Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

What we know about the new Clubcard conversion offers for British Airways and Virgin Atlantic

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Tesco Clubcard points from the last collection period should now be showing online at tesco.com.

If you are thinking of where to convert, we now have an inkling of what is available in terms of incentives:

If you convert to Avios via an avios.com account, you will be entered into a competition.  Every £2.50 you convert gets you one entry.  Two people will win 50000 Avios, three people will win 25000 Avios and 150 people will win 5500 Avios.  The deadline to convert to be entered is 28th February.  Details are here.

If you convert to Avios via a BA account …. we don’t know.  I am willing to bet on British Airways offering a competition of some sorts but the details may not appear for a day or so.  You may want to hold off converting until you can compare the two.

If you convert to Virgin Flying Club, there appears to be a 20% conversion bonus.  I stress ‘appears’ because – whilst people who auto-convert to Virgin seem to have had a 20% bonus applied – there is no mention yet on either the Clubcard or Virgin Atlantic websites.  I would expect full details in a few days.  Keep an eye on the Virgin / Tesco website page here.

Personally ….. I am converting to Uber at the moment.  It is a ‘genuine’ 3x face value deal and our Uber spend is fairly high.  My choice is converting every £10 of vouchers into either £30 of Uber credit or 2400 Avios or 2500 Virgin miles.   This means I would be ‘paying’ 1.25p per Avios or 1.2p per Virgin mile (1p with the 20% bonus) if I took those instead and I’m not willing to pay that.


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.

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.

Comments (114)

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

  • rams1981 says:

    OT Marriott travel package. Has anyone had luck booking the 5 day package? If so, how did you do it?

    • BLT says:

      IIRC you can only redeem the 5 day travel package if you own a Marriott timeshare. In the past people have managed to get a CS rep on the phone line to allow a 5 night package , but not heard of this for quite some time.

  • Andrew says:

    Question Folks.

    I have my Clubcard points setup to automatically convert to BA miles each quarter. Do I still get entered in to any draws and also would I qualify for any conversion bonus’ (If there was a bonus of course!).

    Just wondering if there is a benefit to converting them manually each quarter?

    Apologies if this has been asked before!

    Thanks

    • Rob says:

      Yes, you’re entered. The downside of auto-convert is a) a better offer (perhaps non-Avios) may turn up you prefer, such as when they added Uber and hotels.com recently, and b) if you save them, you get maximum benefit if Avios ever brings back a conversion bonus – admittedly unlikely on recent form but you never know.

      Put it this way – what is the benefit of auto-convert?

      • Stu N says:

        Laziness, I guess…?

        I don’t spend much in Tesco – there is no convenient superstore and the Metro one near work is a bit rubbish. I just auto-convert so it fires across a handful of Avios after I hit a cumulative 250 points.

        • Rob says:

          Fair enough. If you’re looking at 250 points every now and then the convenience is worth it. If you are doing a few thousand points per quarter I would be wary. I do not auto-convert.

      • Andrew Howard says:

        Thanks

  • Sergio says:

    O/T: If I book a flight+hotel using BA holidays to get the flight cheaper (I’m seing more than £1000 difference) do I need to checkin in the hotel? Can I just pick the cheapest thing and don’t show up there at all?

    Thanks in advance

  • Alan says:

    Just had an email from Tesco confirming 20% bonus AND that 1000 for autoconvert is back…

    “Did you know that Tesco is one of our most rewarding partners? It makes collecting miles as easy as popping to the shop for a loaf of bread. And right now, it’s even better than usual. From 1 February – 15 March 2018, you can enjoy a bonus of 20% when you convert your Tesco Clubcard vouchers into Flying Club miles.

    What’s more, if you sign up to automatically turn your Clubcard vouchers into Flying Club miles, you’ll receive an extra 1,000 miles on top. You’ll be soaring towards new adventures quicker than you can say ‘weekly shop’.

    Don’t miss out – make sure you spend your Clubcard vouchers with Flying Club before 15 March to enjoy lots of lovely bonus miles.”

  • Andy S says:

    Virgin 20% bonus confirmed in email
    Quote:
    Did you know that Tesco is one of our most rewarding partners? It makes collecting miles as easy as popping to the shop for a loaf of bread. And right now, it’s even better than usual. From 1 February – 15 March 2018, you can enjoy a bonus of 20% when you convert your Tesco Clubcard vouchers into Flying Club miles.

  • Alex Sm says:

    Why do you promote mattress runs – it sounds sort of unethical… you can at least mention instead (or alongside) that it is a good opportunity to organise a mini-break or visit parts of London/UK which people wouldn’t visit otherwise – it is so much more positive!

    • Rob says:

      It isn’t unethical at all! You are not exactly depriving a homless person of a bed for the night are you? If we were, say, buying food because it had bonus Clubcard points and then binning it uneaten then that would arguably be unethical.

      • Alex says:

        It is still waste of labour of cleaners and laundry etc
        But it is also an issue of limiting yourself to purely transactional behaviour which is close to cheating – another angle of ethics.
        But I don’t ask you to stop writing about mattress runs but you could at least add some positive spin to that by highlighting that this could be converted into an exploration opportunity rather than pure check-in and run-away thing…

        I remember you did this for HI in Brent. Last autumn, for example, My partner and I managed to build a mini-break even around the most miserable place I ever been to (NE London, HIX Chingford or something) with exploring former Walthamstow Greyhound Racecourse, William Morris House and dining in one of the best Turkish restaurants in London.

  • Alex says:

    This is what I just received from BA, btw:

    “How would you like the chance to win a holiday to the Greek island of Kefalonia – beautiful setting for the film Captain Corelli’s Mandolin? Here’s how:

    Simply turn £5 worth of Tesco Clubcard vouchers into Avios before 31 March 2018 and we’ll give you an entry into our prize draw – plus 1,200 Avios of course. If you already spend your Clubcard vouchers with British Airways Executive Club automatically, then you’ll receive two entries for every £5 of vouchers spent.

    The prize includes Club Europe return flights and three nights’ accommodation for two people in a 4-star hotel. You can take your break anytime between 15 May and 31 August 2018, subject to availability. “

    • Jeanine Ottman says:

      I’ve looked on the Tesco.com website and the BA.com website and can see no mention of this competition at all. Am reluctant to convert my clubcard points to BA Avios in case I don’t get entered into competition – unless it’s automatic ….

  • Rob says:

    Correct. I am using it too, better than a slap in the face (when the wife asks what time we are flying it is very quick to find the info vs BA, emails etc) but that is about it.

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