Earn Avios with Travelex at Heathrow – but it is a really bad idea

At the end of May, Moneycorp – the British Airways bureau de change partner – lost its offices at Heathrow.  Travelex took over, making it the de factor monopoly currency provider.

A few years ago, Travelex lost the British Airways partnership contract to Moneycorp.  With Moneycorp now out of Heathrow, the two partners have been forced to make up their differences.

Since May 30th, you have been able to collect Avios points from Travelex at Heathrow.

Full details can be found on the Travelex website here.

You will earn 1 Avios point per £1 exchanged.  In addition, if you change £500 or more during July, you will be entered into a competition to win a weekly prize of 25,000 Avios points.  One person who exchanges over £1,000 will win a price of 50,000 Avios points at the end of July.

However, under no circumstances should you enter this competition.

You can ONLY earn Avios points from Travelex for walk-up purchases.  Currency which is pre-booked via the Travelex website does NOT earn Avios points and does NOT get you into the competition.

Your currency will, however, be SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper if you pre-order.  On a €500 currency purchase, I estimate that you would be around €35 better off by pre-ordering.  There is no way that 500 Avios points are worth €35.

There is no way, at the moment, of earning Avios points for pre-ordered currency at Heathrow.

I will be taking an in-depth look at how to earn other miles and points when ordering foreign currency later this week as part of our ‘Holiday Tips’ series.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards. Both have increased sign-up bonuses until 2nd November 2021:

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

The 30,000 points bonus on Amex Gold runs to 9th November 2021. The 60,000 points bonus on The Platinum Card runs to 2nd November 2021.

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:

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies. This card has a limited time offer of 60,000 Avios when you sign up:

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

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)