Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: win with The Times and The Telegraph travel awards, no more Nectar points on easyJet

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News in brief:

Win great prizes with The Times Travel Awards

Voting is now open for the annual Times / Sunday Times / Sunday Times Travel Magazine awards.  It is worth taking a look because entering gets you into a prize draw.

You can enter very quickly because there is a drop-down list of nominees in each of the 11 categories.  You can whizz through the whole thing in a couple of minutes.

Times Travel Awards 2017

…. and don’t forget The Telegraph either

Voting is also underway for the annual Telegraph travel awards.

The 20 prizes on offer for voters are exceptional, most are valued at around £20,000 to £30,000 each.

Full details can be found here.

No more Nectar points when booking easyJet

easyJet and Nectar have ended their deal whereby you could earn Nectar points when booking easyJet flights.

The rate was not exceedingly generous in any event, and required you to book via a special link on the Nectar website.  You received earn 1 Nectar point for every £1 you spend on easyJet, which is equivalent to 0.5% back.  It is 0.5% more than you would have got back otherwise though!

You can still redeem Nectar points for easyJet flights – see here.  The rate is no better than spending your points in Sainsbury’s (£2.50 per 500 points) and so I wouldn’t recommend it.


best credit card to use when buying flights

How to maximise your miles when paying for flights (April 2025)

Some UK credit cards offer special bonuses when used for buying flights. If you spend a lot on airline tickets, using one of these cards could sharply increase the credit card points you earn.

Booking flights on any airline?

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold earns double points (2 Membership Rewards points per £1) when used to buy flights directly from an airline website.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points. These would convert to 20,000 Avios or various other airline or hotel programmes. The standard earning rate is 1 point per £1.

You can apply here.

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

Buying flights on British Airways?

The British Airways Premium Plus American Express card earns double Avios (3 Avios per £1) when used at ba.com.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Avios. The standard earning rate is 1.5 Avios per £1.

You do not earn bonus Avios if you pay for BA flights on the free British Airways American Express card or either of the Barclaycard Avios Mastercards.

You can apply here.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

Buying flights on Virgin Atlantic?

Both the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard and the annual fee Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard earn double Virgin Points when used at fly.virgin.com.

This means 1.5 Virgin Points per £1 on the free card and 3 Virgin Points per £1 on the paid card.

There is a sign-up bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points on the free card and 18,000 Virgin Points on the paid card.

You can apply for either of the cards here.

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Comments (26)

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

  • Barnaby100 says:

    I would just like wifi that works, electricity that works and the advertised food offer. The breakfast service has been unavailable on almost every service recently due to staff absence and curry Thursday may as well be called no curry Thursday as they have run out or have no catering crew on board. That said have had very few delay repays in past 12 months.

    • Rob says:

      I got an East Coast delay repay on Friday! On an early morning York train tomorrow so will see that they are doing for breakfast.

      Booked Economy up to York on Friday lunchtime due to cost (very short notice booking) and then got sent a £20 upgrade voucher by email. I managed to get them to waive the £20 for my daughter so that worked out well. No food of any sort, apart from cake, on the way back but the refund will clearly soften the blow (and I had a huge lunch at the Royal York hotel!).

      • Alan says:

        I’ve found VTEC to be very proactive re delay/repay, telling customers and handing out cards.

  • AmandaB says:

    I won one of the prizes in the Telegraph Travel survey competition in 2013. My prize was a luxury week for 2 on a PADI dive yacht, sailing either in Komodo National Park or Raja Ampat, Indonesia. No flights included. This was around the same time I got hooked by the points bug. Our revenue Qatar flights almost instantly gave us BA silver, but our free luxury 7 day holiday turned into a 3 week 12K trip to include Orangutangs in Borneo and SCUBA diving in Lombok. But what an amazing 3 weeks, a total of 13 flights including some on some very suspect domestic airlines.

  • Ant says:

    OTT: does anyone have the upgrade link from gold to Platinum handy? I know i saw it recently but can’t find it. Thanks

  • Crafty says:

    They emailed me a gift of free lounge access, anytime even if not taking a train, for 3 months.

    Not that useful to me really, but at least they are experimenting.

  • rams1981 says:

    OT curve. Has anyone been charged for going over the £200 ATM limit? I took £100 out today having already done £200 this month. It seems to have gone through as £100.

    • Rob says:

      No

      • Alan says:

        I thought some folk using it abroad had been when they went over? Personally I’d be prepared to be charged (and certainly would have no grounds for complaint if so!) but enjoy the current setup – I must admit I have been making less use of that aspect that I should!

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

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