Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

LAST CHANCE: 5,000 Avios with any Kaligo hotel booking & 20,000 Avios for spending £1,000

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I wanted to remind everyone that the very generous Avios promotion being run by hotel booking group Kaligo.com ends on Wednesday 30th September.

It is a very good deal.

There are two separate promotions although you can earn points from both.

Promotion 1

The first promotion is ONLY for holders of a British Airways American Express card.

You will receive 5,000 bonus Avios points for ANY hotel booking made via Kaligo.com by September 30th.  The stay itself does not have to be made until July 1st 2016.

The stay must be paid for with a British Airways American Express card.

You can only earn the bonus once per person.  Anyone can take part, even if they are an existing Kaligo.com customer.

You must register in advance for this deal via this link here.

Kaligo 350 2

You can see that there are some exceptionally good deals to be had here.  For a random October weekday in Sheffield I had no problem finding a number of decent hotels for under £50 – all of which would earn you at least 5,200 Avios points!

If you value an Avios point at 1p, this offer even creeps into ‘mattress run’ territory.  It may be worth booking a cheap room, checking in and leaving immediately with no intention of spending the night.  That said, I’m pretty sure that most HFP readers could divert one night to a Kaligo.com booking over the next few months.

Promotion 2

The second offer is open to everyone and does NOT require you to use a BA Amex to pay.

You could earn up to 20,000 additional Avios points.  This is based on your cumulative spending with Kaligo.com over July, August and September.  It is based on booking and not stay date, which can be as far out as 1 July 2016, although you will not receive the Avios until after your stay.

The cumulative bonuses you can earn are:

3,000 Avios if you spend £250 – £499

10,000 Avios if you spend £500 – £999

20,000 Avios if you spend £1,000+

This is on top of the 5,000 bonus Avios points you would earn via the first promotion above, assuming you do have a BA Amex.

As usual with Kaligo.com and its competitors PointsHound and Rocketmiles, you should check competing sites before you book.  They will not always be the cheapest every time, but if you factor in the value of the Avios points then they should be very competitive.  Business users should note that none of the sites above can provide VAT receipts – if that is an issue, you should wait until you need to book a hotel outside of the EU.

You must register for this promotion in order to receive the bonus Avios.  If you don’t have a BA Amex card, you can register for this promotion on its own here.  BA Amex cardholders will be automatically registered when signing up for the ‘5,000 Avios in one stay’ promotion.


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.

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.

Comments (31)

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

  • Stu R says:

    Not sure how I missed this one Rob ….

    Just booked us a night in the Airport Transit hotel in Doha for our upcoming trip in a couple of weeks and bagged 5,700 Avios!

    Thank you!

    • Rob says:

      Ironically, I may well be booking the same thing – need to decide if I want to get up at 3am in downtown Doha or 4am in the transit hotel!

      • Erico1875 says:

        The transit visa is about £15 + a taxi fare if you go downtown

        • Rob says:

          That is also part of the decision! Current plan is IC in Abu Dhabi taking the 4pm Ambassador check out, flight to Doha around 7pm, overnight in transit hotel, 8am flight to Paris.

          • Erico1875 says:

            not worth leaving the airport for such a short transit then. Souk Waqif is worth a visit but given the time you have it would all be a bit of a rush

  • James67 says:

    How many days after departure do Kaligo usually take to post avios?

  • Roberto says:

    Thanks for the reminder.. An easy 5500 avios for a LGW Hilton in May next year

  • Dan says:

    Has anybody tried making a booking using a supplementary BA Amex, as well as the main card?

    Do you get the 5k bonus twice?

    • Rob says:

      I reckon you would if you gave a different BAEC number as Kaligo has no way of knowing it is a supp ….

      • Sussex Bantam says:

        IIRC a Kaligo rep said this was OK when the article was first published and you would get the 5k bonus twice.

        I found though that it was better to credit the stays to the same card – you can earn more from the cumulative scheme if your spend per night is quite high.

  • DUS says:

    What does this here mean:

    To be eligible for this promotion, Cardmembers must register their email address at Kaligo.com/ba-amex and use the registered email address when making hotel bookings with Kaligo (“Qualifying Bookings”).

    Which email addresses have to be identical? I am confused (and blame this on not being a native English speaker).

    Thank you for helping me with this question.

    • Rob says:

      It means that, when you book, the email address you put in your booking (to receive the confirmation email) must be the same email address you used to register for the offer. This is how Kaligo know you have registered.

  • Kinkell says:

    Pipped at the post for T5 Sofitel ‘last room sold’, for Feb , then pipped again for IC in Geneva. In May. Currently waiting for confirmation of my booking at different hotel in Geneva and hoping to Bag 12000avios.
    If all goes well, then I’m pleased. Thanks very much for reminder.
    Disappointed re: T5 , but should have booked as soon as offer posted to beat the rush from all the other HFP travellers!
    Totally OT: but currently in Emirates lounge in Glasgow waiting to board our delayed Dubai flight. It’s such an improvement on the previous lounge. An oasis of cool calm. It’s spotless, catering tasty and well presented, with decent selection of wines. I need another glass, further delay looming!

  • Leo says:

    I always look at Kaligo but they are always just so expensive!

    • Roberto says:

      THIS +1

      I looked at hotels in Vegas and the difference was enough to make your eyes water.

    • Polly says:

      Agree Leo,
      Both hotels I looked at for Jan are between £30-40 per night more than booking.com, but then again a bonus of 20k avios is good. But I worked it out that I was effectively buying the avios at my normal rate, so have not now used Kaligo. Last room then sold when I did try to get the 5k BAEC bonus for the outgoing night in HKG, but will look again this evening. Currently on route via CPH, gorgeous day here, and Doha to HKT on QR J, so can’t check or book now til tomorrow evening local time.

    • Peter K says:

      I found them expensive a lot of the time, but not all. Luck of the draw I suppose!

  • Polly says:

    Saying that, all our hotel stay in HKT was competitive on kaligo a last promotion, so you can’t win them all, as they say. But will keep trying until the end of the 30th…
    Currently in the ” biz curtained off section ” of the so called biz Aspire lounge here in CPH.. Definitely nothing to write home about, shame really, as flying J is really special…very very light offerings and basic booze, but that’s fine. Lady states it’s because we are treated to such fab food on board, despite the fact we actually want to sleep for those precious 6 hours…and it’s v v quiet…

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

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