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The best Avios and Virgin Flying Club miles-earning wine deals available

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If you are thinking about topping up your wine stock as the darker Autumn nights approach, there are a few interesting offers about.

Iberia Plus

Iberia works with a well regarded wine company called Vinoseleccion.  Importantly, Vinoseleccion ships from the UK and it has special offers targetted to UK Iberia Plus members.

At the moment, you can earn 480 Avios with six bottles of Rioja Reserva.  The cost is £48, reduced from £69, and delivery is free.

At £8 per bottle this is not bargain basement pricing.  Feedback from HFP readers who have bought from Vinoseleccion in the past has generally been very positive, however.

The special order page is here.

British Airways Executive Club

British Airways and mail order wine group Laithwaites ran The British Airways Wine Club for many, many years.

At some point in the last couple of years this was quietly retired, although Laithwaite’s continued to offer Avios points with wine purchases.  BA and Laithwaite’s have now launched a new venture – Wine Explorer – which we have mentioned a couple of times this year.

You were previously restricted to one or two particular deals with Wine Explorer.  This has now changed and the website offers a huge range of options.

You will receive 1,000 Avios with your first order.  Future orders will earn 250 Avios per 12-bottle case.  Importantly, this is NOT a subscription arrangement.  You are not signing up to receive monthly shipments of wine.

Full details of Wine Explorer can be found on the Wine Explorer site here.

Laithwaites British Airways Wine Explorer

Avios.com

Avios has its own wine deals with Laithwaite’s, which retain the Laithwaite’s branding.

The current avios.com deal is here.   You receive:

A 12-bottle wine case, chosen from seven options all priced at £54.99

3 free bottles of Sauvignon Blanc worth £34 (this is a better deal that the previous offering of two free tumblers!)

1,000 Avios points (250 Avios points if you are an existing Laithwaite’s customer)

Free delivery

There is one snag with this offer.  By ordering, you are signing yourself up to Laithwaite’s Wine Plan.  Every 8-12 weeks they will automatically send you another 12-bottle wine case.  

It is very easy to stop this happening – simply amend your account online or give Laithwaite’s a call to cancel your Wine Plan membership, there is no penalty – but you must trust yourself to remember.

Virgin Flying Club

Virgin Flying Club offers 3,000 miles with your first order from Virgin Wines.

If you’ve never ordered from Virgin Wines before, it is running a generous offer which is worth a look.

For £65.88 including delivery, you will receive:

12 bottle of wine (mixed whites, mixed reds or mixed mixed!)

a bottle of prosecco

3,000 Virgin Flying Club miles

Note that – whilst the website makes no mention of this – reader reports suggest that you will be signed up to the Virgin Wines Winebank scheme if you take advantage of this offer.  You can easily cancel but keep an eye out for the paperwork.  Full details are here.

Tesco Clubcard

Historically, Tesco Wine has been a great source of Avios or Virgin Flying Club miles.  They would often offer 1,000 or 1,500 bonus Clubcard points (worth 2,500 to 3,750 miles) with a £100 purchase.

We haven’t seen any deals like this all year.  When we approached Tesco Wine in the spring, they told us that they would not be offering such deals again because it brings them “the wrong sort of customer”.   The economists amongst our readership will know that this shows a failure to differentiate between fixed and variable costs and the profitability ‘contribution’ of a particular customer but there you are ….

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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, Iberia and Club Iberia Plus, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (25)

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

  • Frenske says:
    3 Sep3 September 07:36

    “the wrong sort of customer”.

    Should I feel insulted now? Is wine the super-strength-lager of the middle class?

    • Brighton Belle says:
      3 Sep3 September 08:38

      Do Waitrose sell any third party gift cards? I gave up using Tesco For anything when the Clubcard points on gift cards was stopped. Now it’s Morrisons for a few of their measly points. I haven’t yet figured out the slam dunk route for gift card purchases. Any suggestions?

      • the real harry1 says:
        3 Sep3 September 08:49

        nothing much out there

        the free £5 Amazon credit when you top up @ PayPoint (@ Co-Op with your Amex…)?

        all family members should have their own Amazon a/c etc

    • Amanda says:
      3 Sep3 September 09:48

      Interesting view from them as it ties in with them reducing all the level of points on my credit card purchases, the reduction in extra points offers they used to send out like 25 points when you buy xx butter/wine/soup etc.
      Think they might be the “wrong sort of supermarket” now for me.

      • Tim_t says:
        3 Sep3 September 11:41

        Tesco are probably pleased to have lost me as their “wrong sort of customer”, that is now spending £150 a week at the next door Morrisons & petrol station. There reduction in points and points earning vouchers being the key reason.

        • the real harry1 says:
          3 Sep3 September 12:22

          tbh they consistently lost quite a bit of money on me as a customer these last 15 years

        • Rob says:
          3 Sep3 September 17:23

          What they meant, I think, is that these deals were not profitable when they started attributing their fixed costs to the orders. This is a mistake, however, since the orders were clearly profitable on a variable cost basis (assuming a typical 50% profit margin on the wine) and would have been making some contribution towards fixed costs.

    • Lady London says:
      3 Sep3 September 14:26

      OT Pretty sure Lidl has a massive wine promotion coming up. Some very drinkable. No Avios though.

  • Amanda says:
    3 Sep3 September 09:44

    The Virgin Wines deal is exactly the same as the one they did the other month, good wines but immediately sign you up to a £20 a month wine bank contribution, and don’t let you know clearly. You can cancel once you work out the way around finding all your account details out.
    The other thing to note is wasn’t a straightforward 3000 points added. My VA number wasn’t added and I had to do a manual points request from the VA site, including sending the invoice. Might have been just me but worth noting to ensure you get them.

    • Genghis says:
      3 Sep3 September 10:16

      Worked for Mrs G recently. Points posted automatically with in a day or two of receiving the vino.

    • Michael Jennings says:
      3 Sep3 September 12:32

      It was very straighforward for me. Points were posted automatically and very quickly. Of course I did get signed up for the Winebank thing, although I don’t recall agreeing to this anywhere.

  • Andy says:
    3 Sep3 September 09:56

    I signed up to the Laithwaites deal several months ago for the 1000 Avios deal. The wines were excellent and several great reds were in the selection. However only 250 Avios were posted to my BA account. I rang them, rang them again, and then rang them again to explain. By now we are dealing with a point of principle here.
    So I cancelled my account as I told them I refuse to deal with a dishonest company and no-one apparently willing to listen. Which is a shame as they would have gotten quite a bit of business from me if they had only played by the rules.

    • Aliks says:
      3 Sep3 September 10:11

      Sounds like a good call.
      I look at these offers in cash terms – 1000 points is £10 so its just a little bit extra on something you wanted to do anyway. But at the level of £10 offers there has to be little or no hassle involved. If you have to chase up the points, or make repeated calls to a useless helpdesk, forget it.
      I’ve been tempted by the Laithwaites offer, but your posting has convinced me its not worth it. I hope the bad publicity gets through to them!

      • the real harry1 says:
        3 Sep3 September 12:26

        seems very odd to me – the Laithwaites gels are brilliant

        I’ve had 250 instead of 1000 a couple of times & got it corrected with a phone call (to a delightful gel each time)

        it pays to be pleasant on the phone

        • aliks says:
          3 Sep3 September 21:05

          Did they tell you why the mistake kept happening?

          • the real harry1 says:
            3 Sep3 September 23:36

            no – but I guessed it was because they saw my name & address and thought it wasn’t a new a/c

            not that they ever challenged me

  • Tim_t says:
    3 Sep3 September 11:38

    I took the virgin offer back in July. I was very careful to make sure I did not tick anything for the wine bank service. Got an email and account receipt. Wine arrived promptly. Miles arrived promptly.

    Noticed on my credit card statement a strange £25 payment to virgin experience in addition to the £69 to virgin wine. Went into the virgin wine account and saw that this was for the wine bank. Phoned and challenged as I had never received any email. Got a refund. I did find the email in my spam folder as it came from a different address to the virgin wine receipt.

    • Michael Jennings says:
      3 Sep3 September 12:40

      Yes, exactly the same thing happened to me. I haven’t cancelled it yet, though.

  • Stevie in Glasgow says:
    3 Sep3 September 13:46

    Wine bank is easy enough to cancel with a phone call, I would actually have used the wine bank it is a good idea but you do not collect 750 airmiles with a wine bank purchase, so I now order a mixed case of 12 red and whites that I choose myself and collect 750 miles plus I purchase through one of their wine advisors and receive money off, last time £20 off and previous time £25 off, the introductory order is a nice deal but after this for future purchases get in touch with one of their advisors and see what deals they can give you, Stevie

    • Tim_t says:
      3 Sep3 September 17:28

      That it maybe, but I kind of resent being signed up to an automatic £25 a month without my explicit permission with no way to cancel without phoning. Coupled with the email going to spam and the different company appearing on the transaction, I was not best pleased.

      The refund happened within 2 days of phoning which is a plus.

      • Michael Jennings says:
        4 Sep4 September 00:41

        Assuming 3000 Virgin miles are worth about £30, that deal worked out as getting 13 bottles of pretty decent wine for about £2 a bottle. Possibly it was a little too good to be true. I don’t think the winebank thing is bad value, but if I was signing up to it, it needed to be explicit that I was, and it wasn’t. I’m already signed up for a similar thing from Majestic, and honestly there is only so much wine that I need.

  • Graeme says:
    3 Sep3 September 21:08

    Took the 3000 Virgin point offer for me and my girlfriend. I requested that my delivery be taken to a neighbour, but instead I got a text saying that I’d signed for it – although I was driving in Madrid at the time. By the time we got back, it had been stolen as he’d just left it outside my house. I was pretty angry about this, and I dealt with some very unhelpful people who agreed to redeliver the order on a day of my choosing by way of compensation. They weren’t interested in being helpful or friendly.

    They didn’t sign me up for the Winebank, but they did my girlfriend. She spoke to two people about it, both of whom were very surly about it, pretty much suggesting that we were stupid because we should have known what we were signing up for.

    I left an unfavourable on Trustpilot and before I could blink, they were in touch and fawning over me, and sent me four free bottles. To be honest, this just irritated me even more!

    Won’t be using them again.

    • ankomonkey says:
      3 Sep3 September 22:23

      I had a signed-for delivery dumped outside my house while I was overseas for an alcohol delivery from Amazon. It wasn’t there when we returned. Credit where it’s due, they re-sent when I was home again and refunded the cost. Shame it was only £22!

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