Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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.

  • Hugo says:
    4 Oct4 October 06:46

    Hi,

    I’m new on this so, sorry for the stupid question.
    How come 75 Tesco points become 180 avios? How do you convert this?

    Thanks

    • Boris says:
      4 Oct4 October 09:49

      That is the Tesco offer.

      • Hugo says:
        4 Oct4 October 10:47

        Yes but, as far as I know, 250 tesco points are worth 600 avios. So I don’t get how come 75 tesco points on this offer become 180 avios. I don’t get it…

        • AviosHunter says:
          4 Oct4 October 12:02

          600 avios / 250 Tesco points = 2.4 this is the conversion rate.
          75 x 2.4 = 180 avios.

          Hope this helps,
          AviosHunter

          • Hugo says:
            4 Oct4 October 12:47

            Yes, mate… I realised later. It was too early for math calculations… lol
            Thanks

          • Alan says:
            4 Oct4 October 13:59

            Haha are you called Jeremy Hunt? He apparently can’t handle ‘complicated maths’ first thing in the morning either!

  • Boris says:
    4 Oct4 October 09:51

    That seems to me to be less than Interflora are overpriced by.

  • Hugo says:
    4 Oct4 October 10:50

    Nevermind… I got my math wrong… lol

  • Aceman says:
    4 Oct4 October 11:56

    What happens to residual amounts in gift cards on Amazon and Waitrose?

    • Rob says:
      4 Oct4 October 13:33

      Waitrose – the tills can mix gift card remnants and cash

      Amazon – if you load the entire amount of the gift card onto your acccount (instructions in the article) it will use up your gift card balance first and then automatically charge any remaining cost to your credit card

  • Guy says:
    4 Oct4 October 18:06

    Quick question for Raffles and/or anyone who’s bought gift cards in-store at tesco already:

    e.g. If I spend £75 on amazon/john lewis gift cards … to gain 75 x 3 = 225 tesco clubcard points, do I need/best advised to do these in three separate transactions? Or would I still definitely get the 225 clubcard points just buying £75 of gift cards in the same transaction?

    Thanks

    • Alan says:
      4 Oct4 October 19:31

      All one transaction is definitely fine – just got 2x£100 Amazon GC this evening and 600 pts showing straight away on the receipt.

    • Rob says:
      4 Oct4 October 23:37

      The more you buy in one go, the more chance that the tills go funny …..

      • Guy says:
        5 Oct5 October 17:47

        Hahaha Raffles (and thanks also Alan)

        Just did 2 x £200 transactions in local Tesco Extra — 1200 club card points across the two of them all posted ok on receipt 🙂

        So amusing — the second cashier to me: ‘What is it with john lewis cards, I don’t understand, why aren’t you interested in the other ones? Why are they so popular? You are the sixth person who has bought them at my till this afternoon!’

        If only she read HFP, it would all become clear 😉

        • Rob says:
          5 Oct5 October 18:34

          The concentration of HFP readers in certain parts of London does cause problems like this!

          • Alan says:
            6 Oct6 October 00:28

            Haha yeah, by comparison I think it’s mainly just Liz and and I fighting it out for the gift cards in Dundee and lots of Tesco stores to pick from relative to the population 😀

  • Michael says:
    4 Oct4 October 18:20

    Since annoyingly I’m not targeted for the Nectar bonus, I’m planning to imtey the upgrade Gold to Plat and use these cards to hit the bonus quickly. How soon after the upgrade is approved does the card arrive? Or can I use my old Gold card and it still count? (And if so, how soon?)

  • Riaz says:
    5 Oct5 October 09:24

    What’s the benefit of using the Curve over a Tesco Mastercard?
    Now that they don’t do Amex, is there any benefit to the Curve apart from the 1% foreign loading?

    • Arrow says:
      5 Oct5 October 09:29

      None whatsoever unless you think you can cut down the number of cards in your pocket? No logic there, either – you can only link Curve to 1 other card, so why not carry that primary card in the first place? And Curve is so unreliable you need to carry back-up cards in any case.

      • Arrow says:
        5 Oct5 October 09:54

        OK – correction: you can only link to one usable card at a time.

        You’ve missed the reward scheme. Worthless though it is.

      • Genghis says:
        5 Oct5 October 09:55

        And the Supercard insurance for what it’s worth.
        I use Curve – no trust for Supercard.

    • Nadir says:
      6 Oct6 October 08:58

      You’d use both. So the Curve would be linked to the Tesco card. You’d get Tesco points and whatever the Curve reward scheme gives you. The only instance in which that’d be a bad idea is when you get extra/bonus points for buying at specific retailers. If you do it via Curve, the transaction appears on your Tesco as a transaction with Curve rather than whomever you bought from so you’d miss out on the extra points (although you’d get base points).

  • mark2 says:
    5 Oct5 October 10:25

    I used the last few days of my Diamond Club card in a Tesco store so got 2 Avios per £1.

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