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Important deal updates: Accor, British Airways ex-Dublin, Tesco conversions

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There have been a few important updates on some of the deals I have covered in the last couple of weeks.  Whilst I don’t normally do this, I thought it was worthwhile spending an article running through some updates:

Get 1,050 free Le Club AccorHotels points

Last weekend I told you how to earn 1,050 free Accor points via completing a quiz on their website.  Later in the week, I showed you how to convert these to Avios despite being below the usual 3,000 point threshold.

Accor has now pulled this promotion.  It appears that there was substantial abuse of it in China with many thousands of accounts opened and the points fraudulently used.

It looks like some innocent accounts have been caught up in this.

If you transferred your points to Iberia and your account reads: “FFP Systematic Transfer : Iberia” then you are OK.  If it says “Account Regularisation” then it appears that your points have been removed by Accor.

Book British Airways Club World flights to Hawaii for £945

On Friday I wrote about the British Airways Club World deals available out of Dublin.

One of these was a £945 return business class deal to Honolulu.  This fare has either sold out or been removed by BA.  Hawaii Club World / business class tickets are still available for €1,846 (£1,340) which is a more widely available price – excellent value for what is, in theory, not a sale fare.

The other Dublin deals are still available – see my original article for details.

Tesco Clubcard bonus points are now in – check your account

If you transferred Tesco Clubcard points to your British Airways Executive Club account last month, your 20% bonus (capped at 4,800 Avios) should now have arrived.

This whole process has been a bit farcical.  Initially it wasn’t clear who was targetted, we were then all surprised to see that the bonus did not post instantly and, finally, someone made a big mistake and gave everyone a flat bonus of 480 Avios instead.

The 480 Avios should have been removed and replaced with the correct figure.

All in all, this promotion was substantially more confusing and messy than it had any right to be.

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

Accor Live Limitless, British Airways and Avios, Tesco Clubcard

Comments (112)

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

  • Simon says:
    20 Dec20 December 10:49

    Some of the Dublin fares are outstanding value, fights to California for £900 – £950 in CW. The taxes on Avios bookings means it’s only a few £100 more than those, tempting to cancel a couple of redemption bookings and rebook out of Dublin to save a load of miles (and earn some new ones).

    The downside is the 4 extra flights and because of the flight times the 2 extra nights in Dublin (although it is a great city), part of me thinks rebooking is a good idea another part thinks life is too short, I might as well use the miles and make life easy for myself!

  • Robin says:
    20 Dec20 December 10:54

    So, Accor think it’s OK to entice people to read all about Accor and play their quiz , give the award and then later on the quizz page a big thank you to all the participants and then “Account Regularization” zero my points balance.
    Surely that’s theft?!

    • Nick says:
      20 Dec20 December 11:07

      I see your point but its not theft im afraid… I to am waiting for this farce to be sorted out but I can see accor reeling this out from their T + C’s and saying due to large scale fraud (not through here of course :))…

      The member is solely responsible for the information that he/she provides on the conversion request form. The member is not allowed to convert his/her Le Club AccorHotels points into airline miles on behalf of any third-party.

      How they would ever know you converted on behalf of a third party I don’t know.

    • harry1 says:
      20 Dec20 December 11:18

      Bit premature, I imagine they’re just going to zero abusive a/cs – not people who opened 1 a/c per person

      Can’t blame Accor for playing it safe at first then reinstating genuine a/cs

    • Pat Butcher says:
      20 Dec20 December 11:29

      How can you steal something that is yours in the first place?

  • Louise says:
    20 Dec20 December 10:57

    Accor has had the account regulation and points removed, although i had not even instigated a transfer to Iberia

  • Nick says:
    20 Dec20 December 11:00

    Ive put this out on FT accor but no response so can anyone on here help?

    Im on 3870 accor points so able to convert to IB with no issues (apart from it taking weeks to get to the account). Am I able to convert all 3870 points to IB avios or does it have to be in batches of 2000? ie wait till I reach the 4k ppints then transfer. Or is the 2k mark simply for redeeming against rooms at accor?

    By the way I set up an account for my wife, got the 1100 points, eventually transferred across to IB with the correct email reply, account now showing as 0 points. Still no sign on IB account from over a week ago, nor my Groupon avios, nor my IB plus store avios.

    If you read the T + C it does say it can take weeks and now I believe it.

    Between Accor and IB they’re hopeless!

    • harry1 says:
      20 Dec20 December 11:19

      any amount if you use the HFP trick

    • MrCinnamon says:
      20 Dec20 December 11:21

      “Le Club Accorhotels points will be automatically transferred to your Iberia account, once you have reached a total of 3,000 points. ”

      So I believe it is in batches of 3000.

  • Nick says:
    20 Dec20 December 11:04

    Edit above from accor T + C’s in relation to automatic comnversion for airline miles…

    It may take up to 6 weeks for Le Club AccorHotels points to be transferred to the desired frequent flyer account

  • Bigglesgirl says:
    20 Dec20 December 12:04

    Argh! I’ve been ‘Regularised’ by Accor! Just went in this morning (no problems logging in at all), finally pound my points account and there it was – Account Regularisation. Thanks China! 🙁

    • Shadowfixer says:
      20 Dec20 December 15:14

      I have also been Regularised…. Any thoughts on what can be done to fix this?

      SF

  • Nick says:
    20 Dec20 December 13:17

    Tesco: all sorted, correct points posted but it was pretty trivial for me as I’d just converted a big pile of points in to £1.5k of goldsmiths vouchers just before the Avios conversion bonus came along.

    Accor: I, stupidly, had it set up to auto-convert to Avios not Iberia. God knows why/how: I’ve transferred from Accor to Iberia before. Anyway, it’s showing in my Avios account yet, but then it does often take a week or so.

    Hawaii: was that a mistake fare? It just seems crazy that they could ever price it at that.

    • Rob says:
      20 Dec20 December 14:03

      Last year there were Hawaii fares for pretty much spot on £1,000 so that price was not unexpected.

  • Deb says:
    20 Dec20 December 13:47

    I wondered what the 1472 bonus 20% extra points were sitting in my BA account this morning.
    I should have read HFP first!

    • zark says:
      20 Dec20 December 14:23

      I too found miscellaneous points in my BA Avios account this morning – arrived yesterday. Clearly they are from Tesco and represent 20% of an AUTO transfer from Tesco to BA on 26/10/15. I have had auto-convert in place for years ( all at the grandfather conversion rate of 800 Avios for 250 Tesco points) and continue to get this rate and these bonuses automatically.
      I may have been mistaken, but I got the impression from all the comments about this issue, that these 20% conversion bonus’s were supposed to happen only when manually converting or setting up auto convert for the first time etc. For me this is clearly not the case.

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