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Bits: now a Tesco / BA competition, 20% Tesco to Virgin bonus?, 1200 Avios with PayQwiq

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News in brief:

British Airways launches a Clubcard / Avios conversion competition

Last week I wrote about the competition that avios.com is running if you convert your Tesco Clubcard vouchers into Avios via the avios.com platform.

As a reminder, for every £2.50 of Clubcard vouchers you convert via avios.com before 31st August, you will receive one entry in a prize draw:

Two people will win 50,000 Avios

Three people will win 25,000 Avios

150 people will win 5,500 Avios

British Airways has now released its competing competition.

For every £5 of Clubcard vouchers you convert to Avios via ba.com before 31st August, you will receive one entry in a prize draw.  There is ONE prize consisting of:

two return British Airways Club Europe flights to Berlin

a three night stay at a choice of 5* hotels on a B&B basis – Waldorf Astoria Berlin 5* (very nice, says Anika), Ritz Carlton 5* (I’ve stayed, very nice, picture below) and Hilton Berlin (why you’d pick this I’ve no idea!)

The prize is valid for travel between 1st October and 20th December 2017.

I’d value the BA prize at about £1,000.   The avios.com prize pot (1m Avios in total) is worth around £10,000!  Logically, you should enter the avios.com competition although on the face of it the British Airways prize sounds more exciting.

Details of BA competition can be found on the Executive Club ‘News & Offers’ page here.

20% bonus Virgin Atlantic miles with Tesco?

There were some reports in the HfP comments yesterday from readers who received a 20% bonus when they converted their Tesco Clubcard vouchers to Virgin Flying Club.

There is no official announcement yet on either the Clubcard or Virgin websites.  However, if you are considering what to do with your vouchers, you may want to hold off for a day or so until we know if a Virgin deal is live and what the terms are.

Of course, now that Clubcard is offering a ‘genuine’ 3 x face value deal with Uber, any Uber user would be ‘paying’ 1p per Virgin mile this way.  A £1 Clubcard voucher would be worth £3 of Uber credit or (250 * 20% bonus) 300 Virgin miles.  You may not consider that worthwhile.

If there is any official news on a bonus, it will appear on the Tesco / Virgin website here or the Virgin /  Tesco website here.

Virgin Atlantic

Get 1,200 Avios with PayQwiq

Tesco and PayQwiq have brought back their “free Clubcard points when using PayQwiq” offer.

New customers downloading the PayQwiq app and using it can get up to 500 free Clubcard points (1,200 Avios).

The app must be downloaded by 3rd September and the last day to collect points is 31st October.  You can collect 100 points once per week, so you need to spread out your Tesco visits.

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 (86)

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

  • Anna says:
    4 Aug4 August 06:19

    How “new” do you have to be as a Tesco customer? I won’t qualify, but my OH got the app a few weeks ago.

  • Honest Henry says:
    4 Aug4 August 06:58

    Strange, I didn’t see any user comments here yesterday about the 20% virgin bonus. Insideflyer did an article on this a couple of days ago though.

    • Rob says:
      4 Aug4 August 10:23

      Comments were there, plus couple of emails. There’s not really anything you can get past our 25,000 daily readers!

  • Neil says:
    4 Aug4 August 07:11

    I know it’s not often advised but I auto-convert all my Tesco CC points to Virgin FC points. I can confirm I got a 20% titled “Award Summer Bonus” …was a nice surprise to get on top of the 11,500 points I got from the Tesco CC offer I got from buying those printer cartridges a few months back!

    • the real harry1 says:
      4 Aug4 August 07:17

      sounds like the 30K cap is being applied rigorously this time – over-rigorously it seems, as Tesco Bank points are being included in the 30K

      I cba to check ours as we’re out of the country so would have to vpn it

      anybody else have 30K applied to include Tesco Bank points?

      • Akkers says:
        4 Aug4 August 11:10

        Yes, I did. Which is annoying as I should have had about 70k points from Tesco Bank.

      • The Urbanite says:
        4 Aug4 August 18:01

        That’s a real pity there’s now a cap – I got almost 30k points from Tesco Bank alone this quarter!

        Guess it’s partially down to the earn rate on the current account increasing – something had to give!

      • The Urbanite says:
        4 Aug4 August 18:03

        Pity there’s a cap – for the first time I almost reached 30k last quarter, mostly thanks to points from Tesco Bank.

        Guess something had to give – they must be giving out a fair few extra points since increasing the earn rate on the current account.

        • Alex W says:
          4 Aug4 August 22:24

          Even so that’s at least £3750 spend in Tesco in one quarter. That’s a huge amount!

          • Genghis says:
            5 Aug5 August 06:29

            Rationale?

          • Alex W says:
            5 Aug5 August 07:26

            Think I am getting confused between 1 point per £8 outside and 2 pts per £1 inside Tesco on their debit card. Which means it would be £15k spent in Tesco to get 30k points! Either that or a lot of Lego!

          • Genghis says:
            5 Aug5 August 07:30

            Indeed. But that would be 15k points from Tesco grocery and 15k points from Tesco Bank. To get points mostly from Tesco Bank, I guess that would be serious amounts of spending outside of Tesco

    • Relaxo says:
      4 Aug4 August 14:48

      Yup. Also got the “summer bonus” even though my settings are on autoconvert. Happy days….

  • S879 says:
    4 Aug4 August 08:00

    O/T but Tesco related. Got a letter from Tesco Bank that Clubcard Plus will be closing all accounts in October.

  • 2002ad says:
    4 Aug4 August 08:12

    Annoyingly I did my big tesco cc transfer last month with the 10% bonus thinking that it wouldn’t get better than than now. Did a much smaller one yesterday and also got the 20% bonus.

  • the real harry1 says:
    4 Aug4 August 08:35

    half-tempted to go for some Virgin miles for the first time (from Clubcard) – now that redemptions in Europe look to be on the cards

    fwiw I’d be careful to only go up to £100 each transfer, just in case there is a limit in place (or even go lower, say, £50)

  • Peter K says:
    4 Aug4 August 09:01

    OT There was some discussion a few days ago about whether curve attracts the £2 fee when withdrawing money abroad and having just tried it in Sweden I can confirm it has.

    • Genghis says:
      4 Aug4 August 09:39

      Indeed. As I’ve posted before it’s not disclosed but wrapped up in the GBP amount charged (i.e. need to run a few numbers)

    • Axel h says:
      4 Aug4 August 09:42

      Also does in Indonesia, but exchange rate still relatively good

      • Genghis says:
        4 Aug4 August 09:44

        …but not as good as say a Halifax Clarity, surely?

        • JamesB says:
          4 Aug4 August 09:51

          …or better still, nationwide flexplus or hard cash.

        • Axel h says:
          4 Aug4 August 10:22

          As its a flat £2 fee the more you can take out in one ATM transaction the better the Curve rate. In Indonesia there are some £100k ATM allowing the withdrawl of about £170

          Factoring in the points earned off Curve probably beats the Halifax rate by a whisper.

          My Halifax Blue X Credit Card is a legacy one so doesnt earn any benefits or points but does work for UK rewards and free ATM transactions abroad. Can any points or benefits be earned of the newer Clarity version on foreign transactions? If so Ill consider burn and churn.

        • Genghis says:
          4 Aug4 August 10:34

          Curve is 1% + £2? So say you get 1% of points on a £100 withdrawals, that’s still an overall loss of 2%.

          On Clarity no points but no charges either, i.e. flat

          • Alex W says:
            4 Aug4 August 12:04

            Curve linked to Lloyds Avios MasterCard in local currency wins then. No fees plus 0.25 Avios per £ plus earn towards upgrade voucher.

    • Yuff says:
      4 Aug4 August 13:22

      That’s why I got such a poor rate a few weeks ago, still better than the conversion rate offered in £’s at the ATM though, only just

    • John says:
      4 Aug4 August 19:14

      Why are you withdrawing cash in Sweden??

      Cash usage in Sweden is to be encouraged, but if you have to obtain your cash by using a card which has fees, it makes more sense just to spend on the card.

    • Alan says:
      5 Aug5 August 18:06

      Although if you have it linked to a no-forex card like Lloyds Avios MC then you can change the underlying currency to match to avoid the fee. Was you’re still set to GBP rather than SEK?

  • s says:
    4 Aug4 August 09:05

    I convert automatically, dies this mean I am excluded from this competition?

    • Tom says:
      4 Aug4 August 09:30

      I do too – on reflection I wonder if it is better holding the club card points for when promotions like this are run?

      • Genghis says:
        4 Aug4 August 09:40

        Optionality has value

        • Optimus Prime says:
          4 Aug4 August 10:05

          After seeing this I’ve switched back to vouchers.

          BTW even though I always set my preferences to have online vouchers they keep sending me some by post. Has this happened to others?

    • Tim says:
      4 Aug4 August 10:56

      No – if you read the info page, “If you have already chosen to have your Clubcard vouchers turned into Avios, you don’t need to do anything as you’ll be automatically entered into the competition.” This has always been the case with these prize draws.

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

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