Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Save an extra 10% on Qatar Airways sale flights – today only

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Qatar Airways has launched a week-long sale.

We haven’t seen any pricing at the time of writing, but we’ll give it some extra coverage later in the week.

If you book TODAY, however, you will get an extra 10% off all flights booked via the Qatar Airways website or their mobile app.  You’ll need to use this link to the website and the discount code 24HOURS.

The 10% discount is off the base fare, excluding the taxes and fees.  For economy tickets, that means the 10% discount will end up being quite a bit smaller, but some decent savings will be made on Business Class tickets.

Qatar Airways A350 Doha

Qatar Airways has given Head for Points readers early access to this offer ahead of their own email blast at 10am.

Here are the key terms and conditions for the extra 10% discount:

  • Promo code is only valid on 7th January and will expire at midnight
  • You must use the code 24HOURS to get the discount
  • It is only valid to flights booked via the UK website
  • This promo code applies to Qatar Airways operated flights only
  • Travel period: 8 January to 30 November 2020

As this offer is only valid for flights booked on the UK website and so priced in Sterling, the best credit card to pay with is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold This gives you double Membership Rewards points (2 per £1) on all airline spending when you book directly with a the airline.

There are a lot of other special offers linked to the sale, including:

  • Double Qmiles if you choose to credit to Qatar Privilege Club instead of British Airways Executive Club
  • Very low-cost Doha stopovers for up to four nights
  • Upgrades at the Oryx Airport Hotel
  • 25% off lounge access in Doha if it is not included in your ticket
  • 20% off excess baggage

Full details are on the sale website here.


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 (143)

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

  • Ian says:

    I posted this previously, but had no response, so thought I would try again.

    Not sure if I am remembering something that never existed, but did BA ever include UK transfers at no extra cost when booking long haul from London. I.e. LHR – JFK would be the same price as MAN – JFK via LHR?

    • Shoestring says:

      that’s still true on points redemptions – the extra flight doesn’t cost any points to get to LHR but you do pay taxes/ fees

    • Anna says:

      I must have missed this as I would definitely have answered! But yes, you don’t pay any extra avios IF booked on one PNR, but you do have to pay the taxes for the relevant cabin. You can get round this if you’re happy to do the connection in economy (and only pay economy fees) by using the “stopover” option when booking. You don’t actually have to stopover anywhere but you can then pick the cabin individually for each leg.

  • Craig says:

    Virgin Atlantic credit card points cap – is this applicable to every cardholder? I’ve recently opened the card in December and I’ve had no notification of this new cap. I can’t find a reference to it on the website or in the T&C’s.

    • Rob says:

      You are not meant to churn your credit limit, in theory, so it isn’t covered in the T&Cs. You are meant to assume you shouldn’t do it – Virgin doesn’t need to specifically tell you that you can’t do something you shouldn’t be doing anyway!

      • Genghis says:

        Why? If I have a credit card with a £5k limit, the company are agreeing to effectively lend me £5k at any one time. If I pay them back intra-month, then I’m not breaking the limit. If something isn’t documented as agreed then it doesn’t exist.

        • memesweeper says:

          As Rob says, many card companies just assume you won’t do this.

          It’s not just points earning that can be impacted. Interest free amounts can get messed up if you pay ‘too early’. The IT just isn’t geared up to deal with this correctly, presumably because the banks don’t expect users to behave that way. You can get these things fixed up afterwards, but it will involve a manual intervention.

        • Sussex bantam says:

          Plus if I pay back mid month my “available to spend” amount goes back up again. How should I guess that I’m not supposed to spend it ??

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          “You are not meant to churn your credit limit” Eh? I agree with Genghis. If you’re not supposed to repay mid-month and then spend more then why have the card companies added a feature that is specifically designed to let you … er …. repay mid-month and then spend more!

          • Munch says:

            Had anyone had problems “churning their credit limit” on the IHG card. Always done it on my Virgin card but never tried it on IHG.

          • Paul Pogba says:

            I did this last Feb to pay my corp tax with no problems, earnt points – no issues.

      • BJ says:

        My dad has settled all his card balances weekly forever without any grief from any of the card providers, many of which he has outlived.

        • Rob says:

          That’s not the same as necessarily spending his full limit each week. Amex, I thought, specically does not like this.

    • stevenhp1987 says:

      https://www.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/credit-card.html#tsandcs

      This is the Terms & Conditions which lists it.

      • Lev441 says:

        That has changed! Wasn’t there this time last week…

        • Shoestring says:

          https://headforpoints.com/2019/12/14/more-a350-club-suite-routes-revealed/
          [The spending on which you can earn miles per month is now capped at your monthly credit limit.
          What this means is that you cannot cycle your credit limit mid-month. Well, you can, but you won’t earn any miles if you do.]

          • EwanG says:

            The thing is this is not enforceable unless they contact customers using a Notice of Variation to advise them that the T&Cs have changed. The also need to give adequate notice too, in line with what the T&Cs say (2 months according to what was mentioned when this came up last week) so if anyone falls foul of this just now without having received an email or letter bringing this change to their attention, they have sufficient grounds to go back to Virgin Money to challenge it.

  • Zone4a says:

    Bits

    LHR to MIA: Which airline provides the least painful / most comfortable ECONOMY seat of those servicing this route?

    Very long story but I have an Economy flight coming up to MIA. For the dates I’m seeing, there are 3 airlines servicing the route, and my travel agent has helpfully included the (apparent) airplane (if anyone knows otherwise that would be helpful):
    1) Virgin – Airbus 330-300
    2) AA – BOEING 777-300ER
    3) BA – 747-400

    My gut feel is to run away from BA as I’ve had the misfortune of flying those old 747s and would rather not…Not sure between Virgin or AA.

    Any thoughts appreciated!

    • The Savage Squirrel says:

      Having flown both transatlantic in economy, I’d say Virgin, particularly if you can go for the economy delight, with the bonus – as Rob has pointed out – that it is particularly generous in terms of mile-earning. But there’s not a profound difference; so if you’re desparate for Avios and TPs then have at it with AA. To be honest, which is cheaper and more convenient?

      • Zone4a says:

        Thanks for the reply.

        Virgin and AA are roughly the same price, as well as schedules….no massive difference there. TP / Avios don’t really matter to me as I just scraped Silver and certainly won’t be making it next year. I’ve got some orphan miles with Virgin but no chance at status either.

        I think I’m leaning towards Virgin as well…I just can’t stand another shoddy BA experience on an old plane, though I think AA wouldn’t be as bad.

        • BJ says:

          I would also choose Virgin as the a330 is second only to the a380 for longhaul economy.

    • Anna says:

      BA 209 which we’re taking to MIA is an A380, or it was last time I looked!

  • Spurs Debs says:

    I received my 2000 bonus points for my “ stay” on Sunday night from Hilton. I should of got 5000 as my second stay of the 7500 promotion which runs till end of January. I’ll have to call them to sort it out.

    • BJ says:

      Your infamous MK one?

      • Spurs Debs says:

        BJ,As it turned out I had to take my Mum to MK hospital on Sunday for an appointment and it’s 5 mins away from MK doubletree so popped in after checked in,got my cookie for grandson and went back home. All worked out just fine. Now wondering if these offers will stack🤔

  • Spurs Debs says:

    O/T new promo from Tesco home and buildings insurance runs till 28/2 use code HOM20.

  • Spurs Debs says:

    Sorry 2500 extra points !

  • Luca R says:

    OT, does anyone know if IHG will run another Accelerate campaign? I would have expected for them to have launched it by now!

  • oliviaisla says:

    Keep 10 Things in Mind Before Traveling to China
    Remarkable historical monuments. Ancient wonders. Countryside villages. Chinese cuisine is part of Chinese culture.
    https://connection.travel.blog/2019/03/28/buyvpn-before-traveling-to-china/

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

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