Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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

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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.

Tesco Bank mortgages and Avios

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.

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.

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.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Tesco Clubcard, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (23)

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

  • Mrtibbs1999 says:
    2 Jan2 January 05:45

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

    Of course if you were going to be in a position to redeem (almost, but not fully) a large mortgage at the end of the tie in, it would be much more lucrative. 🙂

  • Andrew says:
    2 Jan2 January 06:01

    As Rob says, Clubcard points weren’t the top of our list of considerations when it came to remortgaging, but Tesco had the best rate at the time (May 2016) so we chose them. The service has been excellent on the rare occasions we’ve called with a query, and the Clubcard points appear like clockwork (which makes for a “free” family trip to the zoo/Legoland etc every 6-12 months)

    • Al says:
      2 Jan2 January 09:33

      Ditto, I switched to them after they matched the best rate available and the bonus clubcard points swung it for me – very easy to deal with and they allow up to 20% overpayments without penalty, so I’m happy!

  • Yawn says:
    2 Jan2 January 07:17

    I really recommend the Tesco bank account. 3% interest and double Clubcard points whenever you use the debit card to shop at Tesco. That’s better value than any reward credit card, although it is not really worth using anywhere else.

    • Jonathan says:
      2 Jan2 January 07:45

      Tesco current account 3% interest is only guaranteed until April this year and almost certainly going to drop then.

      • Genghis says:
        2 Jan2 January 08:05

        It’s variable anyway. No guarantee. Are you not thinking 1 cc at Tesco / £1 for old card holders?

        • Jon says:
          2 Jan2 January 11:12

          There is a guarantee in place until April as Jonathan says -as long as you meet the conditions e.g. pay in requirements, DDs etc . The guarantee is for all accounts opened by 19 October 2018.

        • Genghis says:
          2 Jan2 January 11:24

          Interesting. From the terms I saved down from when I opened the account (dated 20 March 17), it notes “variable”. The latest ones also note “variable” so I guess there was a version in between when this was “fixed”.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        2 Jan2 January 08:12

        Latest T&C’s have no end date for the 1cc/£1 offer.

    • FlyUpTop says:
      2 Jan2 January 08:02

      I believe the double points offer finishes in May also, it depends when you took the card out.

      • Yawn says:
        2 Jan2 January 22:36

        Both the interest rate and the 1CC per £1 offer are still listed on the Tesco Bank website. Remember reading somewhere (MSE?) that Tesco made both offers open ended.

        Sad to hear about the end of the extra point Pay+ offer. App saves me the hassle of having to carry my Tesco debit card around.

    • Alan says:
      2 Jan2 January 09:23

      Agreed – I also managed to get in early before the DD requirements so have two of them! Also handy for when I’m sent cheques (which some companies/Gov’t depts seem to refuse to give up on!) as you can just post them to a freepost address.

      • Alex W says:
        2 Jan2 January 20:59

        Interesting, didn’t know that. I’ve been clinging on to my Lloyd’s account because you can deposit cheques by taking a photo and uploading through the mobile app.

        • Alan says:
          2 Jan2 January 21:02

          I’d heard some had started offering that – sadly RBS don’t. You used to be able to pay cheques in at Tesco stores, but they stopped that and switched to this method.

          The address is:
          FREEPOST
          TESCO BANK 4943

          Just write your sort code and account number on the back of the cheque, no pay-in slip, etc. reqd.

  • Liz says:
    2 Jan2 January 09:22

    I am assuming the extra CC point for every £4 spent in Tesco with the Pay+ app has now finished. It was up till 31/12 but I haven’t seen anything saying it has been extended again. I do use Tesco all the time for shopping and fuel using the app linked to my Tesco debit card and we have our 3 mobile phones with them so we managed to collect a few Cc points in 2018.

    • David says:
      2 Jan2 January 15:31

      Yep, I think it’s finished for now. They brought it back before though, so fingers crossed they notice a drop in usage and decide to re-launch the bonus again…

  • Nick M says:
    2 Jan2 January 13:23

    I provided mortgage advice until last Spring, and still had access to the sourcing software when sorting my mortgage a few months ago… we’re with Tesco – rates were decent and, importantly, they could lend us the amount we needed. Affordability calcs didn’t seem to be concerned by some 0% cc debt we have (whereas some lenders reduced affordability by £100-150k) – which gave us more flexibility with deposit etc as the credit cards didn’t need to be repaid sooner than planned.

    The CC points are a nice extra, but definitely shouldn’t be a key driver… having said this, we will (probably) be more aggressive with making over-payments before the end of the deal than if there weren’t club card points to be earned!

  • Alex W says:
    2 Jan2 January 14:49

    OT, sorry no bits. Has anyone had problems using Curve to pay the Government Childcare service? I have tried my corporate debit curve and Mrs W’s personal debit Curve. Both come up as invalid card number. Credit cards not accepted either. Gutted if I have to miss out on £12k annual spend on credit cards!

    • Alan says:
      2 Jan2 January 15:10

      Yep has been mentioned on here (and Curve Community) that it seems to be an issue.

      • Alex W says:
        2 Jan2 January 15:38

        Thanks, I didn’t know about Curve community so I’ve signed up. Revolut it is then!

        • Mike says:
          2 Jan2 January 21:45

          Any news on Amex and curve? The self assessment deadline is approaching!

          • Alan says:
            2 Jan2 January 21:47

            Still in beta testing, haven’t heard of a launch yet. 0.65% fee above first £1k per 30 days too with current setup.

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