Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get £45 for free if you have a Monese bank account (only 4 minutes needed)

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Monese is the online banking app which has a partnership with Avios – albeit that the partnership has not gone much further, so far, than letting you view your Avios balance alongside your financial balance.

I know that 2,000 HfP readers have a Monese account following our recent competition.  If you didn’t win, here is £45 as compensation.

If you don’t already have a Monese account, you can use my refer-a-friend code of ROBE820.  You will receive a £5 credit plus a further £15 when you’ve spent £500 on your card.  I think that is how it works – it doesn’t actually tell me anywhere what you get ….

If you are reading this on your phone, the download link is here.

How to get your free £45

As a Black Friday offer, Monese has two offers running:

  • Buy a £50 shopping gift card for £35
  • Buy a £100 shopping gift card for £70

By far the easiest option is to buy an Amazon gift card and add it to your Amazon account for future use (it is valid for 10 years).

Here is a step by step guide to how to do it.  This is based on the £100 gift card but the process is the same for the £50 card.  You can buy one of each per Monese account.

As you can see from the time stamps on the screenshots, it only took me four minutes to buy and redeem each gift card – and it would have been quicker if I wasn’t taking and uploading screenshots!

If the offer comes up as ‘expired’, it isn’t.  It is just overload on the system.  I got ‘expired’ early on Friday but was then able to purchase successfully at lunchtime.  If GIFT100 fails for the £100 gift card, you may find that GIFT50 still works, according to readers.

Step 1:  Make sure you have £70 in your Monese account

I withdrew £70 from my linked HSBC account and it arrived instantly:

Monese gift card promotion

Step 2:  Go to ‘Promotions’, which is under the menu in the top left corner (the ‘head’ icon)

Step 3:  Add the code ‘GIFT100’ (or ‘GIFT50’ for the £50 card):

…. which will lead you to this screen:

Monese gift card promotion

Step 4:  Click on your messages (the ‘bell’ in the top right corner)

You can then activate your gift card:

Monese gift card promotion

Step 5:  Choose the gift card you want

You can choose from Amazon, Argos, Asda, Caffe Nero, Cineworld, Costa, Currys ….. and that is just A-C!  For an easy life, take an Amazon gift card (valid for 10 years):

Monese gift card promotion

Step 6:  Click here to go to the page of the amazon.co.uk where you redeem electronic gift cards

Enter your code:

Monese gift card promotion

And that’s it.  £30 saved.

If you bought the £100 gift card, you can repeat the process with code GIFT50 and pay £35 for a £50 gift card.

I hope the free £45 makes up for not winning our Monese competition.

If you’re not already a Monese account holder, you can download the app here.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current 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

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

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

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

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.

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

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

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

General

Comments (182)

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

  • Luke B says:
    29 Nov29 November 17:10

    Has anyone had luck with the gift100? I opened an account and the gift50 worked instantly, gift100 returns an expired message

  • boi says:
    29 Nov29 November 17:35

    can I top up with revolut?

  • aston100 says:
    29 Nov29 November 19:01

    Not had any luck with the £100 giftcard all day.
    Got the £50 one yesterday.
    Has anyone managed to get both? or do you think you can only do one and not both?

  • Kevin Lee says:
    29 Nov29 November 22:24

    Just signed up using your refer-a-friend code. ‘£5 credit plus a further £15 when you’ve spent £500’ is correct.

  • Bill says:
    29 Nov29 November 22:29

    GIFT10O says expired

    • Doogie says:
      29 Nov29 November 23:21

      Running hot and cold all day, same as Amazon and Tesco vouchers on the redemption side. Hopefully still manage GIFT50 and/or GIFT100 before they properly pull it

  • Martin Robertson says:
    30 Nov30 November 05:25

    Neither working as of 05:20 this morning

    • melonfarmer says:
      30 Nov30 November 08:42

      Agreed, I tried the £100 on and off from 7pm last night & haven’t got it to work. Giving up now.

      Got the £50 one so thanks Rob.

  • Tom says:
    30 Nov30 November 05:31

    Both expired.

    What is the point of sending out an email the day after with this offer on?

    Totally pointless. Or is it just clickbait?

    The other email also contains information regarding offers from yesterday.

    • Joak says:
      30 Nov30 November 06:03

      Shocker. Bad bad timing for email distribution
      I knew this would eventually catch up with the site

      Plenty people adding 100 to their accounts for nothing today

      • Rob says:
        30 Nov30 November 09:55

        …. which you can withdraw in 5 seconds back to the account it came from.

        Stock has come and gone multiple times in the last couple of days, as the article says. It was ‘expired’ at 10am yesterday but working happily at noon when I bought.

        The VERY worse case scenario is that someone signs up to take advantage of this, finds it expired, but then loads up £500 anyway and sends it back to their account to trigger the £20 sign-up bonus. Still a decent return for 10 minutes work.

        • Col says:
          30 Nov30 November 11:36

          Just for clarification – are you saying that to get the £20 bonus we simply have to funds the account with £500 and then we could transfer it out again, rather than actually having to buy something with it? Thanks.

          • Rob says:
            30 Nov30 November 12:06

            I honestly have no idea what the exact rules are to be honest, because the app doesn’t tell me. It involves £500 going through the account but exactly what qualifies I don’t know.

  • PaulW says:
    30 Nov30 November 06:29

    Ah well at least I can withdraw it again. But yes article in need of an EXPIRED banner 🙁

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