Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Let your staff collect Avios points via YuLife insurance

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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.

The website implies that 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.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 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

Get 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

30,000 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 – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

Huge 80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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

20,000 points (ONLY TO 9TH DECEMBER) Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

30,000 points (TO 9TH DECEMBER) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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 (7)

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

  • Mike says:

    My employer offers me this and I use it daily.

    I gain small free sums of Avios, shopping vouchers — all from walking each day! You also earn from mediation and fiit.

    Albeit the earning rate isn’t great. About 4000 points equates to a £5 shopping voucher. A brisk or long walk earns 25-30 points so you do a lot of walking for a fiver.

    I think of it as simply an incentive to move my lazy self a bit more each day.

  • Mark says:

    I’ve got this too and my rate is 500 yucoins is 50 Avios. There’s better value in m&s or John Lewis conversion. You don’t get many point for walking but if you complete the challenges they really stack up. I ‘earn’ about £6 worth of points a month. Which is for me for doing the dog walks I’d do anyway!

  • memesweeper says:

    Anyone know the minimum company size? I have two employees (one of them me) and I walk miles most days… can’t find much info on the website.

  • Nomid says:

    Vitality does not offer Virgin Atlantic discounts any longer

  • Kevin says:

    I guess technically there’s nothing stopping you from downloading the app on an old phone with a cheap SIM card and give it to your postman to “look after it” for you.

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

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