Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get 15,000 cheap Avios with The Economist – as low as 0.89p with £65 Amex cashback

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British Airways and The Economist have brought back their special offer for taking out a subscription.

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

You can tie it in with a new £65 American Express cashback deal for an Economist subscription if you are targeted on one of your cards.

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:  £199 with 15,000 Avios (1.32p per Avios)
  • Print and digital:  £265 with 18,000 Avios (1.47p 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 ever-increasing opportunities to buy Avios points for nearer 1p each.

Earn Avios with The Economist

Don’t forget your £65 cashback with American Express

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

Economist Avios offer

You’ll get £65 cashback when you spend £199 or more which is conveniently the same price as a digital subscription. When factoring in the cashback, the value increases further:

  • Digital only:  £134 with 15,000 Avios (0.89p per Avios)
  • Print and digital:  £200 with 18,000 Avios (1.11p 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.

0.89p 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.

The American Express cashback offer ends on 31st July. It isn’t clear when the Avios offer ends. You can subscribe here.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

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:

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 £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. 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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points (TO 9th JANUARY), FREE for a year & four airport ….. Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

Crazy 100,000 points (TO 9th JANUARY) 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.

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 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

Comments (30)

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

  • RJ says:
    23 Jun23 June 05:38

    Do we know how long it takes for Avios to post to an account please?

    • BJ says:
      23 Jun23 June 07:16

      Took about 2 weeks when I subscribed last year. Problem is there are reports that some wait much longer while others have to chase them up and that can prove difficult too. I’ve no idea what proportion encounter problems.

  • CarpalTravel says:
    23 Jun23 June 05:44

    I’ve read before that cancelling an Economist subscription can be, troublesome. Is that still the case?

    • Andrew says:
      23 Jun23 June 06:20

      Online chat. They try to offer you a year at half price.

      • BuildBackBetter says:
        23 Jun23 June 07:01

        Yes, but they can be very slow to respond. Outsourced and take 5 mins to type a line.

      • BJ says:
        23 Jun23 June 07:19

        Took me about an hour online via chat, they just don’t want to take “please cancel” for an answer.

        • CarpalTravel says:
          23 Jun23 June 09:59

          Thanks for the responses. I think I’ll file this one under “not worth the bother”, a file I created after wasting my time with the Snoop £5 offer.

          • Rhys says:
            23 Jun23 June 10:02

            I’m pretty sure you can set it up to not auto-renew. That’s what I did last time, and a few weeks later I got an email in my inbox with 50% off.

          • BJ says:
            23 Jun23 June 15:28

            Option to switch off autorenewal was there last year soon after I signed up. I should have used it at the time because it was gone when I searched for it about a month before renewal was due.

  • Erico1875 says:
    23 Jun23 June 06:18

    I wonder if this will stack with Avios boost

    • RJ says:
      23 Jun23 June 06:25

      Exactly. But need to know if I take out a subscription today, whether the Avios will post by end of July …

    • BJ says:
      23 Jun23 June 07:21

      I expect it will, genuine earnings. The question is will you get your avios before end of July for 10% bonus.

  • Andrew says:
    23 Jun23 June 06:22

    I’ve used this deal in the past. Does it work a second time with the same BA account? Amex offer has appeared on a different Amex card so that part is good. Can use my work email details for Economist sub…

    • BuildBackBetter says:
      23 Jun23 June 07:01

      If there is atleast some gap between subs, it works. I had a year inbetween, alternating with p2’s account.

  • Michele Baldrick says:
    23 Jun23 June 15:50

    I have given it a go via the HFP link and not the Amex link. We shall see what happens 🙂

    • Will says:
      26 Jun26 June 14:47

      +1. Used HfP link just in case we need to chase (I think hfp get a credit and have previously offered to help in relatively high avios claims, correct me if I am wrong)

  • Jannis says:
    23 Jun23 June 22:04

    No offer offered to my BAPP :/

  • QwertyKnowsBest says:
    24 Jun24 June 02:10

    And has been posted previously and in my own experience, be ready for a battle with the Economist when they claim not enrolled via the correct link.

  • Simon Schus says:
    24 Jun24 June 02:40

    Minor minor point: on an Amex USA offer last year, clicking the link caused a slightly different merchant name to appear on my bill than when I went to the website directly (same domain name, just an offer specific webpage!). It was the first and only time it happened to me, but I replicated it again just to be sure. It was for wine I wanted and would get anyway, with free delivery, so I didn’t mind make four purchases to be sure (2 through Amex link, 2 by going directly to the website). The merchant name was near identically other than it had some extra letters afterwards when going through the Amex link (as opposed to ba dot com vs points dot com) Again, very minor point because it is so rare.

    I think it was wine insiders from memory but haven’t gone back since as I found a place nearby.

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