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How to earn Avios points when you pre-order foreign currency from Travelex

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This articles shows you how you can earn Avios points when you buy foreign currency from Travelex.

EDIT 2022: This offer is no longer available.  Travelex is not a current Avios partner.

Over the years it has been hard to keep up with how you are meant to earn Avios when purchasing foreign currency.  At some point British Airways has had deals with Travelex, Moneycorp and American Express.  Dropping Travelex for American Express turned out to be a mistake, as Travelex took over the American Express desks in Terminal 5.

Travelex Avios partnership

Avios and Travelex are now best buddies again.   You can earn Avios points when you pre-order foreign currency via the Travelex website for collection at the airport or delivered.

The webpage you need is here.   This drops you straight into the currency calculator.

Do not go via the Travelex homepage as there is no option there to add your Avios account details.

Travelex lets you pre-order over 40 currencies and collection is available with as little as four hours notice.

This is what you need to know:

  • You collect 1 Avios for every £1 when exchanging over £300
  • Collect 1 Avios for every £2 when exchanging below £300
  • You must pre-order via the Travelex website here, for airport collection, for Travelex store collection or delivery
  • Home delivery is free if you exchange over £600, chargeable if you exchange less
  • You can credit your Avios to BA Executive Club or Iberia Plus
  • Avios will be added within 14 days of collection or delivery

It is good to see that pre-ordering is required.  The walk-up exchange rates at Heathrow are, frankly, shocking and you should never exchange money without ordering in advance.  You will receive a substantially better rate this way.

The special Avios / Travelex ordering page is here.

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.3 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories, click here to join our email list and click here to read our ‘Avios Redemption University’ series.)

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 2023)

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 £12,000 Read our full review

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

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

30,000 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.

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

Get a 10,000 points bonus plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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.

EDIT: Applications for this card are temporarily suspended due to IT issues with the British Airways On Business SME loyalty scheme.

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 good bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These are available to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points 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

Comments (65)

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

  • Ken says:
    28 Mar28 March 08:33

    So I’d be paying at least 2p per Avios compared with high street names.

    Just don’t see any sense in this.

    • Rob says:
      28 Mar28 March 09:51

      Clearly you pay for your own currency then, unlike many of our readers.

      • ken says:
        28 Mar28 March 10:03

        On holiday yes.

        At work, I still wouldn’t do it.

        I know for sure, its not just me.

        And no, its not the same as having a preference for say BA over another airline, after being stuck in USA with Delta in 2010 after Eyjafjallajökull

        • Graham Walsh says:
          28 Mar28 March 13:18

          Agree, even if work are paying, I treat it like my own money. Maybe it’s because its a small company (150 people). Maybe working at multi nationals, you care less?

      • Alan says:
        28 Mar28 March 10:59

        How many will take wads of cash on a business trip though? Would imagine pretty uncommon nowadays given widespread acceptance of plastic.

    • Anthony Edwards says:
      28 Mar28 March 10:37

      Surely the best bit is being able to order it in the morning and pick it up at the airport, saves me wasting my lunch break in a queue.

  • Funtime says:
    28 Mar28 March 09:00

    Your link says home delivery is free on orders over £600 not £500.

    Still having your pants down though.

    Surprised you’re pushing this.

    • Shoestring says:
      28 Mar28 March 09:31

      as already mention: if flying on business and you can claim back the cost of your Travelex transaction, hey presto – double whammy on card points & Avios, sod the exchange rate 🙂

      • Shoestring says:
        28 Mar28 March 09:32

        triple whammy if you get HR points on top by collecting at Heathrow 🙂

      • Russ says:
        28 Mar28 March 20:00

        As you said Shoestring you have to be sure you can claim the costs back or be happy to write off the expense. I can’t claim for most of my work travel expenses because I can’t justify working in a hotel room writing when I have a perfectly acceptable office in the UK. Fortunately earning and spending points offsets the costs.

        • Shoestring says:
          28 Mar28 March 20:21

          Also depends on your company. I had years when I was UK based but travelling a lot abroad with hefty foreign expenses that the old corporate Amex didn’t always cover, followed by years living abroad working for the same company when I was also reimbursed in GBP for non-Amex expenses. Never once did some beancounter ask me to justify the exchange rate on the day I was claiming (I guess they could look it up to see I was in the right ballpark). Never once did I falsify my expenses, though I was admittedly very generous with meals & drinks for business purposes. Or they were, I suppose you could see it that way. Good levels of trust.

        • Russ says:
          28 Mar28 March 20:52

          Totally agree *abuse it you lose it*

          Did well out of that, kept coming back for little nibbles of the cake rather than taking huge chunks 🙂

  • Bootlace says:
    28 Mar28 March 10:25

    O/T WOW ceased operations flights cancelled……

  • Waddle says:
    28 Mar28 March 14:43

    FX-related but very OT
    Are there any places which let you buy cash and pay with the currency of the cash you are acquiring? So if I wanted some CAD, is there somewhere I could order some and then pay in CAD to get it?

    • SimonW says:
      28 Mar28 March 15:01

      Why would you buy CAD if you already had CAD ? sounds like a cash withdrawal

      • Waddle says:
        28 Mar28 March 15:05

        Yes it’s what I meant but I guess I oversold it. Where can I perform a withdrawal of CAD or another currency in London? I know some ATMs give EUR and USD but I haven’t come across any other currencies.

        • John says:
          28 Mar28 March 20:29

          Generally only in the country of origin. Beware of euro ATMs in non euro countries (UK, Czechia, Denmark, Switzerland etc.)

          These tend to be just banknote vending machines that charge you in your card’s currency. There was an Ulster Bank euro ATM at Bishopsgate London which genuinely dispensed euros but that was dismantled.

    • Roy says:
      28 Mar28 March 20:31

      I believe some of the multi-currency ATMs allow you to do that, but you’re unlikely to find ATMs dispensing much other than EUR or maybe USD.

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

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