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.

  • grex9101 says:
    3 Feb3 February 06:43

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

    I don’t want to be THAT guy, but… Maybe the other way around?

    • General Mayhem says:
      3 Feb3 February 06:47

      I think it means that one voucher (£2.50 in value) will give you a code worth a tenner to spend on pizza.

      I will refrain from further comment!

      • Jonathan says:
        3 Feb3 February 07:28

        I had a look at this briefly last weekend and T&C seem to prevent you from using this with other discounts. So if you’re used to getting your 40% off mains at pizza express, this can’t be used in conjunction with this voucher. So arguably its more like £2.50 CC for £6 discount equivalent.

        • TimS says:
          3 Feb3 February 07:37

          The Tesco vouchers can be used on Saturdays though whereas the 40% off vouchers usually can’t so they do have extra value over other offers in certain circumstances.

  • Worzel says:
    3 Feb3 February 07:02

    Both promotions underwhelming:

    As you mention Rob, the Savoy prize would mean travel to London for those in the regions.

    Then, no doubt, an availability issue-this time a table as opposed to a seat 🙂 .

    • Rob says:
      3 Feb3 February 07:47

      I did the Savoy Chef’s Table as a Groupon for £99 about 18 months ago, admittedly for lunch, so it clearly isn’t that busy.

  • Flight Risk says:
    3 Feb3 February 07:04

    I’m always confused around the ticketmaster offer, I don’t believe ticketmaster even make that much margin on there sales.

    Is it correct if I was to buy a £120 v festival ticket from ticketmaster I could do so using 3 x £20 clubcard voucher redemptions – no small print or exclusions?

    • TimS says:
      3 Feb3 February 07:18

      Yes that is correct.

      • TimS says:
        3 Feb3 February 07:25

        Well there are only a few exclusions and small print anyway.

        They can’t be used for “Official Platinum tickets”, a max of 5 eCards can be used per transaction (ie £200 of ticketmaster value) and they can only be used for events taking place in the UK billed in GBP. Vouchers are valid for 6 months.

    • sanfgtounder says:
      4 Feb4 February 04:54

      It works fine, 2p of value but is as good as cash if you are going anyway. I combined with an SPG redemption at Aloft Excel to see Katy Perry last year at the O2. Nice couple of days.

  • ankomonkey says:
    3 Feb3 February 08:18

    I was hoping the Boost Flash sale may be more interesting, with increased redemption value for 24 hours (one partner per day) on a wide range of partners.

  • Metatone says:
    3 Feb3 February 08:19

    Article suggestion: how we’re entering the end phase of a restructuring of the airline business kicked off by 9/11 and low cost carriers – and how that’s leading to a raft of changes in loyalty schemes.

  • JP says:
    3 Feb3 February 08:32

    The 1500 avios offer was launched on the 24th Jan before the devaluation via email from avios.com

  • Liz says:
    3 Feb3 February 08:54

    I have used the auto transfer for Tesco c/c to get my Avios miles for the past few years. What’s the best advice for this – should I be collecting the vouchers to wait for any bonus airmile offers? Does that mean those who automatically transfer their miles never get the bonus airmiles offers?

  • David says:
    3 Feb3 February 09:04

    Well apparently Virgin is kicking back in the face of BA. Along with the Tesco 30% transfer promotion yesterday I got a letter in the post and you can now get double miles with the Virgin cards. That’s 1 point per mile the Virgin visa and two miles with the American Express card for each £1. This is until the end of March.

    • nick says:
      3 Feb3 February 09:16

      They may still choose to devalue those points once you have earned them though.

      • Ian says:
        3 Feb3 February 09:55

        True, but you are better of with double miles, can compensate for an eventual devaluation which I don’t think will happen

    • Simmo says:
      3 Feb3 February 10:21

      Not seen this!
      Cant find this in the Promotional section on the MBNA site either?

      • BLT says:
        3 Feb3 February 11:09

        MBNA had this promotion on the diamond club card last year, however, it was targetted to people who had used the card sparingly.

    • Idrive says:
      3 Feb3 February 12:37

      David, please explain better because to me it seems you just did not know that MBNA were doing the Virgin cards. As you put it, it seems this is a new product but it’s not. Am I just wrong in reading your comment?

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

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