2,000 Avios points when you join Zipcar

(EDIT: until 30th September 2016, you can get a £30 sign-up credit when you join Zipcar if you use this link here.)

British Airways has a low key partnership with ‘by the hour’ Avis-owned car rental group Zipcar.  It is so low key that I didn’t know that the sign-up had been increased from 1,000 to 2,000 Avios at some point in the last few months.

I like Zipcar.  We have a membership in London and there are about 15 cars within a 15-minute walk of our house.  The nearest, which is available 80% of the time, is about 30 seconds away.  £6-£7 per hour for the car, plus £59.50 annual fee, is a lot cheaper and easier than owning a car.

(Regular HFP readers will remember that, slightly bizarrely, I was interviewed for Management Today last year about my use of Zipcar, Uber and Gett.  Terrible photograph as well.)

The process is very simple.  You initially unlock the car using a credit card-sized membership card or via your smartphone.  The keys are in the glovebox.  At the end of the rental, you reverse the process.

If the petrol tank drops below 25% full, there is a fuel card in the car to allow you to fill it up.  This is an additional opportunity to earn some free Avios if you visit a Tesco, Esso or Shell garage!

If you join Zipcar via this British Airways / Zipcar sign-up page, you will receive 2,000 bonus Avios points.

(On the other hand, until the end of February you can also join via this link and get a £20 driving credit so you are effectively paying 1p per Avios if you take the points.)

Once you are a member, you receive 50 Avios for every trip you book.  This is a pretty decent return given that a short one hour rental will cost you as little as £5.95.

If you are already a Zipcar member, you can opt in to the Avios option at no extra cost.  Annoyingly, however, it cannot be done until your membership is next up for renewal.  You need to email [email protected] and they will switch you over to the BAEC membership plan at that point.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 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:

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

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

If you have a small business, we especially recommend Capital On Cap’s Visa card which comes with a generous bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

(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.)