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How to earn 7 Avios per £1 shopping at Waitrose, John Lewis and Amazon

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As I wrote last week, Tesco has extended its gift card promotion for another few weeks.  Until 16th October, you will receive 75 Clubcard points – which convert into 180 Avios or 187 Virgin Flying Club miles – for every £25 you spend on third party gift cards at Tesco.

These purchases can be made either in-store or via the Tesco online gift card shop.

This extension coincides with a major change in Tesco gift card policy.  It is now stocking John Lewis / Waitrose and Amazon gift cards.

Avios wing 6

Here are a couple of things you need to know:

You cannot buy Amazon or John Lewis gift cards from the Tesco online gift card store – only in person, in-store

The John Lewis / Waitrose cards are only branded as John Lewis as you can see from the picture.  However, the small print on the back confirms that they can be used in Waitrose.  They can also be used at johnlewis.com.

Amazon gift cards do not need to be used for a specific purchase.  You can add them to your Amazon account as a credit balance and the money sits there until you next buy something.  Future purchases are deducted from your credit balance first with any balance charged to a credit card.

In order to add Amazon gift cards to your Amazon account, you need to visit this page of the Amazon website and input the gift card number.

I imagine that Amazon and John Lewis gift cards will remain a permanent part of the Tesco gift card range.  However, we cannot be certain that Tesco will continue to offer 75 bonus Clubcard points per £25 spent on gift cards after 16th October.

If you are a heavy Waitrose, John Lewis or Amazon shopper, it is worth picking up whatever gift cards you can from Tesco over the next few weeks.

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

Tesco Clubcard

Comments (170)

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

  • danksy says:
    3 Oct3 October 16:31

    Just bought 6*£50 next vouchers and created chaos when one of the cards didn’t activate … the old biddy on the tills had no idea what to do!

  • Mr Dee says:
    3 Oct3 October 16:45

    Sorry to hear the issues you faced, sounds like most of the employees at Tesco need their software updating to the 2016 version from the 1990s version where spending more than £100 at a supermarket was unheard of!

    Probably best off buying the gift cards in smaller amounts to avoid too much hassle.

    • Dave G says:
      3 Oct3 October 17:48

      I think I’ll stick to one gift card at a time in future, including the 9 £50 gift card I have left. I’ll do one £50 Amazon gift card per £50 Tesco gift card. That should be simple enough!

  • Mr Dee says:
    3 Oct3 October 16:50

    Does this include Tesco?

  • Neil Pyper says:
    3 Oct3 October 17:09

    Thanks for alerting to this. One thing to add is that only £100 of Amazon cards can be paid for by card per transaction (at least in the Tesco near Birmingham New Street station).

    • Sussex Bantam says:
      3 Oct3 October 17:16

      More made up rules ! I just bought £300 Amazon in my local Tesco

    • Harebell says:
      3 Oct3 October 20:07

      Agreed. Complete tosh.
      I bought £500 Amazon vouchers at about the same time as you- as part of a £1K order with JL cards.

      Chaos ensued with the old biddies of course and it took half an hour to sort but we got there.

    • CV3V says:
      3 Oct3 October 21:55

      yeah, i bought 200 pounds worth at weekend. Beware the Tesco till operators who make up rules on the spot – saying there was a memo/rule/district managers rule etc etc.

      On one occasion Tesco refused to sell my OH any gift cards! After kicking up a fuss they then claimed they had called the area manager who confirmed not to sell any!

  • James M says:
    3 Oct3 October 17:12

    “I did have an after-thought though. With Diamond Club closed on 30th September, should I have bought a few expensive items in M&S and returned them post-statement production?”

    You should have maxed out the card with refundable hotel purchases etc, to be cancelled after statement production. It certainly would have worked since you would have had a negative points balance, but points element has been eliminated. I have done this 🙂

  • Planeflyer says:
    3 Oct3 October 17:17

    I just went into the big Tesco in Brent Cross, but there were no Amazon or JL vouchers to be found. I’m now on the Tesco link from above, and also no sign of these two retailers. Typing either into the search bar returns “No Products available”?

    • Rob says:
      3 Oct3 October 17:47

      They are not online, as per the article. Seems hit and miss which stores have been stocked so far.

      • Planeflyer says:
        3 Oct3 October 19:58

        Ah yes, I stopped reading at the picture! Will have to see when I next go into a big Tesco (which I hardly ever do).

        • Dave says:
          3 Oct3 October 21:32

          Tesco Surrey Quays had a good variety of Amazon cards this evening, if you’re ever on the other side of London!

    • RoC says:
      3 Oct3 October 21:35

      anyone else know of a tesco around north london that’s stocking them?

  • Fenny says:
    3 Oct3 October 18:08

    Where I live, Tesco and Waitrose are across the road from each other. I can go in to Tesco and buy a load of Waitrose vouchers, then go and do my normal Waitrose shop. The My Waitrose offers and free coffee are far better value than shopping in Tesco.

    • mark2 says:
      3 Oct3 October 18:23

      Agreed.
      Is everyone aware that when the Waitrose system decides whether you get a free newspaper with your £5/£10 shop it includes the price of the newspaper and coffee. This means that you only have to spend £2.50 on other goods. Once a month the £1.20 for the Food magazine counts as well!

  • Neal says:
    3 Oct3 October 18:46

    Bought 20 vouchers today from tesco’s. first cleared Aylesford extra out of £50 john lewis vouchers (15 in total) before going onto Strood. Unfortunately I had the usual issues of 3 random cards failing and having to go back through to cross reference each receipt to identify the failed cards before trying again.
    Once i got to stood the staff there refused to sell any more than 5 cards in total per customer per day. looks like not all tesco branches are singing from the same hymn sheet. That said today I’ve earnt approximately 11 flying club miles per pound on a £1000 spend in John lewis on nursery equipment for our baby when she’s born!

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