Get 250 bonus Heathrow Rewards points (=250 miles) with every Heathrow Express purchase

Heathrow Rewards and Heathrow Express have teamed up to offer a generous bonus promotion.

Heathrow Rewards gives you 1 point for every £1 spent in Heathrow (1 per £10 on foreign exchange) or on Heathrow Express tickets (online bookings only). Once you’ve earned 250 points you can exchange them for miles or shopping vouchers.

Between 1st December and 31st December, you will receive 250 bonus Heathrow Rewards points with EVERY Heathrow Express purchase you make.

This is on top of the standard – and pretty feeble – earning rate of 1 Heathrow Rewards point per £1.

You need to book your tickets on the Heathrow Express website here.

The offer does not show on the Heathrow Express website but is explained clearly on the Heathrow Rewards site when you log in.

Are there any conditions?

It seems not, except that it cannot be combined with the employee discount scheme.  You can earn the bonus as many times as you wish during the promotional period.

Since you get 250 bonus points PER TRANSACTION, it makes sense to break down your purchase into multiple transactions.  If both you and your partner are travelling, buy your tickets in separate transactions.

However, since return tickets do not cost much more than single tickets, it is NOT worth buying two single tickets instead of a return.

You should also check that the Duo Saver (two standard class returns for £55.50) and Group Saver (33% off when 3+ adults travel) ticket offers are not better value than multiple single purchases.

What are the cheapest Heathrow Express tickets?

You can now get significant discounts if you book 30 / 60 / 90 days in advance, especially as weekends.

The cheapest ticket is a £5.50 single ticket, booked 90 days in advance for weekend or Bank Holiday travel.  Getting 250 Heathrow Rewards points on top of this is a good deal.

Remember that children now travel free on Heathrow Express.

What are Heathrow Rewards points worth?

Heathrow Rewards points transfer at 1:1 into airline miles in the following programmes, in chunks of 250:

British Airways Executive Club / Aer Lingus AerClub

Asia Miles

Emirates Skywards

Virgin Flying Club

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Aegean Miles&Bonus

Royal Brunei Royal Skies

Lufthansa Miles & More

Alternatively, you can convert them into Heathrow shopping vouchers at the rate of £5 per 500 points.

Occasional transfer bonuses see your points being worth 50% – 100% more.  For the last two years, there has been an annual 100% bonus on transfers to Heathrow shopping vouchers, so you got a £5 voucher for just 250 points.  There is currently a Virgin Atlantic transfer bonus running, which we will cover tomorrow, worth 50% for standard Heathrow Rewards members and 100% for Premium members who have spent over £750 in a year.

Is this a better deal than earning Avios from Heathrow Express?

Good question.  There is a long-running Avios deal with Heathrow Express, which few people know about because you need to visit heathrowexpress.com/avios to qualify.

This is very generous – you earn 10 Avios per £1 spent.  It is more generous, for flexible return tickets, than the Heathrow Express offer.

The snag is that the Avios offer does not apply to advance tickets.  The only tickets you can buy via heathrowexpress.com/avios are flexible ones.  You won’t find the £5.50 advance tickets here.  The only tickets covered by the Avios offer are:

• Express single: £22
• Express return: £37
• Business First single: £32
• Business First return: £55

If you want to earn Avios, as opposed to Virgin / Emirates / Lufthansa / Aegean / Singapore / Cathay / Royal Brunei miles, the bottom three deals above are more generous that taking 250 bonus Heathrow Rewards points.   On the other hand, a 50% transfer bonus into Avios at some point next year would wipe out the benefit except for the £55 ticket above.

To summarise ……

In virtually all cases, the new ‘250 bonus Heathrow Rewards points with any purchase’ option is better than the Avios-earning option.

Even when the difference is marginal, remember that transferable / flexible points (and Heathrow Rewards points are very flexible due to the number of redemption options) are more valuable than fixed points such as Avios.  You should value 250 Heathrow Rewards points higher than 250 Avios, for example, because the former can become the latter (1:1 conversion rate) but can also become lots of other things.

Because of this, I would take the Heathrow Rewards points rather than Avios (via heathrowrewards.com/avios) if you can.

Remember that bookings must be made by 31st December to qualify for the 250 bonus Heathrow Rewards points.  The small print says that bonus points may take up to 30 days to arrive.

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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:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.