How to earn Avios points when booking a package holiday via avios.com

A lot of people are not aware of the excellent deals being offered by avios.com when you use them to book a package holiday.  I thought a reminder was in order.

The first thing to note is that these are avios.com promotions, so you will need an avios.com account to collect Avios points. These can be transferred to British Airways Executive Club later if necessary.

The avios.com homepage for package holiday deals is here.

The first thing to notice is that they do not just work with ‘bucket and spade’ operators. The list includes some decent names (this is just a sample of the list):

• Elegant Resorts
• First Choice
• Inghams
• ITC Classics
• Eurocamp
• Kuoni
• Mark Warner
• Neilson
• Thomas Cook
• Thomson
• Travelsphere

The recommend way to book is to search for whatever you are after directly on the website of the tour operator and then simply call Avios to make the booking.  Don’t use the expensive 0844 number on the website, use 01925 848619 instead.

Secondly, the earnings rate is excellent at up to 10 Avios points per £1 spent.

Thirdly, as I mentioned above they accept Amex and there is no surcharge for using any credit card.

Finally, the holidays team appears to have leeway to reduce prices if you can find a comparable deal – and you will still earn your Avios on the bookings

The only downside is that you don’t receive your Avios points until 28 days after your holiday, so you may be waiting a while for them. This is only a small inconvience, though, and this certainly seems to be an interesting option if you are booking package holidays.

In the past, holiday spend charged to a British Airways Premium Plus American Express card has triggered the ‘double Avios for British Airways spend’.  This no longer seems to be the case.

It is worth noting that you can also REDEEM Avios points for a discount on a package holiday.  I do not recommend this.  The discount is just 0.5p per Avios point you redeem which is poor but, to be honest, I could live with it. 

More important is the fact that you will not receive any Avios points for the portion of the booking which you pay in cash. This makes the net outcome substantially worse.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (October 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.