Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get 1,000 Avios points with your first Airbnb stay

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Back in June British Airways partnered with Airbnb to offer Avios with your Airbnb bookings, with 3 Avios earned per £1/€1/$1 spent.

It also had an introductory offer of 500 Avios with your first booking.

There is now a new promotion that doubles the introductory offer to 1,000 Avios for your first booking.

Earn Avios with Airbnb stays

The promotion is not appearing on the official Airbnb page on the British Airways website, although it is showing on the Executive Club offers page when you log in.

To get the offer you MUST book via the link on ba.com. You will not receive any Avios if you go via the standard Airbnb home page.

You can also get £25 off your first Airbnb booking by using Anika’s refer a friend link which is here.  There is a minimum spend of £55.

I don’t know if you can do this and earn Avios at the same time, but the £25 discount is a better deal if you can’t.


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.

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.

Comments (204)

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

  • Doogie says:

    Not seen it posted, apologies if duplicate!

    MR -> Marriot bonus

    Transfer before 31 December 2019 and you’ll receive 9 Marriott Bonvoy points for every 4 Membership Rewards points, when you transfer 1,000 or more.1 That’s 50% more than the usual rate. You can use Marriott Bonvoy points at more than 7,000 hotels in 130 countries.

    Please note that your points will be transferred to your Marriott Bonvoy account within five working days and your additional Bonus Points can take up to eight weeks to transfer. Terms and Conditions apply.

    • Zara says:

      Wondering if this is targeted as I have not received it and would actually be interested in this one! Anyone have a link? Thx

    • Russ says:

      Have the same. Didn’t get the Hilton offer though.

      Interesting. I dropped Marriott and went over to Hilton so I’d have thought I’d been targeted because my Marriott bookings had fallen off. But how would Amex know that?

      • Sloth says:

        Same… got this Marriott offer this morning but never get the Hilton offer… funnily enough I normally transfer MR points to Hilton, never Marriott…

    • Grant says:

      I have chatted with Susan at Amex who confirmed that the offer is available to all customers who have an existing Marriott membership.

      • Rob says:

        Never trust the call centre …

        • Grant says:

          I agree, although in this case it was online chat (to which the same warning applies). In her defence she did quote the terms to me though.

          • MinR says:

            I got told on chat that it is a ‘targeted offer for Platinum Card which you are carrying right now..’

            I was quoted the t&cs too but I’ve asked for an email confirmation just in case.

          • Rob says:

            That’s clearly not true or I’d have it.

          • Grant says:

            More fuel to Rob’s fire…

          • Harry T says:

            MinR, did you get an email confirmation after you asked for one?

    • Grant says:

      On a related point, can you transfer Amex MR points directly to a spouse’s Marriott account or must they go to an account in the same name first, then speak to Marriott to combine points?

      • BJ says:

        Transfer them to any other member regardless of address. Just takes a quick call. Used to be instant, more recently it has taken up to an hour for my transfers to complete.

        • BJ says:

          Apologies, misread your question.

          • Grant says:

            No problem. I think I have found the answer in the small print on the Amex website. Names need to match.

            Will have to call Marriott to transfer once points land.

    • Doug M says:

      I have this to. Great timing having shifted 50K MR to Marriott in the last week 🙁

      • Harry T says:

        Anyone reckon you can get this deal without being targeted by email? I didn’t get emailed the Hilton offer either so feeling a little neglected.

        • Grant says:

          Susan on Amex chat says yes. Take from that what you will, but I am transferring points and expecting the bonus based on the chat, but not having received the email.

        • Doug M says:

          Someone else said they asked Amex and were told yes, it’s not targeted. I’d ask on chat, and keep the text of the conversation.

          • Rob says:

            Yes. Be very clear about this – the agents make it up. They haven’t got a clue about this sort of thing. I would either record the call, ask them to email you in writing that you will get it or insist they make a note in your record and then call back to ask another agent if it was actually done.

            Don’t rely on their call records as the bonus is not due for weeks as per the rules and the tapes may have been wiped by then.

            Ask yourself this – if it’s not targeted, why is it not on the website?

          • Grant says:

            Genuine question – do transfer bonuses normally get advertised on the website?

          • Rob says:

            It is about 5 years since Amex did an ‘open to all’ bonus so we don’t know. In the dark depths of the early 21st century, yes they were.

          • Grant says:

            Thanks – I’ve had the same info from a second chat agent now so I’m going to gamble.

    • xcalx says:

      Great offer, 80k MR to 180k Marriott = 75k in AA or Alaskan etc. any links?

  • Nick M says:

    Just had an email from Amex – bonus points if transfer MR to Marriott –> 4:9 until 31.12.19

    • Harry T says:

      A clever hack would be to transfer MR to Bonvoy and then transfer to Avios to take advantage of the 35% bonus that BA are running! Would make more Avios than a direct transfer from MR. Would obviously rely on the bonus points transferring quickly from Amex.

  • Heathrow Flyer says:

    LHR Summer schedule changes:

    • LHR-MSY increasing frequency from 5 to 6 per week
    • LHR-NAS-GCM increasing frequency from 4 to 5 per week

    Usual avios seats will be up for grabs.

  • Benilyn says:

    OT: Amex Platinum supp Gold (first four are complimentary), do they get 2x lounge access too?

  • Anna says:

    OT – good result (finally) from our cancelled LON-LHR leg in August resulting in a 200 mile taxi dash to (just) catch our connecting flight to the Caribbean. Just received an email from BA saying they are refunding the sector not flown and giving us a total of 30,000 avios for the inconvenience.

    • Anna says:

      Sorry, that should have been MAN-LHR, slightly more distance to cover!

    • Doug M says:

      I’m assuming they paid for the taxi too, so a nice result.
      I know it’s harder for families, but if you can keep stress levels down, relax about it, and are not too time limited, disruption oftens ends well.

      • Anna says:

        Indeed, we have done quite well out of BA this year, also had 2 x 600 euros for a delay on a separate trip. Yes, they paid the £290 taxi fare! I might be imagining it but BA seem to have become a lot more co-operative since OH hit Bronze…

        • Doug M says:

          I’m sure that’s not connected. Golds are two a penny to BA, never mind anything less.

    • Lyn says:

      Well done for persevering, Anna!

  • Lady London says:

    Well if the Stansted Express has been able to get away with the outrageous fares they have been charging for the seriously clapped-out trains they’ve been running, then I can’t see why Heathrow Express which has been the other great ripoff, should be concerned if they have to take refurbished carriages that might be closer to thé pour charriages on most other routes. At least Heathrow Express has adjusted their pricing.

    Btw where’s the luggage space in the above photo of the new trains? Whoever commissioned them seems to have forgotten many people go to airports with luggage. Sôme of which can be suite voluminous. It’s a problèmes now, and that photo looks even worse.

    • ADS says:

      maybe i’ve been lucky – but i thought the existing Stansted Express trains were pretty decent ?!

      • Lady London says:

        You’ve been very, very lucky.
        They were just about décent many years back ( but still asdumed only about 4 people per charriage would have luggage).

        I avoid Stansted like the plague but still had to travel there 7-8 times in past 2-3 years. All at différent times of day or week. Got some shockers of charriages – all older than I thought were still running. Hideously broken seats and filth everywhere, on all of them bar 1 and that 1 was barely acceptable.

  • Spaghetti Town says:

    It seems easy to moan about the Stansted Express. Wait until you try Transport for Wales. You’d have a heart attack if you’re from London/South East.

    • AG says:

      Too true, I used them once several years ago. The inside was dirtier than a tube train (albeit more rundown!), and it was very crowded/uncomfortable.

    • LewisB says:

      +1!

    • AndyGWP says:

      +1 indeed… I’d be happy if they had enough carriages (and not a barrel-load of excuses as to why they haven’t got enough carriages!)

      • RussellH says:

        TBH, the reasons are normally valid. And the Pacers will be replaced within about 6 months, although they will last longer than 31 Dec, when they were originally all supposed to have been withdrawn.

        • AndyGWP says:

          Happy with the reasons being genuine – I’ve made numerous requests for timescales when the variety of issues will be rectified though and “unknown timescales” are all that can be provided. Very poor from a consumer perspective – excuses being made for bad service, but little optimism being provided of how it will be rectified

    • Doug M says:

      Having only been to Cardiff and South Wales I thought Welsh trains would have a tanning salon onboard.

  • Benilyn says:

    OT: VA points to Hilton transfer – how long has it taken? First time doing it so accounts not linked.

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