Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: 1000 Miles & More miles with Blacklane, Iberia wine deal, Gatwick schedule changes

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News in brief:

Blacklane announced as new Miles & More partner

Global professional driver service Blacklane has been added to Miles & More’s list of partners offering miles for every ride you take.  You may remember that Blacklane generously sponsored a Head for Points competition last year.

The basic earning rate is 1 mile per £, $ or € depending on the country you are using the service in. You can book your ride via the app or website by entering your pick up and drop off points and choosing a time and car. Unlike Uber you will get a fixed price and not be charged anything extra if, for example, traffic is slow.

If you sign up between now and 31st December, you will get a 1,000 Miles & More miles sign-up bonus when taking your first ride.  As Lufthansa miles are relatively hard to earn if you are UK based, this is worth a look.

The Blacklane home page is here.

Get 450 Avios with an Iberia wine deal

Iberia‘s UK wine partner Vinoseleccion is offering 450 Avios (dropped into an Iberia account) when buying 6 bottles of LAN Edicion Especial Reserva 2009.

The wine is currently on offer for just £45 which is 50% off their regular price. Vinoseleccion delivers for free in UK mainland.

BA A380

New BA routes at Gatwick airport scheduled

British Airways has announced some changes to their longhaul schedule at Gatwick from March 2017.

This is what is new:

  • Orlando (MCO) – one additional flight on Thursdays from 30th March 2017
  • Kingston (KIN) – one additional flight on Tuesdays from 26th March 2017
  • Punta Cana (PUJ) – changes to dates and one additional flight from 28th March 2017 (now flying Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday)

These flights were added into the BA reservations system on Wednesday.  This means that there is a good chance of Avios availability for these new flights still being available which could be handy, especially for Orlando.

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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

British Airways and Avios, Iberia and Club Iberia Plus, Lufthansa and Miles & More

Comments (22)

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

  • Arrow says:
    7 Oct7 October 07:47

    Wine: make sure you get the extra Avios (4 per £ = 180) by clicking correctly through from IB site – otherwise you’ll just get 450.

    • Alex W says:
      7 Oct7 October 08:07

      Is the wine any good?

      • danksy says:
        7 Oct7 October 09:02

        730 avios in total … mmm

      • David P says:
        7 Oct7 October 17:43

        I haven’t tried the specific vintage being offered (2009) but older ones have been good.. Their “regular price” is a little bit higher than the market average in the UK but the half price offer looks genuine instead of being a supermarket-style faux discount.

    • Keith says:
      7 Oct7 October 17:29

      Am I the only one who’s not sure what you mean here?! How do you get an extra 180 Avios by clicking through the Iberia site? I was just about to order, using the link in the email from Iberia, but I’ll hold off until I figure this out…

      • Keith says:
        10 Oct10 October 18:33

        Thanks Genghis,

        I tried that – changed country etc., got to the PluStore, searched in vain for the wine. Tried searching for Vinoseleccion, Roija, LAN. Nothing. So I went back to the offer email and ordered from there.

        It did say that it’s 450 Avios per case, with a maximum of 2 cases per household, so that answers that question.

  • graham says:
    7 Oct7 October 08:30

    I have used Blacklane once and never again. I paid for a meet and greet from JFK to our New York hotel. The driver was not waiting for us and we had to call the Blacklane office to find out what was happening.
    After we eventually found him a half hour after arrival he took us to the wrong address in New York and then told us we would have to accept a surcharge for changing our destination and blamed us for giving him the wrong address (we had never given Blacklane the hotel address or been asked for it). Despite this our driver told us that we had entered the wrong address into his system and were responsible for the mistake. He told us the whole journey had been delayed as he took a different route before diverting to the correct destination and this was obviously our fault! We eventually arrived at the correct hotel after a very stressful and delayed journey which was the opposite of why I booked the premium Blacklane service ! It would have been easier to get a taxi off the rank.I complained to the Blacklane “service” department and got no reply at all – useless.

  • Boi says:
    7 Oct7 October 09:04

    OT sorry: seeing the pound had a crash overnight it made me think of currency trading. I know there’s knowledgeable people here. Can someone please point me in the right direction-ie, where to look for further reading/info and best brokers out there. I don’t suppose DIY is a good option as I know nothing about forex trade.

    • Zander says:
      7 Oct7 October 09:16

      If you know nothing about Forex make dunny trades first and then discover that it’s not worth it and don’t trade at all. FX tends to be where the biggest profit and losses are for an individual investor which is usually a loss.

    • JK says:
      7 Oct7 October 09:31

      I’m in fx and the best advice I can offer you is reconsider. You need to understand there are huge risks in trading. In most cases you would have a margin account which is a form of leverage, so you can lose more than just the amount you initially deposit with the broker. Brokers are happy to let you play for a while, and you might even make some profit. But at some point, there will be a large unexpected move like GBP last night, and if you are on the wrong side of it, your margin won’t be enough to cover it, your positions get liquidated and you could end up owing them a lot more than you started with.

      • JK says:
        7 Oct7 October 09:38

        Another warning – there are plenty of people selling systems that trade electronically according to predetermined rules (look for MT4 / Expert Advisor / EA on eBay). Same thing happens to these too – it’s only a matter of time before there is an adverse market move that wipes them out. I’ve seen it happen many times – a flurry of liquidations all using the same model. Caveat emptor.

        • Gavin says:
          7 Oct7 October 11:51

          The Mrs works in FX and from what I understand I echo the thoughts of those above!

  • @mkcol says:
    7 Oct7 October 09:54

    There are oodles of seats available for redemption on the new Thursday Orlando flight….I saw 8 Club seats on the outbound on 14 Sept while scanning for other things.

  • Arrow says:
    7 Oct7 October 10:43

    I see MBNA are replacing the Amex + Visa combo with a simple Visa card – ie no Amex – no point keeping for Shop Small.

    BTW Amex Shop Small is confirmed as re-appearing again this year.

    • Genghis says:
      7 Oct7 October 10:47

      Great – do you have a source for Shop Small re-appearing this year? When will it be? I might need to do a bit of planning to maximise the number of Amex cards / arrange my hygienist appt like I did last year during this time etc. Cheers.

    • Arrow says:
      7 Oct7 October 11:06

      Yes – that’s generous. I wonder why they seem to be not issuing certain customers with the Amex card, then? Certainly our letter makes it clear we’re only getting the Visa card. (Was a 2 point Amex, 1 point Visa combo).

    • Genghis says:
      7 Oct7 October 11:11

      Not bad for a cash back credit card. Not sure this can be beaten if you want CB. There’s the Amex Platinum Everyday card which offers 5% for first 3 months but then goes down to 1% and there’s a 1.25% card with £25 I believe (but only worthwhile if wife spends over £10k).

    • mark2 says:
      7 Oct7 October 11:38

      Surely that refers to Australia (au), which does not mean that it will not return to UK.

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