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Get 15,000 cheap Avios with The Economist – as low as 0.86p with £60 Amex cashback

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British Airways and The Economist have brought back their special offer for taking out a subscription. This is the first offer we’ve seen since October.

As you can see at this link, you can earn 15,000 or 18,000 Avios with a new one-year subscription.

What is special this time is that you can tie it in with a new £60 American Express cashback deal for an Economist subscription.

avios economist offer

Ignoring the Amex cashback for a moment, here are the two subscription options on offer if you are a UK resident:

  • Digital only:  £189 with 15,000 Avios (1.26p per Avios)
  • Print and digital:  £239 with 18,000 Avios (1.32p per Avios)

‘Print only’ subscriptions are no longer available.

Subscribing to The Economist could make sense just for the Avios bonus even if you have little intention of reading it in detail, although there are occasional opportunities to buy Avios points for nearer 1p each.

Earn Avios with The Economist

Don’t forget your £60 cashback with American Express

You should also check your American Express cards for an Economist offer:

Economist Amex cashback

You’ll get £60 cashback when you spend £189 or more, which is conveniently the same price as a digital subscription. When factoring in the cashback, the value increases further:

  • Digital only:  £129 with 15,000 Avios (0.86p per Avios)
  • Print and digital:  £179 with 18,000 Avios (0.99p per Avios)

There is no problem combining both deals – I did this when the offer ran in October and the Avios and cashback both arrived punctually.

0.86p per Avios is very attractive in its own right. Getting a full year of The Economist on top is an added bonus.

As always, if you are self-employed you may be happy writing off the subscription cost as a business expense.  This would sharply reduce your price per Avios even further.

Both the American Express cashback deal and the 18,000 Avios offer end on 31st March. You can subscribe here.

HFP-Barclaycard-Avios-Card

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (May 2023)

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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 30th May, the sign-up bonus on the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard is doubled to a crazy 50,000 Avios! Apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 30th May, the sign-up bonus on the free Barclaycard Avios Mastercard is doubled to 10,000 Avios. Apply here.

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

CRAZY 50,000 Avios for signing up (to 30th May) and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

10,000 Avios for signing up (only to 30th May) 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 £12,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 13th June, the sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card is doubled to 60,000 Membership Rewards points – and you get £200 to spend at Amex Travel too! Apply here.

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

60,000 points AND a £200 Amex Travel voucher until 13th June! 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

Get a 10,000 points bonus plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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 bonus and a £200 Amex Travel credit every year 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

Comments (76)

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

  • will says:
    10 Feb10 February 11:09

    Sort of related to economics and frequent flying and I’m not into the forums here:
    “What are junk fees and how might Biden tackle them?”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64584826

    “Resort fees or destination fees charged at the end of online hotel reservations”

    I give the EU genuine credit for making hotel pricing more transparent (think it was an EU directive). Airline pricing is still often terribly unclear though.

    • Dace says:
      10 Feb10 February 11:59

      Junk fees are just the start for the US. They also need to add sales tax to their listed prices and also tackle the service charges/tips culture in the US.

      • Rob says:
        10 Feb10 February 12:17

        Indeed. As in the UK press this week (Guardian?) there is now a concerted move to get you to tip 20% at your local corner shop in the US. Pop in to buy $20 of groceries and leave $5 on top at checkout.

        • DaveJ says:
          10 Feb10 February 12:34

          No wonder they want to shoot each other!

        • Will says:
          10 Feb10 February 21:33

          You only tend to hear the story from the ones struggling with their income from tipping in the press.

          Just as ridiculous are the huge swathes of people working in hotels, bars and restaurants where customers are tipping massive amounts routinely and the workers are in many cases making more money than some very highly trained people (eg doctors, aircraft designers etc).

          You can then dig into another layer of low level corruption when you see who gets the best tipping jobs in the best locations.

          Really, really stupid system for rewarding enterprise.

    • Blair Waldorf Salad says:
      10 Feb10 February 12:01

      Big news for those using points/free night certs in the US as it would not be possible to tack on resort fees anymore. Obviously cash rates will simply adjust upwards to make up the loss of resort fees (plus 10%…cos why not) but that’s moot if you’re staying with free night certs and potentially moot if your points scheme is offering above-trend value on dynamic pricing.

      However I have full faith in Congress producing a diluted act that still gives leeway for ‘reasonable’ fees to be tacked on separately.

  • Mark says:
    10 Feb10 February 12:13

    I took this offer up last year and was pulling my hair out trying to get the Avios to credit. I must have spoken to the Economist 5 times over 1-2 months, before I gave up and told them just to cancel my subscription. At that point they suddenly transferred me from their oursourced “customer service” team to someone who seemed to give a damn, and I was offered lots oif inducements to stay but I was just done with dealing with them by that point. Very disappointing for such an august publication.
    The only good thing out of it was that they never clawed back the £60 from Amex so I actually made money on the whole saga!

  • Rob says:
    10 Feb10 February 12:20

    Yes (as long as you use the BA offer page, of course).

  • Tony says:
    10 Feb10 February 12:20

    Assuming cash back is automatically applied?

  • Anon says:
    10 Feb10 February 13:23

    The Economist is not available digitally through libraries in the UK effective 1st Feb 2023. I think there was a disagreement between The Economist and the apps that libraries use. I haven’t found physical copies in libraries in the UK either.

    A student digital subscription is £48, will that still get the 15,000 Avios though?

  • BJ says:
    10 Feb10 February 14:42

    Thanks for this Rhys, very timelyvreturn. Only two articles today; I’m only seeing this and a lounge review?

  • Jasdev says:
    10 Feb10 February 15:39

    The Economist subscriptions department is very generous with the retention offers when you threaten to cancel, as a print + digital subscriber of two years now. I am wondering whether I would get better value going that route instead of paying full price and earning 18,000 bonus Avios. The only way to find out is to ring up and threaten to leave…

    • mark2 says:
      10 Feb10 February 16:32

      I have got loads of Avios, so I rang and renewed my subscription for cash less 50%, but YMMV.

      • Sean says:
        10 Feb10 February 17:02

        would have been happy to split the “net” cost of £179 with you – you keep the economist and i’ll have the avios.

  • BuildBackBetter says:
    10 Feb10 February 16:49

    Anyone read it on Kindle?

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