Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

BA Avios drops Rocketmiles as a hotel partner, but three backdoor earning routes remain

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Hotel booking site Rocketmiles has, at some point recently, dropped British Airways as an earning partner.

This is a shame, as it was often a way of picking up a good chunk of Avios from bookings at independent hotels where you had no ability to earn hotel points or enjoy status benefits.

It’s not entirely over, however, because there are three other routes which give you a useful backdoor into British Airways Executive Club Avios.

Rockemiles 5000 miles bonus

What is Rocketmiles?

Rocketmiles – if you are not familiar with it – is a similar website to Agoda and Kaligo.com.  You can earn airline miles and other loyalty points in a wide variety of schemes when you book your hotel stays via rocketmiles.com.

The one downside of Rocketmiles is that your stays will be treated as ‘non-qualifying’ by the hotel.  This means that you won’t earn points in the hotel’s own loyalty programme and you probably won’t get your status benefits either.  Rocketmiles, Kaligo.com etc are best used when booking a stay at an independent hotel or at one where you don’t actively collect their points.

Rocketmiles does not provide VAT invoices, which may be an issue if you are travelling for business in the UK.

Who partners with Rocketmiles?

One of the strengths of Rocketmiles is its broad list of partners.

Of the programmes we tend to cover on Head for Points, the following work with Rocketmiles:

  • American Airlines AAdvantage
  • Emirates Skywards
  • Etihad Guest
  • Flying Blue
  • Heathrow Rewards
  • United MileagePlus
  • Virgin Flying Club

Where is British Airways Executive Club?

At some point in the last few months, British Airways Executive Club has disappeared as a Rocketmiles earning option.

The good news is that there are still THREE ways of earning Avios via Rocketmiles:

  • Vueling Club
  • Qatar Privilege Club
  • Heathrow Rewards

I will run through each in turn.

Rocketmiles Avios

Before I go on, I should mention one Rocketmiles quirk.

The same hotel can earn you a different number of miles depending on which scheme you credit to. This appears to be driven by the commercial deal that Rocketmiles has with each programme.

Let’s assume that you are booking one night at the Royal Garden Hotel in London on 17th November.

The cost is the same (£259) irrespective of where you choose to credit the stay. However, the earning rates differ:

  • credit to Vueling Club and you will earn 2,000 Avios
  • credit to Qatar Privilege Club and you will earn 3,000 Avios (screenshot above)
  • credit to Heathrow Rewards and you will earn points worth 4,000 Avios

Having done numerous Rocketmiles bookings in the past, Heathrow Rewards is almost always the best option if you want to earn Avios.

Even when British Airways Executive Club was a Rocketmiles partner, it usually made more sense to credit to Heathrow Rewards.

Here is a quick summary of how you earn in each of the three schemes above:

Vueling Club

Vueling is the Spanish-based low cost airline owned by IAG, the parent company of British Airways.

You open a Vueling Club account on its website here. It will have a long account number starting in 3081.

After your Rocketmiles hotel stay, visit avios.com and log in with your Vueling Club membership details. You can then use the ‘Combine My Avios’ option at avios.com to move your points into your British Airways Executive Club account.

Note that all personal details, including email address, need to match on both accounts in order to use ‘Combine My Avios’.

Qatar Privilege Club

Since March 2022, Qatar Airways has been using Avios as its loyalty currency.

You open a Qatar Privilege Club account on the Qatar Airways website here.

After your stay, you need to link your British Airways Executive Club account to your Qatar Privilege Club account following these instructions. You can then use the Qatar Airways website to move your points into your British Airways Executive Club account.

Note that all personal details, including email address, need to match on both accounts in order to transfer points between Qatar Airways and British Airways.

Heathrow Rewards

Heathrow Rewards is the loyalty scheme for the shops and official car parks at Heathrow Airport.

You open a Heathrow Rewards account on the Heathrow website here.

After your stay, you can transfer your points at 1:1 into Avios. There is a minimum transfer of 250 Heathrow Rewards points and transfers must be in multiples of 250 points.

Get 5,000 Avios with your first Rocketmiles hotel booking

Why should you credit your Rocketmiles stay to Heathrow Rewards?

The obvious first reason ….

As I mentioned above, in my experience you will almost always earn more Avios by crediting a Rocketmiles stay to Heathrow Rewards than to British Airways Executive Club (now deceased), Vueling Club or Qatar Privilege Club.

The less obvious second reason ….

Even if the earning rate was identical across the Avios partners, Heathrow Rewards is better. It is also why I recommend Virgin Points collectors earn in Heathrow Rewards instead of crediting a stay directly to Virgin Flying Club.

A good reason for taking Heathrow Rewards points if you want Avios (or even if you want Virgin Points) is FLEXIBILITY.

Heathrow Rewards has a lot of 1:1 transfer partners.  500 Heathrow Rewards points can be transferred into:

  • 500 Avios
  • 500 Asia Miles
  • 500 Virgin Points
  • 500 Royal Brunei RoyalSkies miles
  • 500 Emirates Skywards miles
  • 500 Aegean Miles&Bonus miles
  • 500 Miles & More miles
  • £5 Heathrow Airport shopping voucher
  • £10 Heathrow Airport parking voucher

You can leave your points sitting in Heathrow Rewards until you are firm about where you need them.

Earn Avios from Rocketmiles

There is also the opportunity for a transfer bonus. Heathrow Rewards ran some aggressive transfer bonuses before the pandemic. These included 50% and 100% bonuses when transferring to Avios and Virgin Points.

If that offer came back, you would have been substantially better off taking Heathrow Rewards points in the first place.

Conclusion

Whilst Rocketmiles is no longer an ‘official’ British Airways Executive Club hotel partner – here is the list of remaining partners on ba.com – there are still three ways of earning Avios if you book a hotel stay via Rocketmiles.

The Heathrow Rewards route was always more generous and more flexible than using British Airways Executive Club anyway!

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Heathrow Rewards, Qatar Airways and Privilege Club, Vueling and Vueling Club

Comments (36)

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

  • BJ says:
    15 Nov15 November 04:51

    So who dropped who? The title and very first sentence of the article directly contradict each other. This is important because if it was avios it is more evidence of a scheme in a state of flux. I’m tempted to move anotger 100k avios to Nectar today before that devaluation kicks in tomorrow.

    • Peter K says:
      15 Nov15 November 08:32

      Max 50k per account per month can be moved from avios to nectar.

      • BJ says:
        15 Nov15 November 08:40

        Thanks Peter, I forgot, and I already did 50 for my partner and I. Down to last 245k avios so nkt a huge issue for me. I’ll need at least 150k next month anyway.

        • Lady London says:
          15 Nov15 November 13:24

          set up auto convert can run at same time as manual gives 25,000 more pm, apparently

          • Alex W says:
            15 Nov15 November 17:01

            I’ve done auto conversion in the wrong direction so I manually transferred 50k and 25k came back again 😢🤣

    • memesweeper says:
      15 Nov15 November 08:49

      BA will either have dropped the partnership or pushed the price per mile up to an unattractive level. Rocketmiles USP is lots of partners, I can’t see them intentionally dropping BA.

  • Harry says:
    15 Nov15 November 06:00

    In my experience prices on Rocketmikes ate usually higher than on other booking sites. As always check your prices before booking.

    • John T says:
      15 Nov15 November 09:29

      Correct. You are buying the miles by paying a higher price than you need to for the hotel. That’s their whole business model.

      • Rob says:
        15 Nov15 November 09:32

        That’s not how it works. Rocketmiles buy beds from bed banks, same as Kaligo. The bed bank (eg Hotelbeds) buy 5,000 room nights per year at a hotel for a huge discount, and then resells them to tour operators and people like Rocketmiles.

        The reason the pricing doesn’t match is that Rocketmiles doesn’t seem to have a live feed to the hotel itself for comparison. It can easily afford to match.

        • yorkieflyer says:
          15 Nov15 November 14:42

          Whatever. The net result is that it’s always significantly cheaper when booked via another channel whenever I’ve looked

        • ken says:
          15 Nov15 November 14:50

          Is this really true now ?

          I thought Rocketmiles was part of the Booking.com group and it simply looks like they give miles rather than a discount booking through the Booking.com app.

          I’ve never seen them cheaper, and in reality mainly significantly more expensive than booking other routes

  • Indy500 says:
    15 Nov15 November 06:22

    That’s a shame. Should I assume existing bookings will still be credited? I have half a dozen bookings across the US in April ’23.

  • Declan says:
    15 Nov15 November 07:56

    Aer Lingus AerClub is still there too and will earn you Avios.

  • Jonathan says:
    15 Nov15 November 09:13

    Are there not any restrictions on transfers to Miles and More ?

    I thought that it was heavily restricted, doesn’t also help that there’s little options for earning those points for those based in the UK (and probably elsewhere)

    • Rob says:
      15 Nov15 November 09:28

      M&M has dropped partners who sell their points directly to customers. Rocketmiles does not sell points so they are fine.

      • Jonathan says:
        15 Nov15 November 09:57

        Ah yes, those transfers were stopped, triggered by someone who filed a lawsuit against them, trying to get a large amount of cash for their balance of points, or roughly triple the base guideline valuation (by HfP level guidance) of a point.

        Does anyone know what’s going on with that case, whether or not the court reached a decision, or it’s still on going ? There’s no apparent news on the case other than when the passenger started legal proceedings to try and get cash, and given that it was back in 2019, presumably a decision has since been reached, although if it was still on going when Covid hit less than a year later, that’d definitely slowed things down…

        Nice of one person to wreck things for loads of people across the world !

  • ADS says:
    15 Nov15 November 11:43

    “The one downside of Rocketmiles”

    There’s also the issue that people have reported of arriving at the hotel … only to find that the hotel doesn’t have their booking … and they can’t get hold of Rocketmiles by phone.

    If you’re going to add a third party to a hotel booking, you need to be able to get hold of them … especially if you arrive late in the evening!

    • yorkieflyer says:
      15 Nov15 November 14:44

      Had this with Kaligo. Much better to book direct with smaller hotels where possible as they save 20% plus commission

      • ADS says:
        15 Nov15 November 22:03

        yeah, it’s just not worth the risk, and the extra costs incurred if things go wrong

        it’s also why i don’t use flaky little online travel agents (after getting stuck in Belarus many years ago)

  • David S says:
    15 Nov15 November 12:30

    Don’t they have to produce a VAT invoice for Sales in the U.K. I’m assuming they pay VAT in the U.K. but then again I’m unsure what they are exactly selling if they are buy capacity. Anyone know the answer ?

    • Rob says:
      15 Nov15 November 13:56

      How it seems to work – and this could be challenged by HMRC I think – is that a foreign company has purchased a product from a UK company and so no VAT is due. The fact that you consume the product in the UK on behalf of the foreign company does not appear to matter.

      • memesweeper says:
        15 Nov15 November 14:13

        I thought what happened is foreign firm buys hotel capacity, is charged VAT, but cannot reclaim it (not VAT registered). They charge the UK consumer incl. VAT, but it’s not a separate item (again, they are not VAT registered). Hence UK consumer cannot see or claim back the VAT.

        I’d be surprised if you could avoid VAT altogether by buying a service delivered in the UK via a foreign vehicle. That would be wide-open to abuse, and would allow them to be cheaper too — which they are not.

      • ken says:
        15 Nov15 November 14:28

        Difficult to believe this.

        For Hotel accomodation (a service directly related to land), the place of supply is where the land is locacted regardless of where the customer is.
        Hard to imagine that all the hotel companies (supplier) are not accounting for the VAT correctly in their sales to Rocketmiles (customer).

  • memesweeper says:
    15 Nov15 November 14:33

    For a random London hotel, £ 520 stay on a date early date next year:

    13,000 heathrow-rewards
    11,000 flyingclub
    9,000 aadvantage
    7,000 aerlingus
    7,000 asiamiles
    7,000 skywards
    6,000 flyingblue
    5,000 krisflyer

    …a huge benefit in crediting to Heathrow Rewards unless you are absolutely desperate for miles in a non-Heathrow partner.

    • Mikeact says:
      15 Nov15 November 14:53

      Schhh…..now we wait for it to be amended

    • ken says:
      15 Nov15 November 14:53

      But how much for booking via other routes ?

      • memesweeper says:
        15 Nov15 November 17:31

        @ken I was illustrating the different in miles paid via different partners, not a comparison of different booking sites for a hotel.

    • Rob says:
      15 Nov15 November 14:54

      So, for all those moaning about Rocketmiles being slightly more expensive than other places, you’re missing out on £260 of Heathrow Parking credit by booking this room elsewhere 🙂

      • memesweeper says:
        15 Nov15 November 17:54

        Just done another check, a chain hotel I’m actually booking week after next (2 night stay):

        Direct, semi-flex (2 day cancelation notice), member rate: £157.70
        expect 5 – 10% back in points depending on status/incentives

        Rocketmiles semi-flex (5 day cancelation notice): £ 152

        plus
        USD 20 Amazon
        1,500 heathrow-rewards
        1,500 flyingclub
        1,000 aadvantage

        … all very inconsistent, but certainly not a terrible deal

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