Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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.

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.

Comments (86)

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

  • Steve says:

    OT Marriott Avios have posted

  • johnny_c-l says:

    OT – Does anyone have experience of sending money through PayPal to a company, specifically does the transaction post as a cash advance or purchase?

    • John says:

      Always a purchase, but make sure you use ‘pay for goods and services’ or pay a paypal invoice that the company sends you

    • Will says:

      Just be careful, PayPal monitor for things that look like cash advances and take a dim view of the (if that’s what you are planning)

      Having said that, as long as the payments are not a significant chunk of the monthly throughput they don’t pick it up.

      Just don’t use an amex issued card, amex ban you quickly for this (I’ve been banned by amex even though PayPal didn’t pick me up on it). Mbna are fine.

      When my business was growing it actually reduced my PayPal fees overall as I used my own credit card to push my account over the £55k threshold into the 1.4% bracket.

      • Johnny_c-l says:

        Thanks for the advice Will. Fingers crossed should be OK as this is a genuine one-off payment to a company who are providing me with tour services when I’m in China next year.

        I’m usually always up for taking a punt to exploit MS loopholes but I’ve heard of enough horror stories with PayPal to not try it on!

  • Sundar says:

    Hi Rob,
    Is there going to be a August Credit cards update article tomorrow ? Looking forward to it

  • Cate says:

    I’ve just got this from Hilton…. ‘NOTICE: Members will no longer be able to earn Points for Avis Car Rentals booked after 8/31/2017’……. Shame as we were doing quite nicely from it.

  • Roger says:

    Is there any sign up bonus for new Lufthansa account?

  • Chelseafi says:

    O/T Amex online account I can’t send message? Has this changed or is because I’m currently outside UK.

  • Henry says:

    The Hilton Berlin is actually very high-end – it’s not like any other Hilton I’ve stayed at. It’s much more like a Conrad than a Hilton and it’s also in a great location in the city.

    Having travelled to Berlin a lot on business with the option of staying in most of the good hotels, including the Waldorf, IC Berlin, etc. I would choose the Hilton every time.

    • Rob says:

      Interesting. I know where it is but have never been inside.

    • Alan says:

      Agreed, have stayed at the Hilton and the Waldorf but would pick the Hilton next time (for breakfast benefits if nothing else!)

  • Pete Garside says:

    Just converted Clubcard points to 15000 Virgin miles and got 3000 award summer bonus miles.

    • RichardB says:

      Me too, but I only converted 1000 CC to test the waters. Got the usual 2500 Virgin plus another 500 “Award Summer Bonus”. Wonder if the bonus is awarded for one conversion only before I throw the lot at it…

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

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