Avios drops Tristar as a partner – how else can you earn travelling to Heathrow?

Avios dropped chauffeur group Tristar as an earning partner yesterday.  Existing bookings will still be honoured but you will no longer earn points on new Tristar bookings.

Coincidentally, Emirates gave me a Tristar chauffeur when I arrived at Heathrow on Friday afternoon and it was the smartest car I’ve been driven in for ages.  I’m not sure if this was because I was in First Class rather than Business Class but it was substantially better than the (non Tristar) car Etihad sent me on Tuesday morning.

The email sent out by Tristar makes it clear that this decision was taken by Avios and not by Tristar.  The partnership has only been in operation for a little over 18 months.

It is presumably part of the ‘tidying up’ of the various Avios programmes before they are migrated to the avios.com platform later this year.  That said, Tristar operates in 80 countries – so it’s not as if it lacked coverage in other places where Avios operates – and British Airways Executive Club does not have any other chauffeur partner.

One possibility is that BA could be moving to Blacklane, although this is only a guess.  Blacklane has just launched a partnership with Lufthansa Miles & More and is expanding aggressively.

Virgin Flying Club remains a Tristar partner

If you will still be using Tristar, remember that it remains a partner with Virgin Atlantic.

Full details are on the Virgin Atlantic website here.

You earn 2 Flying Club miles for every £1 you spend.  You can also redeem 17,500 Virgin Flying Club miles for a one-way Tristar transfer if you have booked an Upper Class redemption.

How else can I earn Avios getting to the airport?

There are still two other ways of earning Avios points when travelling to Heathrow.

If you book Heathrow Express tickets via this special link, which does not offer the cheaper advanced purchase options, you will earn 10 Avios points per £1 spent.

If you choose to take a taxi, you can still collect Avios whenever you take a trip using cab app Hailo (now being rebranded as mytaxi).   Full details of that partnership are on ba.com here.  You earn 1 Avios point per £1 spent.

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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:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.