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Win a share of 2 million Avios and 3 million Nectar points

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British Airways and Nectar have launched two major competitions to persuade you to convert your Nectar points into Avios this July.

This competition seems to be rolling out slowly. I can see details in the Nectar app – across two separate tiles – but it isn’t anywhere to be found across the British Airways site or the Nectar site.

The competition for you depends on whether you have already linked your Nectar and British Airways Executive Club accounts.

Win a share of 2 million Avios and 3 million Nectar points!

Before we go into this, if you want to learn more about the Nectar and Avios partnership, take a look at these articles from earlier in the year:

If you haven’t linked your Nectar and British Airways Executive Club accounts ….

There are three million Nectar points to be won, split into 351 prizes. It isn’t clear how the split is done.

Anyone who links their Nectar and British Airways accounts for the first time between 1st July and 28th July will be entered.

No registration is required. You are entered automatically when you link your accounts.

The ba.com page for linking your Nectar and British Airways accounts is here.

The rules do not specify that you need to make a transfer in either direction. You just need to make the link.

The winners will be picked by 18th August and notified by 1st September.

Win bonus Avios and Nectar points

If you have linked your Nectar and British Airways Executive Club accounts ….

If your accounts are already linked, there is a different competition for you.

Each time you convert 400 Nectar points into 250 Avios between 1st July and 28th July, you will be entered into a competition.

There are two million Avios to be won. The Avios are split across 181 prizes – it is not made clear how the prizes are distributed.

Each block of 400 Nectar points moved to Avios counts as one entry. You can earn, at most, 20 entries by moving 8,000 Nectar points. You don’t need to make each 400 point transfer as a separate transaction, looking at the rules.

No registration is required. You are entered automatically when you convert your points.

I thought online conversion between Nectar and BA had stopped?

No, only one way. You CAN still convert Nectar points into Avios online via this page of ba.com.

It is only transfers in the other direction – from Avios into Nectar – which are currently restricted due to security issues. These transfers require a telephone call and can take up to 10 days to complete.

If your Nectar points are set to auto-convert into Avios, this is not a problem. You will still be included in the competition.

The draw will take place by 1st September and winners will be notified by 8th September.

Be aware that your entries are voided if you reverse the transaction during the competition period. You cannot move Nectar points into Avios, send them back to Nectar and then transfer them again to get additional entries. You also cannot unlink your Nectar and Avios accounts until the competition closes.

Can you enter both competitions?

I don’t see why not.

If your Nectar and BA accounts are not already linked, the rules imply that you enter the first competition by setting up the link, and you enter the second competition by moving some Nectar points into Avios. These are two separate tasks.

It is possible that some more information on this competition will emerge in the next few days – we’ll update you if we learn anything more.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 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.

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You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

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

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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.

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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.

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

Category

British Airways and Avios, Sainsbury's and Nectar

Comments (62)

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

  • Jake says:
    2 Jul2 July 05:40

    Are Ba/Nectar trying to make it as difficult as possible to move Avios back to Nectar? Setting up the authentication is a job which would take hours for two large companies, one of which already uses the tech. Certainly not the months that it is taking. It feels clear that the direction all the promotions are focused on is (quite probably less valuable to us) Nectar to Avios.

    • Rob says:
      2 Jul2 July 08:42

      I think it is messy because you can initiate the transfer from either ba.com, nectar.com or their apps.

      • Chrisasaurus says:
        2 Jul2 July 08:58

        To you or to me it seems messy but as technical problems go it isn’t hard – they own every piece of the chain so if they wanted to do it they’d allocate some resource and do it.

        The partnership contract was messy no doubt and had a lot of clauses – so they hired some clever people and got it done.

        Where there is a Will…

        • Lady London says:
          2 Jul2 July 09:27

          You are correct Chrisasaurus.
          There’s not a will. Otherwise they could easily got it done.

          Found a new word for this technique the other day. Making it difficult for customers to do things they have a right to or need to is called “sludge”.

          The best earlier example of this being British Airways removing the previously existing perfectly functioning refund button on their site and forcinf customers into days-long telephone queues, many of which hung up on the customer when dialled due to being “full”, as the only remaining way customers could ask for refunds they were entitled to.

          • BSI1978 says:
            2 Jul2 July 10:18

            Whilst accepting there was a lot more going on in the wider world at the time this functionality was removed, still surprising BA didn’t receive more negative (& reasonable) feedback for this than they did.

  • Phil says:
    2 Jul2 July 05:45

    I can’t see the competition on my Nectar app. Maybe best to wait till I see it to convert my points?

    • BJ says:
      2 Jul2 July 06:13

      The two competitions were showing on my nectar app yesterday but have disappeared this morning. To be on the safe side I would wait to do the transfer via the button on the app tile. Still 26 days to go after today so there is no rush unless you need the avios.

    • AJA says:
      2 Jul2 July 08:01

      I can’t see the competition either. I already linked Nectar to Avios back at the beginning so am at best only eligible for the ‘existing customer ‘ competition.

      I actually have no partner offers at all. Will wait to see if it appears. Had the udual 20 Sainsbury’s offers which I’d saved a couple of days ago.

      Could it be that we need to update the app like we had to for the juicy bonus?

      But I can now see 340 partners, including, yes you guessed it, Sweaty Betty 😂. I wonder if that stacks with the Amex offer? Double dip?

      • Mike says:
        2 Jul2 July 08:06

        I am surprised that Sweaty Betty has not approached Rob to advertise on HFP

        • Andrew says:
          2 Jul2 July 08:08

          Only a matter of time!

        • Rob says:
          2 Jul2 July 08:35

          Given what my wife spends there, I’m also surprised!

        • AJA says:
          2 Jul2 July 09:15

          Actually I’m not. Given how many here moan about SB if they did advertise directly on HfP that would annoy them more than the number of sponsored articles 🙄

          • Mike says:
            2 Jul2 July 10:33

            If a company are giving Rob money it doesn’t annoy me

  • Bizboy says:
    2 Jul2 July 05:48

    Yet another attempt by BA to stop them haemorrhaging avios to nectar then

    • BJ says:
      2 Jul2 July 06:21

      Competitions were the norm in recent years at clubcard so I don’t think this is much of a surprise. Doubt it will persuade many to change their minds about avios to nectar transfers. Chances of winning will be slim but HfP readers have won big before. So it’s worth a go if we have up to 8k nectar points as they can be moved back next month if desired.

    • Andrew says:
      2 Jul2 July 06:40

      All it means is that this month I will transfer 8000 nectar to Avios and nothing back the order way, then in August I’ll just transfer back.

      • Rob says:
        2 Jul2 July 08:41

        Yes, the lesson is to keep a decent balance in Nectar and not Avios so you can benefit when this comes along.

        Bet you will never see a competition encouraging you to transfer out of Avios ….

        • Chrisasaurus says:
          2 Jul2 July 08:59

          Imagine what it’d cost in call centre overhead if they did!

  • SteveJ says:
    2 Jul2 July 06:17

    I’ve got Nectar set to auto convert to Avios, will an auto convert trigger an entry?

    • SteveJ says:
      2 Jul2 July 06:18

      Scratch that, this is mentioned in the article. Answer is yes.

  • Andrew says:
    2 Jul2 July 06:51

    I think there’s a fault with the nectar app this morning – the offer tile has gone. On there yesterday was also 5x nectar at Esso.

  • Crafty says:
    2 Jul2 July 06:57

    Perhaps the effort spent on this should instead have been put into fixing Avios to Nectar conversions.

    • Andrew says:
      2 Jul2 July 07:10

      That will never be fixed now, I’m certain of that.

    • kitten says:
      2 Jul2 July 09:42

      Oh, they have already fixed those. No further repair needed.

  • Mike says:
    2 Jul2 July 07:17

    Cant believe Avios to Nectar conversion has still not been fixed. Rob have you asked for an update on when it is likely to be done. I am no computer expert but it does seem to be taking ages – with no updates issued

    • Red Flyer says:
      2 Jul2 July 07:58

      Probably similar to issue that affects BA to IB convert Avios in that household account balances are the issue here I think.

    • Rob says:
      2 Jul2 July 08:40

      Asked a board member about three weeks ago and the answer was basically ‘no idea’.

  • Bettyboo says:
    2 Jul2 July 07:26

    Smacks of desperation from BA to get some points back whilst hoping that people have forgotten how to use a phone

    • AndyW says:
      2 Jul2 July 08:34

      There was something virtually every quarter with Tesco, mostly competitions akin to this in recent years, so I wouldn’t say it’s much of a change to the norm.

    • kitten says:
      2 Jul2 July 09:43

      It’s called “sludge”.

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

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