Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

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.

  • Harry T says:
    30 Nov30 November 15:36

    OT:
    Kaligo are doing double points for hotel bookings until Monday. Please use Rob’s affiliate link to get to their website.

    You will need to register here for the promotion to get the double points: https://www.kaligo.com/black-friday-sale.

    It’s not amazing, by any means, but I needed to book a hotel for my Mum for one night and it worked out as £2 cheaper than the hotel’s site. Plus I get 1000 Avios.

  • Gareth says:
    30 Nov30 November 16:27

    Says both codes have expired, I’ve lost ten minutes of my life…

  • Harry T says:
    30 Nov30 November 23:08

    OT, no bits:
    Trying to get back from Melbourne to Sydney on the grand prix day (15th March 2020). No Avios seats with Qantas past 18.30 at night (grand prix finishes at that time). Cash very expensive, understandably. Any more air miles loopholes here for a cheap trip back?

  • Nigel Walsh says:
    1 Dec1 December 00:08

    Signed up. Both codes expired.

  • Nick Newgale says:
    1 Dec1 December 11:59

    Signed up with the promise of £45 and failed to get anything! Very disappointed! How much has HFP made on ‘friend referrals’ I wonder?

    • Rob says:
      1 Dec1 December 12:28

      It does say very clearly at the top of the article that the codes seem to be exhausted. That line was put there at 10am yesterday.

      You will have got £5 free off the referral and you’ll get another £15 if you spend £500 via your Monese account.

      We make peanuts vs our £2,000 per week salary and office bill (which is before I earn a penny), I promise you. Most readers (2,000 of them) signed up during the 1 million Avios competition which paid us NO referral commission.

      (Put another way, we lost £40,000 by running that competition vs what we would have got if we left readers to sign up organically. Not exactly the sign of someone desperate for cash at any price!)

      • Bob Bingle says:
        2 Dec2 December 11:56

        Presumably though, overall, you do make a profit after paying your £2k office and staff bills – i.e. you are running this as a business and not out of the goodness of your heart?

        PS This is in no way meant as criticism or should be construed as supporting any if the previous complaints.

    • ilou says:
      2 Dec2 December 09:59

      Not sure what’s the point of your comment.. The article is clear and has been updated when the code got exhausted.

      I have picked up numerous tips for cahsback and savings from this website and it has cost me nothing.. so every time I have the opportunity to return the favour, I do it. I want this blog to continue running for many years to come, as I am sure it it will bring numerous other tips and opportunities

      Also, Rob is running this as a business and not a charity, so why are you surprised if can leverage off on small opportunity to make extra income

    • NickS says:
      2 Dec2 December 15:35

      Neither did I but don’t blame Rob! Should have signed up for the Avios comp then wouldn’t have missed the promo b4 it expired. Totally my fault. I normally react quicker to HFP articles but Monese seemed a bit more effort on a busy day. Will pay more attention next time

  • Shoestring says:
    2 Dec2 December 11:24

    got my sign up bonus from Monese 🙂

    • Doug M says:
      2 Dec2 December 12:23

      Didn’t the family all open doubts too. Surprised you didn’t open it when the Avios comp was in play.

      • Shoestring says:
        2 Dec2 December 12:32

        couldn’t be bothered for the competition as odds seemed low though the prize obvs great

        tbh I should have signed up to Monese for the sign up bonuses a long time ago but was too lazy

        not saying no to £60 free though lol

        others? my son wasn’t around to do the selfie and my wife said no, see my:
        [Shoestring says:
        29 November 2019 at 18:13
        have run into dearly beloved sez no problem
        so my wife won’t do the selfie bit to open a Monese a/c, ‘I don’t want the £45’
        good job I am used to this (the Amex years) – so I experience but momentary frustration & move on]

  • Rob says:
    3 Dec3 December 14:49

    Just send it back to your bank account.

    • Shoestring says:
      3 Dec3 December 15:15

      yep sent myself my Monese balance this morning (already earned my £15 bonus!)

      just set yourself up as a payee, tap & confirm

  • EdP says:
    12 Dec12 December 15:04

    New code just released GC100

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? EARN POINTS WORTH 10,500 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!