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.

  • Save EC Rewards says:

    Could this mean easyJet are thinking of introducing a proper frequent traveller scheme? I know they have Flight Club but they have nothing where you can redeem points for flights.

    This is a loss of a relatively minor partner for Nectar. easyJet don’t actively promote Nectar (presumably because it’s meaningless to non-UK residents), so it’s just an extra bonus for dedicated Nectar collectors (is there such a thing?) to get a few points. I can’t see it affecting anyone’s choice of airline.

    No one seems to have noticed that Hull Trains is no longer a Nectar partner! It does seem odd that Hull Trains drops out but other FirstGroup companies remain in the scheme, will they follow?

  • JamesB says:

    OT: Rob, you’ve mentioned a few times that one of your favourite uses of MR points are rooms at Park Plaza for visiting family and friends. How are you finding points or points and cash availability? Of all the hotel chains I find ClubCarlson the most difficult to use with premium brands in major European cities rarely ever having rooms available for Points.

    • Rob says:

      Never had a problem but I tend to only look at specific times (weekends, summer).

      • JamesB says:

        Thanks, I’ll havs a more detailed look but so far little joy.

      • JamesB says:

        It seems I was trying to book too far in advance. Good availability next few months,

  • mark2 says:

    re competitions.
    They always say that you have to take the prize as described. Has anyone ever managed to negotiate a change with the travel company which is actually organising it?

    • Rob says:

      These things are rarely set in stone but it depends how each company is structured. When we do a comp we are dealing directly with the decision maker at the sponsor and it is easy to discuss any tweaks. The bigger the company and the more agencies etc in the mix the harder it gets.

  • The Original Nick. says:

    Slightly O:T, I’ve just received the September Times Travel Magazine from the 4500 Avios promo from last year. I cancelled my DD a few months ago. Will this be the last issue did anyone know?

    • Genghis says:

      If you ordered same time as me then yes. I diarised that this would be the last one

    • james says:

      When I received the September issue, right above the address, there was a very clear message saying Final Call, this is the last copy of your current subscription. I was quite impressed with that.

    • JamesB says:

      September final issue for me, I informed them by email I did not want to renew and got an explicitly clear email in response confirming this and which issue would be the last. No hassle at all from them.

  • Mark LLL says:

    Times travel competition, there may be multiple votes but there is only a single draw entry.

    Sorry Best Country, I lost my chance of voting in other categories by submitting the entry form straight after Best Airline.

    I should’ve exhausted all the voting options before submitting the form, oops.

  • Yuff says:

    OT: my 40k HSBC points, for elite MasterCard, posted this month. Annual fee got taken from my last statement 😉

  • zsalya says:

    Most of the Times prizes exclude flights from the UK.

  • Barnaby100 says:

    Spend £30k ish a year between us on east coast but never received anything. As people seat hop not sure how this would work anyway

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

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