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Bits: how to pre-order your BA duty free, 180 Avios for giving Tesco your insurance details

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News in brief:

How to pre-order your BA duty free for at-seat delivery

I would be fibbing if I said that I had never bought any duty free items on a flight, but I’m rarely in the mood – especially when trying to keep two children under control.  The pre-order service – known as ‘buy before you fly’ – from British Airways is therefore worth a look, and very few people know it exists.

You can go to this website before your flight, and select duty free items at your leisure from the High Life Shop.  If you sign up for the High Life Shop newsletter, you will also receive a 10% discount code for your first pre-order.

Your items will be delivered to your seat and you will earn 2 Avios per £1 on your spending.

This is only available on long-haul flights, with ‘selected’ routes excluded (a list in on the website linked from the home page).  You need to order at least three days before you fly.

This method also allows you to compare prices before you fly, so you will know if you are genuinely getting a bargain or not …..

180 Avios for giving Tesco your insurance renewal details

Tesco has a long-running promotion offering bonus Tesco Clubcard points if you fill in a very short form telling them when your various insurance products are up for renewal.

The number of points offered with this deal jumps around.  Until August, it is offering 75 Clubcard points, worth 180 Avios or 188 Virgin miles. It has been as high as 150 points in the past, but given that the offer only changes twice per year you might not want to wait.

Here is the form you need to complete.  You can earn the points once every two years so even if you have done it in the past it might be possible to get the points again.

You are asked for your car, home and pet insurance renewal months. You only need to add in one date to get your 75 points, so I recommend just doing that if you want to reduce the level of email Tesco sends you later on.

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, Tesco Clubcard, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (29)

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

  • Nick_C says:
    30 May30 May 07:03

    Re the Duty Free pre-ordering, I’ve done this for the 10% discount. Note that if you use a BA Amex, this is not treated as a BA transaction, so standard (not double) Avios on the Amex. (I would have been better using my Lloyd Avios Amex)

    • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:
      30 May30 May 13:46

      But the BA Amex (that gives double Amex) gives 1.5 Avois / £, the Lloyds Amex only gives 1.25 (or are you in your first six months)?

      • Nick_C says:
        30 May30 May 20:17

        I’m still in my first 6 months. And I’ve had over 10,000 Avios on foreign currency transactions 🙂

  • Tony says:
    30 May30 May 07:31

    “Your items will be delivered to your seat and you will earn 2 Avios per £1 on your spending.”

    Whether there’s anyone occupying the seat is another matter entirely given last weekend’s unmitigated disaster.

    • CV3V says:
      30 May30 May 08:31

      Cant trust BA to sort out a seat, not going to trust them with pre-ordered duty free!

  • Stu N says:
    30 May30 May 08:56

    Don’t bank on ever getting the Avios. I bought 2 litres of Tanqueray 10 in Nov, cabin crew swiped my BAEC card but after a couple of months the Avios didn’t post.

    I submitted a missing Avios claim and despite sending (by post!) a confirmation email and a print of my collection receipts was told the details didn’t match up (they did) and I had not provided sufficient evidence to enable them to credit my account! I’d taken a photo of the receipt just in case I needed it but I had lost the original receipt in the intervening four months so gave up at that point, was <100 Avios but still most annoying.

    • TGLoyalty says:
      31 May31 May 22:58

      That’s the point when you expect CA to say as a goodwill gesture here’s the points anyway. Doubt anyone goes to that much trouble to con them out of <100 Avios.

  • krys_k says:
    30 May30 May 09:22

    Last year Tesco had a number of great offers including Avios earning opportunities. Pet insurance (insured my mums cat) and house insurance (it was marginally more expensive than the cheapest alternative, but factoring in the Avios, was a fantastic deal) spring to mind. Are any on the horizon for this year?

    • Rob says:
      30 May30 May 09:56

      Tesco is getting a bit smarter on profitability, unfortunately. They told us outright there won’t be any bonus Clubcard points deal on wine in 2017. Tesco Direct is having its own problems – it is losing huge amounts of money and some of their promos are actually loss-making at the variable cost level, yet alone fixed cost level, we were told.

      • krys_k says:
        30 May30 May 14:41

        Good to know. I was holding out for home insurance that has just finished (and reminded me of last year’s offer).

      • Mr(s) Entitled says:
        30 May30 May 19:32

        It is so much tougher when you can’t simply write whatever figures you want in the profitability column.

        • Boi says:
          30 May30 May 22:43

          Today I was renewing my car insurance (tesco was cheapest anyway). during the phone call I asked if they had any offers-I was offered either £10 gift card or 1000 club card points.
          Worth asking even if there is no obvious offer.

      • Londonbus says:
        1 Jun1 June 13:40

        That’s useful to know Rob. I shall order fizz from Tesco but big reds from Vinseleccion.

  • Mr1A says:
    30 May30 May 10:18

    Twice I’ve pre ordered from BA, twice it’s never been delivered and I’ve had to chase a refund. I don’t think I’ll give them a third chance

    • ADS says:
      30 May30 May 10:40

      with another IAG airline it took me about three or four years to get a refund for a pre-ordered meal that they failed to supply. i never pre-order stuff from any airline after that experience.

  • Michele says:
    30 May30 May 09:33

    I have found the pre-ordering very hit and miss. Sometimes it turns up, sometimes it doesn’t. You often have to ask for it. Once they got confused by the time difference at an outstation and loaded all the duty free for the day after’s flight instead!

  • keith s says:
    30 May30 May 12:05

    If you preorder does it make it less likely that you will get an upgrade as they won’t want to interrupt that service on board (on the rare occasion they do happen)

  • ADS says:
    30 May30 May 12:49

    OT – my almost daily trips to Waitrose stopped tracking on the Shop VS website on 21st May.

    Is anybody else still tracking ?

    • Rob says:
      30 May30 May 12:56

      My last one was 19th May.

    • Fenny says:
      30 May30 May 20:21

      My last was 21 May. I go in every working day and spend something to get my free coffee. I definitely spent £17 one day last week on a bottle of gin on offer and some Fentiman’s ginger beer. I shall dig out my receipts.

    • thomas says:
      31 May31 May 19:38

      last postings on May 20th

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