Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

The disappearing Tesco / Avios competition, and watch out for the Clubcard Flash Sale

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Whilst not necessarily a case for Sherlock Holmes, I feel a search party is required to track down the missing Tesco / Avios competition for Spring.

Last week, British Airways emailed a lot of Executive Club members with details of a competition to win a meal at The Savoy hotel in London.  You would receive one entry for every 500 Clubcard points you exchanged.

A couple of days later, Virgin launched their 30% conversion bonus from Clubcard points into Flying Club miles.  British Airways also announced the Avios devaluation.

Mysteriously, the Clubcard website now features a different Avios competition.  Instead of The Savoy, you can win one of 500 prizes of 1,500 Avios points.  You will receive one entry for every £2.50 of Clubcard vouchers you exchange.

Details can be found on the ‘Tesco to BA’ conversion page here.

Perhaps someone thought that a prize which required you to get to London (flights were not included!) was a bad idea in a week when members who live in the regions have already been given a kick in the teeth via the Avios changes!

However, before you convert ….

Tesco is about to launch a series of six Clubcard Boost ‘flash sales’.  For a very limited period of time you will receive ‘enhanced’ conversion rates with certain partners.

Full details of the Clubcard Boost flash sale can be found here.

The partners are:

Cineworld (February 12th) – usual offer is £4.50 of vouchers for an adult ticket

Ticketmaster (February 16th) – usual offer is £20 of vouchers for £40 code

iTunes (February 18th) – usual offer is £17 of vouchers for a £25 code

Pizza Express (February 23rd) – usual offer is £2.50 of vouchers for a £10 code

Spafinder (February 26th) – usual offer is £10 of vouchers for a £20 code

National Railcards (March 3rd) – usual offer varies, eg £15 of vouchers for a 16-25 yrs card

We don’t know how much better the ‘flash sale’ deals will be, but if you use any of the companies above you might want to keep hold of your vouchers just in case.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Tesco Clubcard, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (40)

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

  • Jonathan says:
    3 Feb3 February 09:41

    Shame there is no goldsmiths bonus

  • Mark T says:
    3 Feb3 February 10:13

    I got an email from Avios about the current competition on Tesco Clubcard.

    I had assumed Tesco accidentally put it up against BA as well, and then realised many people had converted already so couldn’t exactly take it down.

  • pazza2000 says:
    3 Feb3 February 12:57

    A little OT. Does anyone know of any issues if transferring Clubcard to an Avios(.com) account that is part of a Household account? I’m not sure why Clubcard don’t allow you to simply enter the Avios account number.

    • Scottnothing says:
      3 Feb3 February 14:37

      I had this issue as well – it’s easily resolved by a call to Avios (or by using their online chat facility). Tesco didn’t want anything to do with my missing points when I called them about it .

  • Lady London says:
    3 Feb3 February 13:27

    In case it helps anyone in the regions left bereft by BA, SAS just sent an email this morning saying they are introducing direct flights between some summer dates from Edinburgh to Copenhagen, and Bristol direct to Stockholm.

    • Frenske says:
      3 Feb3 February 14:02

      Note one needs 30.000 SAS Eurobonus points to fly from London to Copenhagen which cost 9.000 Avios with BA. I doubt Edinburgh and Bristol will be different.

      • pauldb says:
        3 Feb3 February 14:29

        Just though I’d take a look at the SQ price which is little better at 25k.
        OT but noticed that weirdly J from Europe to Middle East is 50k return (less than Europe-Europe!), even cheaper than AA (F is 70k). Lots of airline choice too.

  • Brendan says:
    3 Feb3 February 13:42

    OT but I just received response from Amex on my supplementary applications on my Amex Plat and they want certified copies of ID and original bills / bank statement for each supplementary application. Such a pain!

    • Brendan says:
      3 Feb3 February 13:52

      Also, at the same time I received 2 other letters from them stating that my supplementary application had been unsuccessful – neither letter indicated the name of the applicant that has been unsuccessful though. These points are going to be more hassle than they are worth it seems.

      • RT says:
        3 Feb3 February 14:00

        I have had all five of mine approved and so far 2 lots of 10k points have come through. (I did two sup card apps earlier in Dec and the remaining three in Jan).

    • Rob says:
      3 Feb3 February 15:04

      They only do this when they cannot electronically verify the identity of the person. They asked for this when I tried to get our nanny a card a couple of years ago, eventually I gave up.

  • Scottnothing says:
    3 Feb3 February 14:43

    Sure “every little helps” but 1,500 Avios is a joke of a prize. I’d frankly prefer dinner at the Savoy and would much (much) prefer they give the total prize pool of 750,000 Avios to one lucky punter.

    • Worzel says:
      3 Feb3 February 17:55

      My thoughts exactly about the 750,000 Avios!!

      • avidsaver says:
        3 Feb3 February 18:17

        Agree100%. 1500 Avios is a rubbish prize and I’m sure will tempt very few to convert their cc points.

        • Simon says:
          3 Feb3 February 22:13

          Agree too but only problem is that every quarter I need to convert the oldest ones otherwise they expire.

          Anyone know a way around this?

          • Rob says:
            3 Feb3 February 23:01

            Yes. You redeem £2.50 per transaction, the minimum per voucher. The rest is given back to you as ‘change’ with another 2 years.

            If your vouchers are £50 vouchers, you can get £47.50 reissued via this method.

  • Simon says:
    4 Feb4 February 00:36

    Many thanks. Will help me sit on them until a BA bonus period or also thinking about maybe doing Necker Island. Time will tell.

  • David says:
    12 Feb12 February 12:09

    The chef’s table competition is now showing on the Tesco website for BAEC conversions.

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