How to earn Avios or Virgin miles via Clubcard with a Tesco Bank mortgage

Tesco Bank quietly entered the mortgage market back in 2014.  I mentioned it briefly at the time but it turns out that I haven’t written about it for over four years.

(Part of the reason is that there are many factors to consider when taking out a mortgage.  Whether or not you will earn Avios or Virgin Flying Club miles via Clubcard points should be very much at the bottom of your list of considerations!)

The Tesco Mortgages home page with all the headline financial and regulatory detail is here.  More interesting is the page on Clubcard earning which is here.

It is all very simple:

You earn 1 Tesco Clubcard point for every £4 of your monthly mortgage payment.  This applies to both the capital and interest elements.

You earn 1 Tesco Clubcard point for every £4 of any overpayment you make, as long as it does not fully repay your mortgage

As a reminder, one Tesco Clubcard point converts into 2.4 Avios or 2.5 Virgin Flying Club miles.  You can occasionally get a 10%-20% bonus on transfers to Virgin Atlantic, although Avios conversion bonuses are very rare.

This return would be pointless if the mortgages were badly priced.  Tesco Bank has a good reputation although the need to compare interest rates, the fixed rate period, fees and maximum loan-to-value mean that there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer as to whether it is the best deal.  At present it only appears to offer fixed rate mortgages covering two, three or five years.

If you were making monthly payments of £1000 you would be earning 250 Clubcard points.  This is worth 600 Avios, so about £5-£6 of value.  It is not enough to move the needle on which mortgage provider is cheapest.  That said, Tesco does appear to have a competitive product and it is worth taking a look alongside other providers.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

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

If you have a small business, we especially recommend Capital On Cap’s Visa card which comes with a generous bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)