BA flights.

    If they want to limit it to BA flyers, why not require showing a BA boarding pass for a flight on the day, etc.

    Very odd promotion…. will await the emails.

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