Let your staff collect Avios points via YuLife insurance

YuLife is a ‘challenger’ insurance company which allows businesses to offer life insurance and other products to their staff.  Whilst the business is a start-up, it is backed by AIG and the CEO was the former head of Vitality, the insurance company which used to offer discounts on British Airways and Virgin Atlantic flights.

If your employer uses YuLife, you might not know that you can get Avios via your membership.  If you are an employer, you might be interested in offering this to your staff.

YuLife is a provider of group life insurance, group income protection and group critical illness policies, sold ONLY to corporates to offer their employees.

Because that sounds boring, it dresses this up with a wide range of additional benefits designed to promote health and wellbeing amongst staff, some of which earn YuCoin points which can be converted to Avios.

It seems to work.  The company claimes that 72% of insured employees download the YuLife app and 43% have used it at least once in the last month.

Earn Avios by walking

Here is the slightly odd thing.

As far as I can tell from their website, the main way that you – as an individual whose employer has covered them with YuLife – can earn Avios is by walking.  A lot.

Take a look at the YuLife website here.

Once you have downloaded the YuLife app to your phone, you can allow it to track how far you walk.

You will earn 1 YuCoin, which I think converts to 1 Avios, for every mile you walk.  There are also in-app rewards – you can “earn YuCoin by going on walking and mindfulness quests, and progress through levels and worlds.”

If you don’t want to convert your YuCoin into Avios, you can also swap them for Amazon credit or many other rewards and vouchers.  The conversion rate between Avios and Amazon vouchers is not clear, so I don’t know how much you are ‘paying’ per Avios if you take the miles over Amazon credit.

If this screenshot is accurate:

….. then the earning rate is not good.  It shows 50 YuCoin getting you 50 Avios, whilst 208 YuCoin gets you a £2.50 Marks & Spencer voucher.  This implies that you are ‘paying’ 1.2p per Avios when you choose them over M&S credit which isn’t good.

For employers, the cost per employee covered starts at £4.99 per month.  For clarity, it is not possible to sign up as individual to YuLife.

You can find out more on their website here.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 2022)

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.

EDIT: Until 25th October 2022, there is an exceptionally generous sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card. You will receive 60,000 Membership Rewards points – double the usual amount – and £200 to spend at Amex Travel. You need to spend £6,000 within six months to earn the bonus.

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 10,000 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.