Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: Avis airport car rentals now £2!, 100 free Heathrow Rewards points

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

News in brief:

Avis offering one-way car rentals from London airports from £2

On Christmas Eve, I wrote about how Avis is offering car rentals from Gatwick, Heathrow Terminals 2-4, Heathrow Terminal 5 (separate pick-up area), Luton and Stansted for £20.

This deal was obviously not met with great enthusiasm.  A few hours after the HfP article went live, Avis sent out another email.

Rentals would now be £2 with Avis between 29th December and 3rd January.  You can book here.

Remember that you must book a one-way rental and it must depart from one of the airports above.

This could be your cheapest route home after your flight.  It isn’t clear if you would earn Avios or other miles as well but there is no harm adding your number to your booking.

I did a dummy booking from Heathrow T5 to Avis Battersea for 3rd January and it priced at £2 for a Ford Fiesta (Group B).  If you want to splash out, biggers were available for £2.50, £3.50 or £5.   The booking page is here.

Avis £2 rentals

100 free Heathrow Rewards points

Heathrow Rewards is offering 100 free points if you take part in the Heathrow Airport ‘share your stories’ project.  This involves sharing a short (2 sentence) story about an experience, good or bad, you had at the airport.

Most members will have received this email directly.  If you are opted out of Heathrow Rewards marketing emails, though, you will have missed it.

You can share your story here.  You must use the same email address as used on your Heathrow Rewards account.  It is not 100% certain that you will receive the points if you didn’t receive the email but for the sake of 60 seconds work you may want to give it a try.


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 (40)

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

  • mikee says:

    Is it just me or is the Avis website not working? Tried the link but location won’t load.

  • Stu R says:

    Earn double miles on all Heathrow Rewards Points to Avios transfers before 31 December 2015!

  • AndyGWP says:

    Been trying to think of a nice positive experience of LHR to share… But all I can think of are the dozens of not so nice ones! Oh well, suppose I’ll still get points for it 😀

    • James67 says:

      No harm in being honest, I just told it like it is from my POV. If enough people do the same it might even result in some improvements.

      • Metatone says:

        It’s a Sensemaker survey – I recognise the setup from some consulting work I did in the past.
        I’d highly recommend everyone feel free to share frustrations as the stories will be analysed to look for areas of improvement.

        Whether or not management actually implement any improvements will be another story, as always…

        • AndyGWP says:

          Have gone for it… I was trying to be festive and cheery, I found a compromise (ie. told them something was good and it was delightful as the majority of times it is usually rubbish) 😀 😀

          • Liz says:

            I put some comments in a couple of days ago – does anyone know when these points will post – I want to add to my lowly 160 points left to get the 100% bonus by the end of the year.

          • TimS says:

            Says up to 30 days to post. Doubt they will appear by the end of the year I’m afraid.

  • avidsaver says:

    O/T For anyone on the grandfathered Tesco/Avios 800 rate….The missing 1600 points (extra 20% on 32000) owing on the recent £100 bonus promotion was added to my executive club on the 24th. It was therefore not capped at 4800!

    • harry says:

      It certainly wasn’t capped @ 4800.

      lol

    • Peter Taysum says:

      I’m on the granfathered 800, but auto transfer. I didn’t want to change in case I lost this… Any advice?

      Thanks

      • harry says:

        I thought the 800 just stayed with the card you have, ie to auto-transfer or not is irrelevant. I can understand your caution, though.

        • avidsaver says:

          I agree with Harry. I believe the 800 rate is tied to your card regardless of how you convert.

          • avidsaver says:

            A second thought. If my memory serves me correctly the 800 rate was applied way before they introduced the option to auto-convert.

      • reds says:

        I am on the 800 rate and normally auto-convert to avios.
        Six months ago I opted out of auto-conversion to get vouchers as I need some virgin miles.
        Went back to auto-conversion and the 800 rate continued.
        So, I think you should be ok, Peter.

        • Fenny says:

          I’m on the old rate and regularly switch my redemption style. I always get the 800 points when I redeem for Avios/BAEC points. I’ve always assumed that once you had that status, it was attached to your Tesco’s account indefinitely (for as long as they decide to honour that status).

  • Tilly71 says:

    I thought the new Shopper Points sister site of yours was launched recently to focus the attention on topics inc clubcard etc instead of the same info being posted on here?

      • Tilly71 says:

        If you head over today to “shopper points” the same items are covered in today’s main article on the dvd players bonus points offers, it just appears duplicate content between the two sister sites. I personally feel Rob has enough informational content on airlines, hotels & credit cards to not need to cover supermarket loyalty schemes covered by shopper points.

        • Peter K says:

          I don’t bother reading shopper points as well so am interested in having half decent Tesco filters on HfP.

          Using the same info on more than one portal is not unusual. Try listing to the news on several different BBC radio stations!

        • AndyGWP says:

          Personally I don’t mind them popping up on ‘bits’ posts or tagged on to the end of other articles… I tend to flick through the ‘bits’ ones to the stuff that interests me anyway 🙂

    • Rob says:

      None of these deals were worth covering on HFP because they are not hugely generous. They would have been ignored in the past, now they get a passing mention on HFP. That is an improvement!

      Shopper Points will settle down into a site aimed at a 30-year woman whose favourite site is MailOnline. The recent Facebook advertising I ran was (literally) 99% clicked on by women and 1% by men. Once Anika is writing 80% of it compared to the current 50% it will have a clearly different feel to HFP.

      Tesco deals worth covering on HFP will continue to be covered. Those deals will either be a) very generous based on points earned per £1 spent or b) for products with wide appeal, like DVD pre-orders.

      • harry says:

        That’s you, Tilly lol

        • Rob says:

          Tilly, your comments at SP have been much appreciated.

          • harry says:

            I have to add that I value Tilly’s comments/ posts – very much. Don’t mean to appear abrasive, if so, sorry.

          • Tilly71 says:

            I’m not offended in any way, I just saw Shopper Points launched recently with a whole days worth of article from here to help promote this new sister site dedicated to articles on supermarket loyalty points and their associated bonus point offers.
            I post everyday on SP as I can see they need more support and a new site needs more traffic to generate PPC revenue ultimately.
            I just found it strange to see the same Clubcard bonus offers posted on here as the HFP sister site. If anything HFP could be promoting SP by driving traffic their way, maybe a little link to SP site in a very small article covering on Clubcard bonus offers would really help promote that site and drive traffic to them.
            Just my thoughts, I know from experience how hard it is to gain followers on a new site.

          • Rob says:

            There are SP links in all the old Tesco articles on HFP – the aim to convert some of that Google traffic into long term visitors instead of scaring them off with Avios talk!

          • Tilly71 says:

            Thanks Rob, I will continue to support SP as much as I can and help them out with Clubcard bonus offers information as and when I see it online.
            A new site in this niche needs all the support it can get and followers.
            Keep up the good work SP and HFP.
            By the way I’m not a 30 year old woman!

          • harry says:

            Possible issue might be that it is relatively easy to help out & send a thousand or more relevant people over – relevant in that they’ll be very interested by the offer and therefore quite likely to come back – by HP coming up with a blockbuster offer, first (eg the free printer).

            But blockbusters should also be on HFP!

            I also personally can’t see that the same offer shouldn’t be seen on both sites, just a question of getting the emphasis right. Ie blockbusters on both sites, less important shopper deals in SP articles (but maybe referenced/ linked in Bits comments/ asides).

            Anyway, lovely sunny day here after what seems like 10 days of fog & cloud – not in itself a massive problem when we had all that Xmas stuff to get through – but off shortly to move a tree 🙂

      • Anon says:

        Good, by HFP still covering Tesco pts deals, it also gives clued up HFP readers chance to comment on deals that may of gone under Robs radar.

        Like the Epson printer for £34 + 500pts, I needed a new cheap printer so that was a no brainer, its also £15 more expensive over on Amazon…

        • Rob says:

          Actually this one is right on the cusp …. printers are not easy to sell on eBay so as a ‘trade’ it isn’t a super deal. The points are good but not so good that it is worth buying whether or not you need a printer!

  • Thunderbirds says:

    I haven’t/didn’t get the Heathrow rewards e-mail but did manage to get the recent Heathrow rewards 3000 bonus points posted and transferred to 6,000 Avios in wife’s BAEC account so worth the effort.

  • Tord Nilson says:

    thanks for the Avis deal – flying back from Thailand on Tuesday so perfect to get back to SW London!

  • Peter Taysum says:

    Has anyone with BAEC Gold ever picked up Avis car from outside the arrivals Hall at T5? It’s advertised as a BAEC Gold benefit, but last time I booked there was nothing to tell me this was going to happen… I’ve just booked again flying NCL to LHR and would be quicker, if it works. Any advice?

    Thanks.

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

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.