Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Last day to get 500 bonus Avios from a Nectar conversion

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Today is the last day to pick up 500 Avios from the introductory bonus to launch the Nectar and Avios partnership.

Full details are on this page of ba.com.

By midnight on Sunday, you need to link your British Airways Executive Club and Nectar accounts via this page, and convert 1,600 Nectar points.

Nectar Avios light

1,600 Nectar points gets you 1,000 Avios, which post immediately. Within the next month, you will receive an additional 500 Avios as a bonus.

Importantly, you only earn the Avios bonus if you have 1,600 Nectar points in the first place. You cannot earn the bonus by moving 1,000 Avios to Nectar, to create 1,600 Nectar points, and then immediately moving them back.

(Well, that’s what the rules say. If you’ve got 5 minutes to kill, you might want to try it anyway.)

There is a second part to the bonus. Once you have transferred 1,600 Nectar points to Avios, you will receive double base Nectar points on all Sainsbury’s shopping until 19th April. This means 2 Nectar points per £1 spent instead of 1 point.

The bonus base points will post in a lump sum in arrears, probably during May.

You find out more on ba.com 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 (51)

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

  • BJ says:

    Sorry for the possibly thick question but could somebody please advise me where/how to unlink Nectar and BA? I’ve tried to find the option at both sites without success. And presumably there is no requirement to keep the accounts linked until the 500 bonus points are credited to BAEC? I am trying to feed multiple BA accounts 1600 points from a single Nectar account.

    • ChrisA says:

      On the Nectar website, go to Account –> Your linked partners –> Manage at British Airways, and you’ll see a link there.

      • BJ says:

        Thanks, that was one of the things I tried but I got a blank white page with a x in top left corner.

      • BJ says:

        Repeated a few times and eventually it worked so thanks again.

    • cinereus says:

      A BAEC account can be linked and unlinked to any Nectar account a maximum of 4 times in a calendar year. A Nectar account can be linked and unlinked to any BAEC accounts a maximum of 4 times in a calendar year

    • Epic fail says:

      I’m not sure that will work looking at the Ts&Cs – ‘Points converted from the same Nectar account to the same or additional BAEC accounts after the first link will not be eligible for the 500 bonus Avios.’

      We were hoping to recover otherwise useless points from a relative and then convert for the bonus – in hindsight we should have linked to our own account first and done the bonus transfer and only raided the MiL’s avios account once the bonus had been credited – or transferred nectar points in to her avios account, waited for the bonus to credit and then grabbed her avios.

      • BJ says:

        Thanks all for the feedback. Looks like I may have messed up then and wasted some link quotas. I really must get into the habit of studying t&c closely. Still, seems like BA and Nectar will need to have some sophisticated tracking capabilities to make their terms work so let’s see.

  • Sam says:

    Is the 6x nectar points on eBay offer only for an item at least £15? Read t and c’s but could not find anything. I have 4 items in my basket totalling £20 but unsure if offer will be triggered..

    • Andrew says:

      Go through to the payment page where it has your address and PayPal details before you finally commit – and at the bottom of that page it shows the total nectar you will earn for this order.

    • DeB20 says:

      Worked for me a few days ago, extra points have now been credited to my Nectar account.

  • CF Frost says:

    Hello all. Am a little short on one of our nectar cards. Does anyone know if Argos posts immediately (on collection)? Would be grateful to learn.

    • BJ says:

      If you have a Sainsburys bonus offer it will post immediately you buy and swipe your card. At least it did for me while the base points show as pending.

    • AJA says:

      No Argos points take up to 28 days to post. They will.show up backdated to the date of purchase.

      If you need points immediately you are stuffed as base points on purchases in Sainsbury’s post overnight.

      Your only hope is having bonus offers at Sainsbury’s in the Nectar app as they post immediately following purchase.

      • CF Frost says:

        Thanks. Short of driving around in my car waiting until I have £35 to fill and 400 points to gain, I’m passing on this card’s bonus. It will recur.

        • James says:

          Fuel points and fuel related bonuses also don’t post until overnight, at least in my experience.

  • AndyGWP says:

    FWIW, I’m sure Uber are doing free trips to vaccination centres (I think? I deleted the email)

    • Dawn says:

      Most local taxi services are doing free trips. They do rely on donations from members of the public to cover the costs but they will take any older person for free. Alpha cars is our local one at Basingstoke and they took our neighbour and we gave a donation

  • Wayne says:

    Does anyone know how long the Nectar/BA partnership is in place for?

    • Rob says:

      It’s permanent. Whether the rate remains 400:250 or stricter monthly caps are imposed is a different matter.

      IAG wants to make money from this. If the net move is FROM Avios to Nectar then there will be big changes.

      • memesweeper says:

        I hope it works for IAG, and I expect it will, but launching now and demanding a net inflow is pretty silly. Maybe next year they can see which way most of the traffic flows under normal conditions…

        • ADS says:

          Yes, I hope BA don’t panic and pull it if the first few months have big transfers into Nectar.

  • Martin says:

    In London, Lime are offering free hires of their electric assist bikes to vaccination centres, or if you want a bit of fresh air but without the effort, free trips on a Pedal Me bike taxi. Details here: https://www.li.me/second-street/lime-partners-with-pedal-me-to-launch-ride-to-recovery

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