Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

EXTENDED: 4500 Avios for a £30 subscription to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

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

Tomorrow was meant to be the last day to pick up 4,500 cheap Avios points via The Sunday Times Travel Magazine.

However, due to what I can only imagine was insane demand from Head for Points readers, this generous offer has now been rolled over.  It is now showing an expiry date of 3rd February 2017.

Whilst there is no rush to apply now, it is worth running through the deal again for non-regular readers of HfP.

I have a soft spot for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, probably because they tend to mention this site occasionally.  It also has a slightly more aggressive tone than Conde Nast Traveller, being happier to call out companies or cities which don’t live up to the hype.  The August issue had a great piece demolishing various over-promoted destinations, companies and services.

Whether or not you are an occasional reader of the magazine, you are going to want to subscribe!  This is because The Sunday Times Travel Magazine is offering 4,500 Avios points if you sign up for a £30 subscription.

At 0.66p per point, this is a no-brainer for most of us.

The offer does NOT show immediately.  You need to enter STTM0916 in the ‘Promotional Code’ box and hit ‘Submit’.  The page will refresh and the deal will show.

Cutting and pasting the code sometimes fails. If so, type it in. Try upper and lower case too.

YOU MUST CLICK SUBMIT so the page reloads. If you don’t, you will NOT get the Avios as you will be signing up to the standard package.

If you do not see a box during the check-out process asking for your Avios or BAEC account number, you should assume that it has gone wrong and will not work.  Try again using a different browser or device.

In summary:

you receive 4,500 Avios in either British Airways Executive Club or avios.com

the offer now runs until 3rd February 2017

the cost for a yearly subscription is £30 via direct debit (which you can cancel via online banking as soon as the first payment is taken ) or £32 via credit card or cheque

Avios are awarded within 28 days

You are paying 0.66p per Avios point if you ascribe zero value to the magazine.  Given the content I doubt anyone who reads this site will not get some value from it.

Whilst the original rules did not mention anything about multiple subscriptions, the magazine has now changed its terms to read “One offer per member. One award of Avios per household.”


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 (41)

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

  • Graeme says:

    Has anyone who signed up recently actually received the magazine? Subscribed in august and the avios posted fine, and received a letter suggesting my first issue would be September’s. But October rapidly approaches with no sign so far…

    • Genghis says:

      My wife, dad, auntie and I all received mags start of Sep

      • Worzel says:

        Magazine and points all posted for me early this month(CC payment).

        Genghis, unfortunately I couldn’t stretch to your levels of generosity- Mrs Gummidge and I have to share the same magazine, 🙂 .

        • Genghis says:

          🙂 I saw my dad the weekend he got his first magazine and he’s really pleased with his bday present.

    • HayMow says:

      Believe magazine delivery date is supposed to be the first Thursday of each month, and lead time is long – for my 28 Aug subs, I will only get my first issue start of Oct (the Nov issue?). I’d chase up in case your issue has gone astray.

  • HayMow says:

    Subscribed 28 Aug (paying by credit card, not DD) – Avios posted to BAEC account 3 days later, 31 Aug.

  • Oh! Matron! says:

    As it’s just cost me 4000 points + £15 for a single flight from London to Manchester, this is an absolute bargain (given it was £100+ for the same flight with no points!)

  • British Airways Will Start Charging for Water in January, Buy Avios Less than 1 Cent Apiece - View from the Wing says:

    […] The opportunity to buy British Airways Avios at least than a penny apiece has been extended to February 3, 2017 (HT: Head for Points) […]

  • @mkcol says:

    Worth bearing in mind you’ll hit some problems on the crediting of Avios if your account surname does not match your delivery name.
    Unfortunately my passport is in my “old” name so my BAEC account reflects that, however my Avios.com account is in my current name.
    Plus I’d ordered some subs as gifts for delivery to others with totally different surname! The magazine automation can’t cope with these variables, but I’ve been told (across assorted emails) that they will manually correct it.

    • @mkcol says:

      Still chasing them up about this – I subscribed on 8th August.
      Today, after another email which was from someone I’ve emailed before & which has the rest of the email history in it, I decided to try phoning & speaking to a human.
      He could see what the issue was & could get the Avios applied, however stated that the T&C was for 1 lot of Avios per household. I advised him that T&C was changed after I subscribed….long & short is he actually isn’t enabled to do anything other than “pass it up to head office” to look into. I’m to expect a call back no later than Tuesday.

      The saga continues.

  • Jordan says:

    Anyone outside the UK have any luck? And specifically with sending it to some random UK address.

  • bryan says:

    If anyone is trying to judge when they will get the points I signed up just before the initial deadline and chose my BAEC account for the points and they went into my account today.

  • Justin Laur says:

    No points credited to neither me nor my partner, been about 6 weeks. Just emailed them and this is what they responded –

    Thank you for your email regarding Sunday Times Travel.

    I can confirm the points are only available per house hold, please may I ask if there is only one subscription going to your address?

    Please may I also ask if the name on the subscription is the same as on your membership account?

    With this information I can assist you further with your query.

    If I can be of any further assistance please contact me

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.