The importance of Tesco to Avios

Avios emailed most members yesterday with details of the current Tesco transfer promotion that I wrote about last week.

To confirm, there is NO transfer bonus this quarter.  Instead, you will receive an entry into a competition to win one of 200 x 9,000 Avios prizes when you convert at least £5 of Clubcard vouchers.

There was one interesting titbit in the email.

Apparently, 2.52 BILLION Avios points were collected via Tesco Clubcard in the last 12 months.

As I wrote here, 97 billion Avios were issued in total in 2013.  This means that Tesco is only responsible for around 2.5% of all Avios points issued.

Of course, a lot of those 97 billion Avios were issued to BA and Iberia flyers who collected them ‘by accident’ and will not redeem them.  Anyone who transfers from Tesco is clearly serious about using their Avios so the 2.5% number probably understates the importance of the relationship.

2.52 BILLION Avios is equivalent to 1 billion Clubcard points or £10 million of Tesco vouchers at face value.  You would assume that Tesco is paying across at least the face value of the vouchers to Avios, because other Clubcard boost deals simply would not work if partners received less.  That said, £10 million is only a drop in the ocean compared to British Airways and Iberia annual passenger revenue of €16 billion in the last financial year.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 2023)

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:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points.

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.

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.

EDIT: Applications for this card are temporarily suspended due to IT issues with the British Airways On Business SME loyalty scheme.

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.