Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

A new Qatar Airways flight discount code is launched

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Qatar Airways has launched a 15% discount code on the base fare, valid in Economy and Business, for flights from the UK on four new routes:

  • Canberra
  • Chiang Mai
  • Pattaya
  • Penang

The promo code to use on the Qatar Airways website here is FLYQRUK.  You need to book by 17th February for travel by any point until 1st February 2019.  “Peak black out travel dates apply.”

Meanwhile, if you can connect to Dublin easily, you can save 15% on Chiang Mai, Penang, Canberra, Bangkok, Sydney, Bali, Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Auckland, Cape Town, Singapore, Johannesburg, Lahore and Hong Kong.

The code you need for Dublin departures is IEFLYQR.  The same travel dates apply as for the UK offer.

Your best option to maximise your miles when paying is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.  This offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.  Our review of Amex Gold is here.


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 (143)

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

  • G says:

    Not sure if this is know, but I have used my Curve Debit Card linked to my Tesco Debit Card to pay off my Amex balance and managed to get clubcard points on Tesco Debit Card. When paying directly with the Tesco Debit Card this would not be the case

    • John says:

      …. did paying Amex not work when you linked a credit card to Curve then?

      • G says:

        I don’t have a non Amex credit card so could not try. I was happy enough with 0.3 Avios per £

      • New Card says:

        I thought Curve blocked payments to Financial Institutions…….?

        • Alan says:

          I’m not sure if that’s just if the underlying card is a credit card rather than a debit card?

        • Mr Dee says:

          Would be interesting if this could be clarified as missing out on a good few points otherwise

    • Chris says:

      Interesting.. I will have to get myself a curve card for this purpose alone

  • Dean Selway says:

    I managed to put through £400 on self assessment in £200 transactions but now trying to pay corporation tax, I managed to put through £75 but no joy on anything more, just a payment declined notice, I’ve spoken to curve, HMRC and ihg no blocks on my card.

    Any advice?

    • Rob says:

      Go and use the card in some shops for offline transactions for a few weeks then try again.

      • Dean Selway says:

        It wouldn’t let me do a transaction higher than £200 initially then it would only let me do £75, tried on my partners curve today and no issues.

    • Mr Dee says:

      Why only £75 and was this the only payment you have made to your corporation tax?

  • John B says:

    OT – Anyone found a decent replacement for the now switched off MyFlights app?

    • Geoff says:

      Checkmytrip is the best replacement i have found for MyFlights – would also be interested to know if anyone has found anything better.

      • BlueHorizonUK says:

        I use Kayak, not a single email has tripped up the system yet whereas I find with TripIt it just goes into unfilled and you have to manually input everything. With Kayak if they don’t recognise what you’ve sent it comes back a little later all done and imported correctly with no interaction from me.

  • Boi says:

    IF BA decide to use these slots for RSA what time periods are we talking about?
    Here’s to hoping new redemption slots will become available soon….

    • Rob says:

      Slot becomes free from 20th April and under ‘use it or lose it’ rules it needs to be used for 80% of the season (which starts end of March). BA has little choice but to get a plane in the slot – any plane, any route – pretty soon after that. It simply does not have a spare long-haul aircraft though, in fact BA is short due to 787s out for engineering which is why the Doha flight is pretty much permanently cancelled these days.

      • john says:

        Some of the 747’s have ‘missed’ their retirement dates and look to still be going until the end of the year now, presumably to offer cover for some of the 787s. There are 8x new 787’s due this year but they may already be planned in to services.

  • rams1981 says:

    OT asked late yesterday but in case missed – has anyone had luck booking the 5 night Marriott travel package? If so how did you do it?

    7 nights is too long for a trip I have coming up so be good to do 5 nights and save the points.

    • Rob says:

      It seems that, after an initial burst on publicity last year about the call centre allowing this, there was a clampdown. It isn’t meant to be possible unless you own a Marriott timeshare.

      • rams1981 says:

        For 7 Day certificate, at 330k Marriott points (110k SPG) plus 120k Avios and given the hotel cost of roughly £1050….. got to pull the trigger. That’s decent value isn’t it?

  • Will says:

    Quick dumb question on Curve.

    If I put my debit card on there, I won’t pay anything for atm fees? I take it the pay ones at 7/11s are a different ball game but normal banks fine?

    • Rob says:

      Correct.

    • Genghis says:

      There are still limits though aren’t there?

      From the FUP
      “ATM usage is free for up to 10 domestic (withdrawals in the same currency as your Funding Source) withdrawals per calendar month after which time you may be charged £0.50 (or currency equivalent) per usage for each additional ATM withdrawal.”

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    Oh yeah and a bunch of people have already asked on Twitter if that means we’ll not be getting the Azuma trains. They’re still going ahead as planned. They were ordered and specified by the government, whoever operates the ECML has to use them. However, they may not be called Azuma as Virgin own the brand, their official name is class 800 (or GWR call them InterCity Express Train).

    Trains aren’t usually owned by the operator directly, they are leased so when a franchise changes hands the trains remain.

    • KP says:

      As a frequent traveller on the leeds-kgx line, thanks for the info!

    • Gavin says:

      Yes you’re definitely getting the class 800 trains, we are making them as quick as we can!

  • Briandt says:

    And another dumb question…what really are the Curve benefits of getting my card changed to Debit ?

    • Rob says:

      You can use it as places that accept debit cards but not credit cards.

      The older Curve Cards are technically pre-paid Mastercards and will be rejected at places which only accept debit cards.

      • Pangolin says:

        But are the fees abroad (i.e. for the self-employed version) exactly the same? I only pay 1% for FX transactions on the current (non-debit) card, so it’s worthwhile for me.

        If the debit card version had higher FX costs I definitely wouldn’t switch.

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

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