Is using Avios at Nectar Hotels still better value than using them at BA Hotels?

Nectar has its own hotel booking site, which you can find at hotels.nectar.com.

As you will see, it is a white label version of Rocketmiles, which is itself part of Agoda.

It isn’t hugely generous unless you are only spending £50 or so.  With no ‘first booking bonus’, you are reliant on the base points for your return.  You will earn 1,000 to 2,000 Nectar points PER NIGHT.  This means £5 to £10-worth of Nectar points.  

What makes it interesting is that you can also SPEND Nectar points at Nectar Hotels.  Let’s see if it offers good value, and why it means Avios should close down its own hotel booking site.

Is Nectar Hotels a good deal for earning points? 

Before we look at spending points, let’s remind ourselves of whether it is a good deal using Nectar Hotels to earn points.

In general, it’s OK, but you can do better.  For a start, remember that you won’t earn hotel points or receive status benefits on hotels booked via Nectar Hotels because they are treated as third party bookings.

There is no obvious correlation between price and points.  In general, you should expect 2,000 points per night when spending £200+ per night but this is not a strict rule.

Your return will rarely exceed 5% assuming 0.5p per Nectar point.  Hotels.com Rewards will give you 10% of the ex-VAT price back, although you need to do 10 nights before it pays out. 

Nectar Hotels works best if you are only spending around £40, which seems to be the cheapest offered. You would get the minimum 1,000 Nectar points, worth 625 Avios, which is a very good return.

The one upside is that it is simple.  You aren’t messing about with joining a new loyalty scheme and you don’t need to do any further nights before you can redeem.  You can cash out your reward on your next visit to Sainsbury’s or, of course, convert them to Avios.

Is Nectar Hotels a good deal for spending points? 

Put it this way …. it is a FAR better way of spending Avios than using the Avios hotel booking portal.

If you book via the BA Hotels portal, you receive 0.5p to 0.55p per Avios. This is poor value.

Nectar Hotels offers far better value than BA Hotels

Following the recent devaluation, you can convert 300 Avios into 400 Nectar points via this page of ba.com.

At Nectar Hotels, 2000 Nectar points get you a £10 saving on a hotel room. This is the standard ‘0.5p per Nectar point’ return that you get with virtually all Nectar redemptions.

This means 300 Avios = 400 Nectar points = £2 of hotel room, so 0.67p per Avios.

Converting Avios to Nectar and spending them via the Nectar Hotels site will get you 0.67p per Avios. This is a 20% to 30% improvement on the 0.5p to 0.55p-ish per point you get via BA Hotels. Weird but true.

Here’s an example

Let’s look at Thistle Holborn in London for Saturday 4th February:

• Via Nectar Hotels, a room costs £256. You can choose to use 51,100 Nectar points to pay this, which you can get by converting 38,325 Avios.

• Via BA Hotels, a room costs 53,300 Avios (0.48p per Avios – worse than usual – given the cash price of £255). This is 40% more Avios than if you had used Nectar Hotels.

(Interestingly, last time I ran this comparison in 2021, the Thistle Holborn was £90 for a Saturday night in October. How times change.)

Conclusion – is Nectar Hotels worth it?

Of course, neither of these is the absolute best option.

A better option than either would be to use your Avios / Nectar points for something else – like Sainsbury’s groceries – and book your hotel for cash.

Nectar Hotels will give you 2,000 Nectar points for paying cash for Thistle Holborn on the date above – whilst only worth £10, it is still a 4% rebate. Far better would be Hotels.com Rewards which would give you a credit worth (£255 – 20% VAT x 10%) £21.25, albeit you need to book 10 nights via Hotels.com (no time limit) to be able to cash this in. We explain Hotels.com Rewards in this article.

That said, if you do want to use your Avios for a hotel booking, do not consider using BA Hotels. Nectar Hotels will get you SUBSTANTIALLY more value.

The Nectar Hotels site is here.

---

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:

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. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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.

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.