New ‘buy points’ deals: 60% bonus buying Avios, 40% bonus buying Marriott points

Two new ‘buy points’ deals have launched:

60% bonus when you buy Avios via Qatar Airways Privilege Club

Qatar Airways (yes Qatar Airways, not British Airways) has launched a new ‘buy Avios’ bonus promotion. The link to buy is here.

It’s not clear if everyone gets the same 60% offer or if there are variations. At the top end, I am offered a 60% bonus when I buy 42,000 Avios or more. There are lower bonuses, from 30%, for buying 5,000+ Avios.

This is a flash offer which only runs to 25th August.

You can check your deal, and buy, on this page of the Qatar Airways Privilege Club website.

The Avios can only be credited to a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account. You can move them into a British Airways Club account by linking your British Airways and Qatar Airways accounts via the process here.

You can only buy if there has previously been ‘activity’ on your Qatar Airways Privilege Club account. Transferring in 1,000 points at 1:1 from American Express Membership Rewards would count and these transfers should be instant.

Recent feedback from readers is that doing a transfer from British Airways to Qatar Airways may no longer work for ‘activating’ an account.

What does it cost?

At the top end, if you have a 60% bonus, you will pay 1.09p per Avios under this offer.

The most you can buy is 250,000 Avios with (if you have a 60% bonus) a 150,000 bonus, for a total of 400,000 Avios for £4,375.

Based on my spreadsheet of the last 9 million Avios I redeemed, I got 1.23p of value – and this is based on very conservative valuations for the flights I booked. As always, only buy if you have a plan to use the Avios because you should never buy speculatively.

You can check pricing and buy on this page of the Qatar Airways Privilege Club website.

Get a 40% bonus when you buy Marriott Bonvoy points

Marriott Bonvoy has launched its latest bonus if you buy their hotel points.

You can check your bonus via this page of the website.

Most people seem to be offered a 40% bonus. The annual points purchase cap has been raised from 100,000 to 150,000 points plus your bonus on top.

At the top end, buying 150,000 points with a 40% bonus gets you 210,000 points for $1,875 (£1,400).

This is 0.67p per point which is above our target valuation of 0.5p for a Marriott Bonvoy point although it isn’t difficult to exceed this.

You might find it especially worthwhile if:

• you are topping off your account before making a points booking, or
• you are close to 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points and want to make a transfer into airline miles (you get a bonus of 5,000 airline miles when you transfer 60,000 Bonvoy points into 20,000 airline miles in most programmes), or
• you are planning a stay at a property where you know you will get outsized value

Outsized value is still possible despite Marriott Bonvoy moving towards revenue-based redemptions. With no reward charts available, however, you need to look at it on a case by case basis.

Our review of The Bodrum EDITION showed how I got a room costing €1,750 per night for just 85,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night.

This was 1.76p per point – more than double what you can buy them for here – although I admit that such deals are generally only found at peak dates.

Your Marriott Bonvoy account must be 90 days old before you can buy points, or 30 days old if the account has activity on it such as a hotel stay.

The page to buy is here. The offer runs to 17th September.