Non-flight deals to be had in the avios.com January sale

Avios.com (not British Airways Executive Club) has launched its January sale.  In order to take part, you would need to use the ‘Combine My Avios’ function on ba.com or avios.com to move your points across to avios.com.

Oddly, there are no flight offers available.

Don’t dismiss the sale entirely, however, because there are some genuine deals to be had.

The home page for the sale is here.

Hotels

Avios.com is offering discounts on 100 hotels in key destinations.  This is for travel between March and May 2016, for rooms booked before 24th January.

The cities included are Dubai, Boston, Marrakech, Istanbul, Algarve, Madrid, Rome, Vienna, Copenhagen, Nice, Berlin and Amsterdam.

Here is the interesting bit.  Avios has reduced both the ‘pay with Avios’ price and the cash price.  This means that, even if you have a very small Avios balance, you can still get a good deal here.

One problem is that it is not clear which hotels are reduced.  When you dig around, though, there are some deals.  Let’s take Hilton Dubai The Walk from 16th to 23rd April – a photo of a typical apartment is below.  Hilton.com wants Dh 7,501 for the entry level room including all taxes (£1,387).  The avios.com price is just £616 or 108,000 Avios or some combination of those.

This is a substantial saving.  Before anyone thinks of it – you cannot claim a Hilton ‘best rate guarantee’ against this because avios.com is treated as a ‘membership site’.

Package and cruise holiday discounts

Avios.com has sharply increased the discount you will receive if you redeem your points for a package holiday.  You must book by 24th January for travel at any point in the next year.

The deal is valid with any tour operator that Avios can book, which is most of them.  Simply find the holiday you want in a tour operator brochure and call Avios to book.  You will pay the brochure price.

The discounts are:

Redeem 5,000 Avios and save £100

Redeen 10,000 Avios and save £200

Redeem 15,000 Avios and save £300

The minimum spend required to claim a discount is just £750.  Redeeming 15,000 Avios at a hugely generous 2p per point to save £300 is an impressive deal.

More details can be found here.

The small print online says that “Further discounts can be applied at a rate of £50 per 10,000 Avios”.  However, the document I was sent says clearly that the cap is a £300 discount for 15,000 Avios.  I get a feeling that you can increase the discount beyond £300 but you will only get 0.5p per point if you do.

Car hire

Avis car rentals are reduced by up to 25% depending on destination as long as you pay with Avios points.  You need to book by 4th February for pick up dates before 16th March.

More details on the Avis discount can be found here.

There are also some “earn extra Avios” deals as part of this sale which I will cover later in the week.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 26th September 2024, sign up for FREE Barclaycard Avios Mastercard and you will receive a sign-up bonus of 10,000 Avios. This is double the usual bonus! You only need to spend £1,000 within 90 days. Our full review is here. Click here to apply.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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.

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.

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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.

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