How to earn Avios points booking hotels via Agoda PointsMAX – but is it worth it?

Agoda is one of the lesser known British Airways Executive Club hotel partners, and does not even appear on the full list of BA hotel partners here.  You can earn Avios whenever you book a hotel with Agoda.

What is Agoda?

Agoda is a Hotels.com-style hotel booking website, originally focused on Asia.  It was acquired by Priceline and is now a sister company to booking.com.

Since 2016, Agoda has offered frequent flyer miles with every hotel booking you make via a service called PointsMAX.

Whilst various airlines are part of PointsMAX, I am just focusing on British Airways here.  There is a dedicated British Airways Executive Club booking link which is here.

How earning Avios with Agoda PointsMAX works

The Agoda / Avios website initially seems pretty straight forward:  you enter your destination, travel dates and number of beds required.  Nothing you haven’t seen before.

There is one really odd quirk though.  When you book, you need to pay more for your room in order to earn Avios!  Not only that, the earning rate is very poor.

Here is an example:

Saturday 22nd August at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge in London:

• £119 and earn no Avios, or
• £131 and earn 950 Avios

Note that these are identical rooms.

You are paying £12 extra to earn 950 Avios, so the cost per Avios is 1.26p.  This is very poor value, especially given that, in a sale, you can buy points directly from BA for around 1.1p.

In reality, of course, it is an even worse deal.  You could have booked directly via the Radisson website, or via a scheme such as Hotels.com Rewards, and got generous rewards whilst paying the standard rate of £119.

Here is another example for 16th October at the Hotel Indigo Madrid:

• £137 and earn no Avios
• £151 (identical room) and earn 1,100 Avios

Paying £14 extra for 1,100 – which works out at 1.27p per Avios – is not a good deal.

There’s another issue with Agoda PointsMAX

Remember that any room booked via Agoda PointsMAX will NOT earn hotel loyalty points from the hotel itself as it will be treated as a third-party booking.  That is an issue unless you are booking an independent hotel or a chain where you have no status or do not collect their points.

I think you’ll struggle to get much value from Agoda PointsMAX but if you want to have a dig around the British Airways landing page is here.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2023)

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:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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 9th January 2024, you will receive 30,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 30,000 Avios) with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. You receive 25,000 points if you spend £3,000 in three months and a further 5,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive a huge 100,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 100,000 Avios) with The Platinum Card. You receive 75,000 points if you spend £10,000 in six months and a further 25,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

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.

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.

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.