Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: Radisson Blu sale, BA Holidays £1149 Christmas sale, new BA Gatwick Summer flights

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News in brief:

Up to 30% off – Radisson Blu Autumn sale

Radisson Blu has launched its Autumn sale.

If you book by 30th October for stays between 17th October and 30th November you can save up to 30% off your city break in Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Nice, Durham, Belfast, Bristol, Brussels, Liverpool, Stansted Airport or Lyon.

Remember that, at UK Radisson Blu hotels, kids under 12 stay and eat free.  There is no charge for an extra bed and breakfast and dinner is free as long as an adult is eating with them.

The website to book is here.

Radisson Blu logo

Generous BA Holidays Christmas and New Year promo ending

Today is the last book to book your Christmas or New Year short break with BA Holidays and save a substantial amount of money. Even without a hotel these prices would be excellent for Club World flight.  With a 4* or 5* hotel included they are exceptional value – as long as you wrap up warm.

As a reminder, here are the ‘lead in’ flight and hotel offers based on Club World flights:

New York – £1,199 including three nights in a 5* hotel

Boston – £1,149 including three nights in a 4* hotel

Chicago – £1,149 including three nights in a 4* hotel

Washington – £1,149 including three nights in a 4* hotel

Toronto – £1,149 including three nights in a 4* hotel

These prices are based on two people sharing. The BA Holidays Club World promo page is here.

British Airways A320

Additional BA Gatwick Summer services

British Airways has added more flights from Gatwick to their Summer 2017 schedule.

  • Thessaloniki (SKG) – Wednesday added
  • Heraklion (HER) – Wednesday added
  • Cagliari (CAG) – Tuesday added
  • Dubrovnik (DBV) – Saturday added (photo above)
  • Glasgow (GLA) – Friday added

As the above flights were only added to the schedules a couple of days ago, the standard 2 business class / 4 economy class Avios seats should be available even if other days of the week were booked up months ago.

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

British Airways and Avios, Radisson Rewards

Comments (33)

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

  • Brian says:
    17 Oct17 October 07:51

    OT – the bit about bonus Clubcard points has disappeared from the Tesco Gift Card Store – looks like you get nothing now. Obviously, it may be the case that points are awarded anyway – so it would be good to know if anybody experiences that.

    • Genghis says:
      17 Oct17 October 08:00

      Question is – who’s going to take one for the team?

      • Brian says:
        17 Oct17 October 08:07

        That was my thought – I was thinking Rob might want to do and put it down as expenses… :))

        • Rob says:
          17 Oct17 October 08:45

          If Cheapside has any Amazon or John Lewis I am happy to try it, but I doubt they do in an area which is effectively HFP reader central (along with Canary Wharf).

          • TGLoyalty says:
            17 Oct17 October 09:40

            I have a final money off voucher so I’ll be in a Tesco this week I’ll report back on if there is any clubcard points at all.

          • Genghis says:
            17 Oct17 October 10:38

            Cheapside stopped selling a decent selection of gift cards a few months back (they now keep a few in a drawer next to the fag cabinet but nothing of interest). Best selection in the City is Bishopsgate but when I checked a couple of weeks ago they didn’t have any Amazon or JL.

          • Rob says:
            17 Oct17 October 11:54

            Yes, you’re right. Went in this morning and there were literally 10 cards. Not 10 types of card – but 10 cards in total! And all rubbish ones.

          • Arrow says:
            17 Oct17 October 11:01

            thats interesting rob. do city types make up the bulk of your readership?

            probably impossible to do this kind of analysis but would be very interesting to know the demographic make-up of your readers

          • Rob says:
            17 Oct17 October 11:53

            Pretty much all London-based professionals who collect a lot of Avios and hotel points from their jobs.

            Remember that the site gets 20,000 visitors a day, including the email list. The 100 people who provide the bulk of the comments are not representative of the broader readership, but if you go through the email list it is basically a ‘who’s who’ of London professional life.

          • YL says:
            17 Oct17 October 22:31

            Tesco Surrey quays have many different types of gift cards, however, sometimes their gift cards are just not enough for HFP readers-:) When I went there last week, the entire JL gift cards were all gone!

          • Imbruce says:
            19 Oct19 October 10:19

            Anika has done an article on gift cards today on the Shopperpoints blog,
            I am surprised that you did not know this Rob?

          • Rob says:
            19 Oct19 October 11:43

            I did know this – she sits about 3 feet from me! – but she bought those after I had been into Cheapside and found the shelves bare.

      • Scallder says:
        17 Oct17 October 09:38

        Just tried it – it is officially dead :'(

        • Daniel says:
          17 Oct17 October 09:45

          Did you get CC points for the spend or is actually zero points?
          50 CC points for $ 50 spent on a gift card would still be something.

          • mark2 says:
            17 Oct17 October 09:54

            It would indeed, but I just made a test purchase and got nothing!

          • Scallder says:
            17 Oct17 October 10:05

            Yep – £25 iTunes gift card and £5 of actual shopping and only got awarded the 5 points.

        • Alan says:
          17 Oct17 October 15:17

          Ditto – test purchase of £100 Amazon voucher – zero points awarded. Queried at customer services as the sign was still up – they kindly applied 300 points to my Clubcard account and removed the sign.

          • Genghis says:
            17 Oct17 October 15:56

            Good work on getting some final cc points there.

          • Alan says:
            17 Oct17 October 16:05

            I try my best 😉 I would have kept the gift card anyway as helps trigger my Virgin sign-up bonus 🙂

  • Brian says:
    17 Oct17 October 09:41

    If you look at the FAQs, it says ‘Do I get Clubcard points when I buy a branded Gift Card?

    From time to time, Clubcard points may be offered on gift card purchases, excluding Tesco Gift Cards, xbox gift cards, F+F gift cards and Blinkbox gift cards.’

    I guess that means that there may be occasional periods when CC points are awarded, but it’s obviously not a constant thing now, alas.

    • Genghis says:
      17 Oct17 October 10:40

      When the Xmas magazine comes out with a voucher (fingers crossed), bagsy about 40 magazines at Tesco Cheapside…

    • Polly says:
      17 Oct17 October 16:33

      I could live with occasional GC point offers. Just mean we stock up when offers appear. Have done quite an amount of advanced shopping the last week or two. Shame JL and Amazon were only recently available. Fingers crossed for future offers.

  • rams1981 says:
    17 Oct17 October 10:47

    I’ve bought £1000 worth of Amazon in last week. It’s amazing how each Tesco treats it differently. Potters Bar weren’t doing any gift cards on Saturday as their machines were kaput. Woodford allowed me to buy £500 having first said no but then when they saw my ID matched credit card they were ok with it.

    • Sideshow Bob says:
      17 Oct17 October 12:51

      Potters Bar hasn’t been able to sell gift cards for around a week as their “line was down”. Bit annoying given the expiry date.

  • James67 says:
    17 Oct17 October 11:43

    I will be in Edinburgh extra today or tomorrow morning at latest so will do £50. The payqwiq offer also seems to have ended as planned, I somehow expected that to be extended too. I’m going to delete my card from the account to check if it might result in a new targeted offer.

  • James67 says:
    17 Oct17 October 12:03

    Anybody any idea what happens if I book a stay using Club Carlson 241 and then my elite status expires before making that stay?

    • Marc Walker says:
      17 Oct17 October 16:09

      James67 – I made a 442 booking whilst Gold with Club Carlson, then my status dropped to Silver. When I checked out of Art’otel, Cologne they honoured the 442 rate without any questions.

  • Mr Dee says:
    17 Oct17 October 20:39

    Back to Morrisons for Amazon vouchers then!

  • Alex W says:
    17 Oct17 October 23:09

    I don’t get the obsession with Amazon. Most of the time I’ve found things cheaper elsewhere. What am i missing?

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

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