How to earn Avios on your Accor hotel stays – and Accor Live Limitless points too

Not many Avios collectors know that you can now double-up when you stay at any Accor hotel.

As well as earning Accor Live Limitless points as usual from your Novotel, Mercure, Raffles, Fairmont, Sofitel, Ibis etc stays, you now earn a slug of Avios on top. You get Accor points AND Avios.

There is no catch, except that the Avios will drop into a Qatar Privilege Club account and not your British Airways Executive Club account. As long as your BA and Qatar accounts are linked, however, it is a 30 seconds job to move them across.

The partnership also works in reverse.

If you book a cash ticket on Qatar Airways and credit the flight to a Qatar Privilege Club account, you will earn Accor Live Limitless points from the flight. This is on top of the Avios you earn in Qatar Privilege Club.

To summarise:

• you earn Avios AND Accor Live Limitless points when you stay at Accor hotels

• you earn Accor Live Limitless points AND Avios when you fly with Qatar Airways and credit your flight to Qatar Privilege Club

This is a clear win for anyone who either collects Avios, flies on Qatar Airways or stays in Accor hotels.  You are going to be better off in the future.

You can find full details, and register, on the Accor website here and on the Qatar Airways website here.

How does it work?

This is going to get a little complicated, so let’s start with a simple overview:

Yes, as it shows:

• When you stay at Accor hotels, you will earn 1 Avios in Qatar Privilege Club per €1 spent – on top of the Accor points you would usually earn

• When you fly with Qatar Airways and credit the flight to Qatar Privilege Club, you will earn 1 Accor hotel point per $2 spent – on top of the Avios you would usually earn

Let’s summarise what this means:

• Stay in Accor hotels? You can only be better off by registering for this offer.  There is no downside. You get your usual Accor Live Limitless points, and a few days later some Avios will also appear in your Qatar Privilege Club account. You can transfer these to your British Airways Executive Club account.

• Fly with Qatar Airways? If you credit your flight to Qatar Privilege Club, you will gain some Accor Live Limitless points too. The Avios you earn from your flight can easily be moved from Qatar Privilege Club to British Airways Executive Club. However, there is one snag – you won’t earn British Airways Executive Club tier points if you credit Qatar Airways flights to Qatar Privilege Club.

Bottom line:

• this is a no-brainer if you stay in Accor hotels – open a Qatar Privilege Club account via this link and connect it to your Accor Live Limitless account via this link. Accor will automatically send Avios to your Qatar Privilege Club account after every hotel stay.

• it is NOT a no-brainer if you fly with Qatar Airways – you need to decide whether it is worth sacrificing British Airways Executive Club tier points for some Accor Live Limitless hotel points. This will impact whether you credit Qatar Airways flights to Executive Club or Privilege Club.

You can transfer Avios into Accor points, and vice versa

Remember that you can transfer Avios points, held in Qatar Privilege Club, into Accor Live Limitless points, and vice versa.

• 2,000 Accor points = 1,000 Avios in Qatar Privilege Club or British Airways Executive Club (but 2,000 Avios in Iberia Plus, so send your Accor points to an Iberia Avios account)

• 4,500 Avios in Qatar Privilege Club = 1,000 Accor points

Don’t get too excited about this.  Accor points have a fixed value of 2 Eurocents each.  There is no ‘reward chart’ – the points cost for a night is simply the cash price in Euro multiplied by 50.

This means that you are swapping 4,500 Avios in Qatar Privilege Club for a €20 Accor hotel discount.  This is just 0.44 Eurocents per Avios, which is VERY poor. You would be crazy to do this given that converting Avios to Nectar gets you 0.66p per Avios point.

Sign up even if you have ZERO interest in the other scheme!

Why?  Because:

• in the worse case scenario, an Accor guest can take the Avios earned in Qatar Privilege Club and convert them back into more Accor points ….

• …. and an Avios collector can take the Accor points earned and convert them back into more Avios!

Conclusion

This is, I accept, a bit complex.

Let’s assume that you don’t fly with Qatar Airways on cash tickets. If this is you, you can cut to the chase. This is what you should do:

• open a Qatar Privilege Club account here

• link it to your British Airways Executive Club account by following the instructions here

• link it to your Accor Live Limitless account by following the link here and clicking ‘Get Started’

There’s nothing else to do. Whenever you stay at an Accor hotel from now on, a handful of Avios (1 per €1 spent) will drop into your Qatar Privilege Club account. You still get your Accor points as usual. You can move the Avios across to your linked British Airways Executive Club account. It’s free Avios, basically.

You can find out more about the Accor / Avios partnership:

• on the Qatar Airways website here

• on the Accor Live Limitless website here

Our two-part HfP guide to Accor Live Limitless starts here.

PS. If your Accor account is already linked to Flying Blue due to their similar offer, you can switch to Qatar Privilege Club as long as you linked them over 12 months ago. If you linked your Accor account to Flying Blue under a year ago, you need to wait.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 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:

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive 30,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 30,000 Avios) with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. You receive 25,000 points if you spend £3,000 in three months and a further 5,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive a huge 100,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 100,000 Avios) with The Platinum Card. You receive 75,000 points if you spend £10,000 in six months and a further 25,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

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.

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.