Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

How I earned 7,000 Heathrow Rewards points with a £135 Rocketmiles hotel booking

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Back in September, we wrote about an excellent hotel promotion.

Hotel booking site Rocketmiles was (and still is) offering ‘first time users’ 5,000+ easy Avios or other airline miles for a one night booking.

I tried this offer out myself last week when I was up in Manchester to visit PremiAir.  I earned a total of 7,000 Heathrow Rewards points on a £135 room booking which will convert into at least 7,000 Avios.  Read on for how that worked out.

What is Rocketmiles?

Rocketmiles – if you are not familiar with it – is a similar website to PointsHound, Agoda and Kaligo.com.  You can earn airline miles and other loyalty points in a wide variety of schemes when you book your hotel stays via rocketmiles.com.

The one downside of Rocketmiles is that your stays will be treated as ‘non-qualifying’ by the hotel.  This means that you won’t earn points in the hotel’s own loyalty programme and you probably won’t get your status benefits either.  Rocketmiles, Kaligo.com etc are best used when booking a stay at an independent hotel or at one where you don’t actively collect their points.

Get 5,000+ miles with your first Rocketmiles booking

Via this special link, you will earn 5,000 bonus miles, on top of your base miles, when you make your first booking through Rocketmiles.

You have until 31st December to book and the stay can be at any point in the future.  You get 5,000 bonus points on all participating hotels.

Not all hotels are participating.  There seems to be some sort of cost threshold, and you also do not get the bonus if you book one of the hotels on the site which is offered via the Rocketmiles partnership with booking.com.  It is very easy to see which hotels are taking part, however.

You should assume that ‘first booking’ means that NONE of the following have been used before to book via Rocketmiles – your rewards programme number, your credit card number AND your email address.

Of the reward schemes we tend to cover on Head for Points, the following are included in the offer:

  • American Airlines AAdvantage
  • Emirates Skywards
  • Etihad Guest
  • Flying Blue
  • Heathrow Rewards
  • Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
  • Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

“But what about Avios?” you shout ….

I was coming to that.

IN THEORY, Avios is excluded.  The small print of the offer says:

“Promotion cannot be redeemed through AerLingus Aer Club, Amazon.com Gift Cards, American Airlines Business Extra, British Airways Executive Club, Caesars Total Rewards, Malaysia Enrich, @MyAirItalyClub, Norwegian Rewards, REI Gift Card, Sony Rewards, Uber Gift Cards, Vueling Club.“

All of the companies highlighted are Avios partners.

However, IN REALITY, you CAN earn 5,000 Avios from this offer.  How?  By crediting to Heathrow Rewards.

Heathrow Rewards Rocketmiles

Why should you credit your Rocketmiles stay to Heathrow Rewards?

Usually, when you earn miles via Rocketmiles, they are sent directly to the partner of your choice – Avios, Virgin Flying Club, Etihad Guest etc.

The Avios airlines, however, are excluded from this offer.

However, if you credit to Heathrow Rewards instead you can ultimately move the bonus to Avios and earn 5,000 points.

Why?  Heathrow Rewards has a lot of 1:1 transfer partners.  5,000 Heathrow Rewards points from this offer can be transferred into:

  • 5,000 Avios
  • 5,000 Virgin Flying Club miles
  • 5,000 Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles
  • 5,000 Royal Brunei RoyalSkies miles
  • 5,000 Emirates Skywards miles
  • 5,000 Aegean Miles&Bonus miles
  • £50 Heathrow Airport shopping voucher
  • £100 Heathrow Airport parking voucher

…. and you could even mix and match across the various redemptions.  You can leave your points sitting in Heathrow Rewards until you are firm about where you need them.

If you’re not a member of the scheme yet, you can find out how Heathrow Rewards works in this article.

There is also the opportunity for a transfer bonus

Heathrow Rewards ran some aggressive transfer bonuses in 2017 and 2018.  So far in 2019 we have only seen one deal – a 50% bonus on transfers to Asia Miles, which is still running until 18th November.  However, we used to see:

  • 100% bonus on redemptions for Heathrow shopping vouchers
  • 50% bonus on transfers to Virgin Flying Club
  • 50% bonus on transfers to Avios
  • 100% bonus on transfers to Miles & More

Even if your only interest from Rocketmiles is earning Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Airlines or Emirates miles – which you can earn directly from Rocketmiles – it may well make more sense to credit your stays to Heathrow Rewards instead and wait for a transfer bonus.  If there is no bonus, you can still convert at the standard rate and you aren’t any worse off.

The bonus points show up during the booking process for participating hotels so there is no risk that you do not get them, unless Rocketmiles later identifies you as a ‘previous customer’.

Do not book if you don’t see the 5,000 bonus points listed.  It means that your hotel is not participating.

How did it work out when I tried it?

Needing a hotel in Manchester for one night – and knowing that I had to check out early and would get breakfast at PremiAir – I was fairly ambivalent about where I stayed as long as it was decent.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity to check out this deal.

Booked five days in advance, there were only TWO participating hotels in Manchester.  I chose the Marriott Manchester Victoria & Albert Hotel on the edge of the City Centre:

Manchester Marriott Victoria and Albert hotel

The price was £135.  This was the same as the price offered on marriott.com to non-members of Marriott Bonvoy.  The discount for Bonvoy members was very tiny so I only ‘overpaid’ by £5 or so.

This hotel earned 2,000 base Heathrow Rewards points plus the 5,000 bonus.  This was an excellent return of 7,000 Heathrow Rewards points.  If Heathrow Rewards ever repeats its ‘100% bonus on transfers to Heathrow shopping vouchers’ offer then I can cash them in for £140-worth.

There was also a VAT quirk, however.  Rocketmiles books your room from outside the UK and so no VAT is triggered.  As this was a HfP work trip, I would be able to reclaim the VAT usually – a £135 room only really costs me £112.50.  The net difference, adjusting for income tax and NI, is that I ‘overpaid’ in total by around £17 plus the value of the Bonvoy points I would have earned.  This was worth it for 7,000 Heathrow Rewards points.

For anyone travelling for personal use, ignore the VAT discussion above.  It doesn’t impact you.

It was interesting to note that Rocketmiles paid the hotel £77.  This means that Rocketmiles will have broken even on the transaction after paying Heathrow Rewards £50-70 for my 7,000 points.

Don’t worry about your Heathrow Rewards points expiring. You need to go three years without earning points for that to happen, and simply spending £1 in the airport gets you another three years.

I checked out on Wednesday 6th November and the Heathrow Rewards points posted yesterday (Monday 11th).

Conclusion

This is a good deal if you are new to Rocketmiles and well worth a try if you can fit it in to your schedule.  Remember that you need to book by 31st December but the stay can be at some future date.

The special Rocketmiles booking page is here.  Remember that you must be a first time Rocketmiles customer, and that means using a credit card number, email account and transfer partner account number which is they do not recognise.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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

Air France KLM and Flying Blue, American Airlines and AAdvantage, British Airways and Avios, Etihad and Etihad Guest, Heathrow Rewards, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (72)

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

  • David says:
    12 Nov12 November 06:00

    How did you find out how much Rocketmiles paid the hotel? Is it on the folio at checkout?

    • Nathan says:
      12 Nov12 November 07:40

      I spotted the ‘rate charged’ on the receptionist’s screen at check-in when taking up this offer the weekend before last. Fair to say there was a substantial gap! However; the rate shown wasn’t available to me anywhere when I made the booking 6+ weeks ago.

      • Rob says:
        12 Nov12 November 08:35

        It was on the document I was asked to sign at check in.

        • John says:
          12 Nov12 November 09:38

          I once had to sign a similar document on checking in, and in the rate box was the text DO NOT REVEAL RATE TO GUEST

        • Chris says:
          12 Nov12 November 13:36

          Any idea how to get this wholesale rate? No wonder hotels are so expensive if so much (half, in this case) gets skimmed off the top by OTAs etc. I thought they get much less, around 15 percent

          • Rob says:
            12 Nov12 November 13:40

            It’s a bed bank rate. The hotel will have sold 5,000 annual nights (guaranteed volume, buyer takes the risk) at this price under 1 contract to Tourico or similar. Most end up with tour groups but some come back via Kaligo etc.

            Expedia commission is around 22%.

          • Chris says:
            12 Nov12 November 14:43

            Thank you, Rob! Very interesting

          • Brasov says:
            13 Nov13 November 15:45

            I’d love to see an article on bed banks and how to access those rates 🙂

          • Rob says:
            13 Nov13 November 15:57

            You can’t.

            I met HotelBeds last week as it happens. It’s a simple model – there are thousands of hotels, and there are thousands of groups who need rooms in bulk. Bed banks sit in the middle as a one-stop intermediary for both sides.

            Most of the time they will take a big commitment – perhaps 2,000 nights over a year, albeit with flexibility over what nights they are used – at a guaranteed price for a big discount. The bed bank then tries to place those rooms with tour groups etc. When the rooms enter the retail chain (eg via Rocketmiles or Kaligo) the seller is obliged to use ‘rate parity’ and charge the same as the hotel itself is charging. This leads to fat profit margins which allows the sort of generous rewards funded by Rocketmiles etc.

          • Brasov says:
            13 Nov13 November 16:09

            Very interesting.
            I met a guy at HFP party who worked for a website that did multiple night bookings at different hotels.
            I think at the time it was possible to just book one night and get the cheaper non-public rate.

  • Anna says:
    12 Nov12 November 06:11

    Prices seem to be quoted in US $ when I click through, does this adjust to £ at the point of booking?

    • Rob Clark says:
      12 Nov12 November 07:18

      This is my worry as well. If I charge in dollars I’ll get an overseas charge on AMEX. I’ve gone through to booking page and it’s sill in $

      Anybody know?

      • Rob says:
        12 Nov12 November 08:40

        There is an option at the top of the page to change currency. It defaults to $ unless you switch it. Card is charged in whatever currency you switch it to.

        • Rob says:
          12 Nov12 November 11:28

          Thank you! Found it, wasn’t very obvious on a mobile, but was obvious when I used a normal computer.

  • BJ says:
    12 Nov12 November 06:21

    Undoubtedly a good return on a £135 room but nothing worth getting overly excited about considering I just earned over 55k IHG points for staying 4 nights (including 2 in Inverness) for about £190 by combining the last IHG sale rates with that other place. Wasn’t even as cheap as it could have been given I had to purchase breakfast rates at a CP and HI. It was also too late to take advantage of the 4x offer. I still have to take advantage of Rocketmiles myself but hope to bag my 5000+ on a useful room costing substantially less than £135.

  • Ian McDowall says:
    12 Nov12 November 06:33

    I looked at this recently and it gives you the chance to choose BAEC for the avios and then says that for the hotel I want that I’d earn 4k avios. It then offers a higher price for the room for extra avios which I think is very good at 0.57p per avios.
    But in this article you are saying I can’t credit BAEC, so why does it give me the chance to do this?

    • BJ says:
      12 Nov12 November 07:30

      Just down to the deal they have with IAG. This is why Rob focuses on Heathrow Rewards, it is a flexible currency so you can transfer to avios or other miles if you wish or just use for shopping. The real prize though is that Heathrow Rewards themselves have run some very generous conversion bonus although there have been less of those this year for some reason.

    • southlondonphil says:
      12 Nov12 November 10:19

      @IanMcDowall You can earn ‘regular’ Avios with Rocketmiles, based upon the hotel offer and the value of the room, but you can’t get the FIRST BOOKING BONUS of 5000 additional ‘points’ in any flavour of Avios with this promotion, you have to pick one of the other loyalty programmes that isn’t excluded.

    • CraigyC says:
      12 Nov12 November 11:21

      I’ve found you usually get more Heathrow points than avios using rocketmiles, also the promotion only gives the sign up bonus to Heathrow rewards.
      The promotion seemed not to be triggered on hotel stays under £100, though this was not per night so longer stays triggered the bonus.

  • Nathan says:
    12 Nov12 November 07:48

    Generally speaking I use hotels.com when the main chains in the UK are £300+/night. Call me a miser but that’s too much for a product barely differentiated from HIX. As was the case in Brighton Sat 2nd Nov when I needed a bed and not much else, the rocketmiles bed priced up within £10 of hotels.com but with a few thousand avios on top. Assuming they post, it can work out just not every time I would assume.

  • Geoff Brooks says:
    12 Nov12 November 08:00

    Did exactly this with booking in Berlin. 7000 avios for £126

  • Nori says:
    12 Nov12 November 08:25

    Do Heathrow Rewards points expire?

    • Rob says:
      12 Nov12 November 08:33

      If have three years with no earning activity, yes. Note spending does not count. You only need to spend £1 in Heathrow to reset the 3 years though (or if abroad buy a £5.50 Heathrow Express ticket online).

  • ankomonkey says:
    12 Nov12 November 08:45

    I got 4000 TK miles for £52 last year. And the hotel room of course.

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

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