Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Earn triple Avios with Accor – at least 7.5 per €1 spent

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UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly summary of the top hotel bonus point offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ menu above.

Our comprehensive review of the Accor Live Limitless scheme is here.

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Last week we covered a triple miles promotion that Accor is running with Flying Blue and Miles & More.

An Avios version has now launched.  This allows you to earn triple Avios on every stay.

The stay period is generously long – up to 30th June.

There are two other positive points:

the last booking date is also 30th June, so the promo will still work on last minute stays, and

there is no minimum stay requirement

This promotion is running with both Iberia and British Airways Executive Club.  You should sign up to the Iberia version.

Why?  For historical reasons which predate Avios, Accor has a very generous deal with Iberia Plus.  Accor points convert at 1:1 into Iberia Plus Avios.  They only convert at 2:1 into British Airways Avios.  You will earn twice as many Avios by selecting Iberia rather than BA as your partner for this offer.

This is what you have to do:

Take a look at the promotion rules here

Change the settings on your Le Club AccorHotels account from earning points to earning miles

WARNING:  If you already have a pot of 3,000+ Accor points, they will be converted into Iberia Avios immediately.  If you want to save your existing points for a hotel discount voucher then do NOT take part in this promotion.

Select Iberia Plus as your preferred airline – NOT British Airways!  (You will obviously have to open an Iberia Plus account at iberia.com if you don’t have one.  New members of Iberia Plus must wait 90 days before they can transfer Avios across to British Airways or avios.com)

Book and stay before 30th June.  Existing bookings made before 27th March do not count and should be rebooked.

The ‘triple Avios’ is based on what you would earn as a ‘Classic’ base level member, ie 2.5 points per Euro.  This means that you would earn 7.5 Avios in Iberia Plus per €1 spent which is a very attractive rate.  Status members would earn even more.

Note that the earning rate is lower at Ibis, Ibis Styles and Adagio.  You only earn 1 per €1.  At Adagio Access you earn 0.5 per €1.  This means that a ‘Classic’ member would be earning 3 Avios per €1.

This deal could work out very nicely.  Let’s imagine that you are spending £500 at a Novotel for a week.  That would be €600 which would earn you 4,500 Avios in Iberia Plus.  A status member would do even better.

Everyone who earns bonus miles during this promotion will also be entered into a prize draw with the chance of winning 40,000 Avios.

Is this promotion better than taking Accor points?

You should be clear about what you are giving up when you take part.

Accor points are worth 2 Eurocents each.  You can convert them into €40 Accor vouchers whenever you reach 2,000.

Under this Avios offer, you will be receiving 3 Avios instead of earning 1 Accor point.  This means that you are buying Avios at 2/3rd of a Eurocent each, which I think is a very good deal.

It is also worth remembering that €40 of Accor hotel voucher is not worth as much as €40 in cash.  You also need a minimum of 2,000 Accor points before you can turn them into vouchers, whereas this Avios offer kicks in however few points you earn.  Unless you are Avios-rich and would prefer to take the Accor vouchers, I would go with Iberia.

Full details of the ‘Sweet Pillows World Tour’ offer can be found here.  Registration is not required.

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

Accor Live Limitless, British Airways and Avios, Iberia and Iberia Plus

Comments (66)

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

  • Pascal says:
    3 Apr3 April 05:57

    Sounds great! I had a look a while ago and it didn’t look like Accor does status matching? Unfortunately not included with Amex plat anymore.

  • the real harry1 says:
    3 Apr3 April 06:01

    Has anybody got the auto-conversion trick working Accor–>Iberia Avios – recently? ie the tric to get any amount of Accor points converted with no need to hit 2000 Accor point

    Last reported success was autumn 2016 I think

  • Louise says:
    3 Apr3 April 06:20

    I stayed at the recently opened Novotel Canary Wharf last weekend on the happy Mondays offer (£60)
    Highly recommended, given a high floorroom with great view of Thames and Shard, welcome chocolate and (platinum)free drinks voucher for use in the rooftop bar. We ended up getting some free snacks up there too! Rooftop bar was very busy and lots of tables reserved so if you are planning on staying make sure you reserve a table.
    Was the only one in the pool the next morning, nice size, and gym was well equipped.
    I will get round to posting a TripAdvisor review with pics this week.
    Re Breakfast- we were told we had free breakfast in the restaurant when we checked in- which I didn’t think you got on happy Mondays rates? but we ended up going to the Accor lounge on level 1 for a continental breakfast instead.
    If it comes up on happy mondays again I would snap it up.

  • stuart says:
    3 Apr3 April 07:35

    What’s going on with Happy Mondays? Have struggled to find availably at my usual London Novotels the last few weeks (managed to grab the new Canary Wharf a few weeks ago and agree with @Louise’s comments. Offered breakfast too) but today there is NO availability for this weekend in London at all. Not even an Ibis!

    • Rob says:
      3 Apr3 April 08:23

      In the past they have run special promos over Bank Holiday weekends. It is possible that some special, more broadly publicised, deal for Easter will emerge in the next few days.

    • Mark e says:
      3 Apr3 April 09:13

      I also looked for Happy Mondays availability in London for this weekend and nest weekend and nothing came up whatsoever

      • Waribai says:
        3 Apr3 April 10:29

        I don’t think Happy Mondays is working at all today for any destination

        • Stuart says:
          3 Apr3 April 11:10

          Have tried for next weekend too. Nothing – country wide.

      • Paul Irving says:
        4 Apr4 April 08:36

        Same here. I managed to get he Hilton Olympia for £89 instead so not too bad, plus executive lounge and free breakfast helps offset the additional £29.

  • Anna says:
    3 Apr3 April 07:37

    OT, sorry. Re the 3000 bonus Heathrow rewards points for spending £150; the website says you need to use a code to get the bonus. However it doesn’t seem to say at what stage – do I need to quote the code at the top me of the spend, or when I convert the points to avios?

    • Anna says:
      3 Apr3 April 07:39

      Sorry, auto correct! Should say at the time of the spend.

      • Liz says:
        3 Apr3 April 07:46

        It was when you applied for the Heathrow Rewards card – then when you do the £150 spend the bonus will trigger.

        • Anna says:
          3 Apr3 April 07:52

          Thanks, got a trip via Heathrow on the bank holiday weekend so planning to stock up.

    • Rob says:
      3 Apr3 April 08:22

      You use the code when you apply for the Heathrow Rewards account. It should automatically appear in the promo code box when you click through to the application page.

  • Alan says:
    3 Apr3 April 08:35

    I have about 1600 Accor points that will expire this year as I don’t think I will be staying ion any of their hotels. Is there anything I can do with them or will I have to just lose them?

    Cheers

    • RussellH says:
      3 Apr3 April 11:20

      Is there still an e-Rewards link on the LeClub Accor site? If so, you could sign up to the Accor version of e-Rewards. I got 250 Accor points for the first complete survey, and once you get the first 2000 e-Rewards points, that is another 275 Accor points.

      I do not know how crediting Accor points from e-Rewards works for extending validity of existing points, but it used to work in the past. If it does, then you only need to do the one complete survey and get the initial 250 points.

      • Liz says:
        3 Apr3 April 11:58

        If you don’t have an erewards invite from LeClub Accor directly you can join via Virgin and that gives you access to transferring into LeClub Accor, Club Carlson, Hilton, IHG plus several other options.

        • Alan says:
          3 Apr3 April 12:21

          I already have an erewards account via Virgin for Virgin Miles. Would that preclude me from doing an Accor one?

          On another point, I believe to extend Accor points you MUST stay at one of their hotels, so I would need to get all my required Accor points via the erewards site (if I can open another one) to reach the minimum number of Accor points to get anything for them.

          • Liz says:
            3 Apr3 April 12:47

            I don’t use Accor so can’t help you on the rules for keeping the account alive – Aron did an article awhile ago about how keep your points alive. If you go to the reward centre in rewards you can see all the partners you can transfer to – you don’t always have to redeem to just Virgin – so you can top up your Accor account that way.

          • Liz says:
            3 Apr3 April 12:48

            Sorry that should say Rob did an article

          • RussellH says:
            3 Apr3 April 13:08

            Officially, yes, you are only supposed to have one e-rewards account.

            In practice, you can always sign up for another one without any significant hassle.

            About 18 months ago, when I had three accounts, I found that I stopped being able to get any points, complained, and was told that I had duplicate accounts. I had to close one to get things moving again.

            I currently have two, and no major problems, though over the last few months I have signed up for, got the opening bonus and then closed, ones from both BAEC and Avios.com. These are of limited interest, given that you can only transfer to BAEC / Avios.com as appropriate. The ones I keep, opened via Accor and Hilton, only allow those hotel schemes, but also permit credit to lots of airline schemes, including Iberia which yields up to 50% more avios than BAEC / Avios.com.

            As to extending validity, as I mentioned above, it certainly worked up to the end of last year, but I have no experience from 2017 yet.

          • Nate1309 says:
            3 Apr3 April 15:50

            How do you link e-rewards to Hilton Honors? I probably have enough Avios to tide me over for now, but wouldn’t mind building up a bigger HH balance.

          • Liz says:
            3 Apr3 April 16:28

            It depends how you registered with erewards – different partners offer different ways to redeem your points. If you signed up via Avios or BAEC you can only redeem via them. If you sign up via Virgin they given you lots of other partners to redeem your points to including IHG and Hilton. You can also sign up via American Airlines and redeem via IHG and Hilton. I have 4 accounts for different family members. Two I signed up via Virgin, one with AA and my own one I got through invitation from IHG which lets me redeem to AA, IHG, Hilton, Avios, Iberia and several more partners. I change up who I redeem to – I was doing HH for a bit but have switched to VIrgin so that I can redeem 10k to IHG to get qualifying pts for Spire – now that IHG ereward pts are no longer qualifying if you transfer them direct.

          • Alan says:
            3 Apr3 April 19:25

            Correct, you need to stay with Accor to keep points alive – 12 month expiry from last stay – http://www.accorhotels.com/gb/support/loyalty-membership/le-club-accorhotels/gain-points/faq/what-is-the-validity-period-of-my-points.shtml

        • Nate1309 says:
          3 Apr3 April 17:30

          Thanks Liz

      • YL says:
        3 Apr3 April 14:02

        E-rewards points did extend the validity of existing points last year on my brother’s account.
        However, I am not sure if it still the case.

  • Graham Walsh says:
    3 Apr3 April 09:09

    Anyone know of hotel chains that don’t block out Easter dates? Looking at Hilton in Orlando they are all blocked out for next year already.

    • ian says:
      3 Apr3 April 14:05

      ihg rewards doesn’t have blackout dates, for example 31/12/2017 is available on reward nights. however, it seems that u can book only 350 days in advance. this might or might not be the hilton issue.

      ian. 🙂

    • Graham Walsh says:
      3 Apr3 April 23:45

      Thanks. I’ve just come back from Hilton Tuscany Village. Nice resort and would go back.

  • vlcnc says:
    3 Apr3 April 09:36

    OT: Hi Rob,.

    Wanted to to get a referral for the Amex Preferred Rewards Gold card? Sent an email not sure if you saw it?

    Thanks!

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