Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get 5,000 Virgin Points for activating Tesco Clubcard Auto-Convert

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

Virgin Red has brought back the exceptionally generous offer it ran twice last year for activating auto-conversion from Tesco Clubcard.

You will receive 5,000 bonus Virgin Points if you switch your Tesco Clubcard account to auto-convert points to either Virgin Flying Club or Virgin Red.

In addition, to celebrate Clubcard’s 30th birthday, one auto-converter will win 1 million Virgin Points. There’s also 100,000 Virgin Points for five runners-up.  Anyone who is already on auto-convert will be automatically entered.

Virgin Points / Clubcard conversion bonus launched

5,000 Virgin Points is an exceptionally generous deal and there is no logical reason for not doing this if you qualify.

We’d value 5,000 Virgin Points at £50 if used for premium cabin flights, and in the worse case scenario you can order £25-worth of bits and pieces from the Virgin Red app.

Before you do anything, please note:

  • this bonus is for setting up a conversion into either Virgin Red or Virgin Flying Club – to go via Virgin Red, you will need to have downloaded the Virgin Red app to your phone and – if applicable – linked it to your Virgin Flying Club account to pool the points
  • you do not qualify for the bonus if you currently, or at any time in the past, have received a bonus for activating auto-convert into Virgin Flying Club
  • you will need to have 250 Clubcard points in your account on 20th July, which may require you to divert some of your supermarket or petrol shopping to Tesco in the next few weeks (1 point per £1 in-store, 1 point per 2 litres of fuel)

How do you set up your Clubcard account to auto-convert to Virgin Atlantic or Virgin Red?

To turn on auto-convert, you need to visit the Clubcard website here.

Sign in to your account and click on ‘Clubcard Account’.  Select ‘Clubcard Management’ and then ‘Voucher Schemes’.  From this page you can select the “Virgin Points” box to enable auto-exchange.

Here are the rules for getting the 5,000 Virgin Points:

  • you must not have received a bonus for turning on auto-convert to Virgin Flying Club in the past
  • you must activate auto-convert to Virgin Flying Club or Virgin Red by 20th July 2025
  • you must have at least 250 Tesco Clubcard points in your account on 20th July 2025, which is the next cut-off date for transfers to Virgin Points
  • you must keep auto-convert activated until at least 20th July 2025
  • your 5,000 bonus Virgin Points will be awarded later (usually 6-8 weeks)

Is it worth auto-converting Clubcard points to Virgin Points?

The days of lucrative offers from other Tesco Clubcard partners seem to be over.  5,000 Virgin Points is a VERY good incentive – you’d usually need to spend £2,500 in Tesco to earn £25 of Clubcard vouchers to receive 5,000 Virgin Points.

On this basis, assuming you’d only generate a few pounds of vouchers per quarter, you are far better off activating auto-convert for a while and seeing how it goes.

You can see details of this new Tesco / Virgin Points bonus on the Virgin Flying Club / Tesco Clubcard page here.


How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (June 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, the Reward+ card has a bonus of 18,000 Virgin Points and the free card has a bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

The American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card

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 comes with 50,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 50,000 Virgin Points.

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Small business owners should consider the two American Express Business cards. Points convert at 1:1 into Virgin Points.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

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 Virgin Points

Comments (76)

  • ChrD says:

    The disproportionate awarding has been the case for over a year now – but people are noticing now it affects TPs too. Beyond the base apportionments, BA’s formula biases toward the later sectors to “hold some points back” for refunds, which probably made perfect sense in the boardroom but fails to consider the optics, especially as it’s the first flight that looks crap.

    On balance I agree with HfP running the headlines – even if I think there probably should have a clarifying sentence at the bottom to give the whole story.

    • Nick says:

      I really don’t understand where the ‘holds back for refunds’ and ‘back-loaded YQ’ stuff has come from all of a sudden, but it’s complete crap.

      A fare is made up of one or more fare components, which itself is priced at fare+surcharge+taxes/charges. The latter are partitioned off for disbursement, the former are then pro-rated by sector but only within that particular fare component – and Avios/TP awards are based on this. There is NO cross-pollination between outward and return fare components.

      What can happen is combination of two very different fares (e.g. O out and H back) which obviously would make one look higher than the other, and taxes are applied by sector so UK departures seem higher because of APD, but this doesn’t affect the timing of points being awarded.

      If anyone has access to Amadeus (or knows a travel agent) you can clearly see the pricing of each component and figure out yourself how the points are calculated.

      • blue_wolf says:

        This can also be seen yourself by finding your itinerary and viewing the fare calculation on ITA Matrix.

      • Noname says:

        You are missing the point that it’s points game over when one needs access to Amadeus to figure out the amount of Avios to be earned.

  • Chris H says:

    I discovered yesterday that Eurotunnel Le Shuttle is now a partner with Avios. Earning 3 Avios per £ for standard bookings and 6 per £ for Flexiplus bookings. You can also redeem at the usual 0.5p rate. I’ve been waiting/hoping that this would happen so it may be useful for others.

    • Rob says:

      You can. Big article tomorrow, was delayed because it is sponsored and needed final approvals.

  • Graeme says:

    Totally off topic, but thanks for the Air India A350 review – have just arrived back in London for the first time in a few years and chose AI Business as so cheap ex BKK via DEL. Thanks for the info, would have skipped this flight if I hadn’t seen the article. Really enjoyed the flight, the service was fine, food fine, seat good. Nice big lounge with cheap spa to fill the long connection time too.

  • DavidB says:

    The flight was taken in the new benefit year so would have nothing to do with his not hitting 20K to renew status. Though I will be curious to see what I earn on my next O-subclass LHR-YYZ flight though after the absurd UK departure tax my fare was about $250!

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      Simple for nTPs it would be $ 250 converted to £

      For avios it would be the £ figure x your status level multiplier

  • RC says:

    Interesting to see the same ‘defenders’ of BA out today. I wonder how many have a Waterside or McKinsey ISP address? Or have been previous ‘consultants’? Most I’d wager. Many are congruent with reports of BA managers wanting to make sure lounges revert to use of the ‘ruling classes’ again.

    • Rob says:

      I think they’d be very disappointed to meet a representative sample of those with, say, £10m of assets. Hoodie wearing tech kids, East End financial traders, private equity boys (who do dress better), crypto scammers, 60+ owners of successful family widget makers, footballers, YouTubers, lottery winners ….. it’s not the 1950s now.

      • RC says:

        LOL. Agreed, jeans and T shirts in F. People who have nothing to prove.
        In life it tends to be those who lack confidence, or can only define themselves by bling and gauche brands who try and look down on those ‘lucky’ to get any Avios/Tier points.
        But the 1950s does seem to live on in Waterside. Parts still seem to behave like it has a given right to ‘its’ customers from the empire.
        It explains why BA can be so poor – while Qatar with a customer base it has to earn can be so good.

        • Pat says:

          Tough numbers are nothing new on cheap tickets. If you flew the cheapest tariff on short haul flights within Europe on LG Group & integrated M&M airlines you needed 800 (yes, 8-0-0) flights to earn Senator for the first time. Valid two years.
          Now it’s 100 per year, valid 1.

          • RC says:

            Short haul earns 20 and long haul earns 60 with Lufthansa.
            So you need 100 flights/50 returns short haul to earn BA gold equivalent. BA would generate silver at most (based on flight numbers)
            Long haul you’d need 17 return trips.. on BA at 2 tier points you’d need 500.

            These are perfect examples of how BA has misjudged and misaligned its new system.
            Once on Lufthansa Swiss Austrian Air Dolomiti LoT etc, the ex BA customer will suddenly discover clean punctual planes, often at a better fare and with calm boarding. Which creates a customer retention issue for BA.

          • RC says:

            That’s incorrect.
            You haven’t understood M&M

  • RC says:

    Correction for BA long haul you’d need 5000 return trips (not 500).so 300 times less rewarding than Lufthansa.

  • Damo says:

    I chased BA this week about the announced program to earn TPs on BA Amex Card and got the following reply, which is about as much use as a chocolate fire guard!

    Thank you for contacting the British Airways Club regarding earning tier points with American Express Premium Plus card.

    Unfortunately, details regarding this are yet to be released as the launch date has still not been announced.

    Once the launch date has been made public, information regarding how to earn these tier points through Amex will also be released to the public and details will be uploaded to the following webpage; https://www.britishairways.com/content/the-british-airways-club/about-tier-points

    Please accept our apologies in the information not yet being announced and the confusion regarding this.

  • May says:

    Think the BA executive club is now aimed at Business passengers
    How do they expect retirees able to take 25 flights in a year

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please click here to read our data protection policy before submitting your comment

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.