Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Bits: new HfP IT set-up, HfP reader wins 1 million Avios!, Charles Tyrwhitt offer

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News in brief:

We’re back in business …..

….. after a day off to finalise our IT server move.  Everything has gone to plan, I’m pleased to say.  Page load times have fallen sharply and we have hopefully seen the back of the ‘503’ errors.

I need to thank Neil Barrett for the huge amount of work he has done over the last week.   This involved rebuilding HfP from scratch, rather than just copying the old files across, to allow us to ditch some of the issues from six years of messing about with the old underlying WordPress database.  We also put in some overdue security improvements with SSL to follow in a few days.

Neil is a regular HfP reader but was actually recommended to me by another reader off the back of my request for support a couple of weeks ago.  I bribed Neil with the promise of a plug on HfP if he delivered everything he promised, and he has, so here it is.  He has been very easy to work with and I intend to keep using him for IT work on the site.

Neil is an IT consultant working in web technology for over 20 years and with a particular emphasis on the troubleshooting, functionality building and security of websites.   You can get in touch with him here. As well as his bespoke consultancy services, Neil has run Enbecom since 2002 providing domains, hosting, security and marketing for websites – the more ‘off-the-shelf’ types of services.

As a gesture for HFP readers, Neil has offered 10% off domains, web hosting, SSL and marketing packages bought through the Enbecom site until 31st December 2018, including any monthly or annual renewal payments which are made before then.   Just use this discount code at checkout: HFPREADER2018.

https://www.headforpoints.com/hfp/avis/

HfP readers wins 1 million Avios!

Reader Robert was the winner of 1 million Avios in a competition that Iberia Plus was running in conjunction with Avis.  This was discussed in the HfP comments although I never mentioned it in an article as it was only for Spanish rentals.

Avis has been giving away 1 million Avios per day from 1st to 10th December. 

Avios Charles Tyrwhitt

Earn Avios in the Charles Tyrwhitt shirt and tie sale

If you are coming to the Head for Points Christmas party on Tuesday, you will receive a very generous goody bag gift courtesy of Charles Tyrwhitt.  The company has also kindly donated a business suit as one of our raffle prizes.

The company has already launched its Winter sale, with shirts from £19.99. You will also receive 4 Avios per £1 spent, either online or in-store – just give your BA Executive Club number to the cashier.  Full details of the sale are here, details of the Avios partnership are here.


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 (91)

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

  • Ian says:

    Glad to see the move has gone well Rob. This page took ages to load but that’s clearly the fault of my ancient pc – resolution made to replace in 2018.

    • Rob says:

      Yes, it’s you! We’ve got it under 2 seconds now on most pages (this is via independent testing sites, not my own connection). If we killed the ads it would be amazingly fast.

      Virgin Media, bless em, has just doubled our internet speed at home to 100 megs – I actually tested it at 104 last night. No price increase either.

      There are still a couple of things to implement which will speed it up a little more.

  • Alan says:

    Page load times are WAY better now! Just need to see if emails will coming through OK (seems to have been a bit glitchy over this morning)

    • Rob says:

      The 4am failed, 5am and 6am OK. However this is probably a MailChimp ‘thing’ since the feed – headforpoints.com/feed?tag=three looks OK. I ran fairly dull stuff today on purpose, just in case!

      • Alan says:

        No sorry I’m meaning the comments emails (I don’t actually get the article ones as I pull them via RSS!). Finding it’s a bit intermittent just now, had some notifications but not others!

      • Yuff says:

        Does that mean you have exciting stuff for the rest of the week 😉

  • Roger says:

    OT

    Assume Amex platinum to PRGC referral now earns 18k MR points.

    • Polly says:

      Yes it does

    • Peter K says:

      And to other cards. Got it for referring wife to Nectar card.

      • Colin mackinnon says:

        How does this referral work – is there some catch to be used? Always though nectar card useless – but 18k mr is nice!

        • Peter K says:

          It’s not going to be amazing but I’m between churns and want to cancel my wife’s BA card yet not leave her Amexless. The 18k sealed it for me.

  • Peter K says:

    OT
    Does using the free night voucher from the IHG black card have the same cancellation rules as a normal reward night? I have a possible stay I want to book but need the option to cancel and get the voucher back. The t&cs online are a bit vague and just say individual hotel cancellation policies apply. Thanks.

  • the real harry1 says:

    Luton and Birmingham airports suspended all flights as they cleared snow from their runways after severe weather hit Britain on Sunday.
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-snow-latest-storm-caroline-luton-airport-flights-suspended-birmingham-airport-met-office-a8101921.html

    you don’t get this in Europe – where they have worse snow!

    the UK really is completely useless at dealing with snow 🙁

    • The Original Nick says:

      I’m currently sat in the BA lounge at AMS. 14:15 flight was cancelled at 17:00 yesterday so was put on a flight today for 17:30 which is delayed by an hour at the moment. Snow has settled here snow.

    • Anna says:

      Except Scotland – we’ve visited a number of times in winter and on the roads anyway the snow always seems to be cleared by 9 am!

      • JamesB says:

        It is because most local authorities here pay the gritters handsomely for both overtime and standby duty in case of need. Generally they do a good job but can get caught out by inaccurate forecasts or rapidly changing conditions.

  • JamesB says:

    Thanks to Neil et al for site upgrade. I noticed the increased speed but thought that was my broadband until reading this. Just one point which may or not be related to the upgrade. When viewing on an android tablet I’m seeing a black tool bar with home button on the left and search button on the right. This is sometimes but not always obscuring the comments reply box, I cannot recall seeing this before Friday which makes me think it is related to the upgrade.

  • JamesB says:

    PS congratulations to Robert.

  • the real harry1 says:

    tip from the top

    my PC was giving me the blue screen of death – I wondered if it was not fit for purpose ie latest W10 update etc or virus?

    going red hot

    I just unscrewed the backplate and vacuumed it out with my trusty Henry

    running smooth as, now – it was gunged up with dust so the fan wasn’t efficient & overheating

    maybe you should have done the same, Raffles

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

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