Avios collection from France

[BAEC_member_in_France]

Hi all
I lived in the UK for 15 years but have now moved (back) to France. I have a sizeable number of Avios left (3/4 of the way to get 2 x return CW to Japan) but I am a bit stuck as all the “good” opportunities to collect Avios (credit cards, Tesco, Companion voucher, etc…) seem to be limited to the UK (and, to a certain extent, North America).
I am left with the standard “Membership rewards” Amex with a paltry 8k Avios for every €10k spent, and the new Revolut RevPoints which requires a 500€/yr fee to accrue at 1 Avios / 1€ spend.
Is anyone aware of any other opportunities up for grabs in France to get a little bit more Avios for my dough?
Thanks to anyone who could help!
Dom

[Londonsteve]

Hi Dom, I’m in a similar situation to you as I’ve now left the UK and find that with the earnings rate on cheaper flights slashed, it’s becoming hard to accrue Avios. I’d recommend a UK VPN that allows you to access the BA e-store as if you were in the UK, after which you can patch through to sites like Booking.com which generally offer a good earning rate on hotel bookings. Once you’ve received these Avios you can boost them x3 at under 1p/Avios.

Earning via a UK Amex is unlikely to be a tempting proposition due to the currency conversion fee on spend overseas, unless you see this as a way to unlocking a Boost opportunity. I believe the commission is 2.99% and you earn two MR points per £1 on overseas spend, so you’ve effectively bought Avios at 1.5p each, but can then buy a further 6 Avios for under 1p each. In total it works out at a little over 1p per Avios which is still better value than most buy Avios deals.

I’m stunned that the Revolut package to earn 1 Avios/€1 is €500 per annum. Clearly you would need to be deriving a direct benefit from the other elements included in this premium membership to make this worthwhile otherwise it’s a non-starter. I take it there’s a lot more to this than just an accelerated way to earn Avios.

I’ve come to the conclusion that if I wanted to access serious numbers of Avios I’d just have to buy them in a sale, but I’d only do this if I was guaranteed to derive value for money via this route, i.e. I wouldn’t buy them speculatively to just bank them for a rainy day.

It’s a pity there’s so little opportunity for Europe based BAEC members to accrue miles.

[Gosia44]

How about Curve? You can front an Avios Barclaycard and generate avios on foreign transactions. I only use Curve on holidays abroad.

[Gosia44]

You can also join AviosForThoughts and get 600 for the first survey.

[BAEC_member_in_France]

@Steve and @Gosla, thanks for your tips. The thing is, I no longer have a UK address so I can no longer apply for UK credit cards, otherwise it’d be a no-brainer as I would just carry on applying to new cards, get the sign up deals, close the accounts and repeat over and over again (like everyone on this forum does, I guess…)

[BAEC_member_in_France]

@Steve, Revolut offers other – cheaper – packages but then the collection rate is less than what you’d get on the free MR Amex, so not useful.

[executiveclubber]

BAEC_member_in_France wrote:

@Steve and @Gosla, thanks for your tips. The thing is, I no longer have a UK address so I can no longer apply for UK credit cards, otherwise it’d be a no-brainer as I would just carry on applying to new cards, get the sign up deals, close the accounts and repeat over and over again (like everyone on this forum does, I guess…)

Do you have friends or family in the UK?

[BAEC_member_in_France]

Yes, but I doubt they’d let me apply to credit cards using their residential address as it would create links to them on their credit files. Chances are I wouldn’t even get accepted now that I am no longer on the electoral register (and I’d be breaching the “UK residents only” T&Cs of the cards)

[Londonsteve]

I agree it isn’t worth the risk of claiming you’re a UK resident when you’re not, quite apart from which you need to declare an income in the UK which (I assume) you no longer have. Like you, I assume I wouldn’t be able to get credit in the UK so sign-up bonuses are off the menu.

[John]

You don’t need a UK VPN to use the BA e-store, I’ve received the avios for transactions made with IP addresses in various countries (and I don’t think being outside the UK was the reason for all my Hilton transactions declining, as it happened to lots of other people too as reported on here).

UK credit files are personal and do not get linked to people at the same address unless you share a joint current account or joint utility bill etc.

If you don’t care about your UK credit report because you’re never coming back to live, you can breach as many T&Cs as you like… of course as you rightly say you aren’t going to get accepted for new cards anyway, but could have done one last hurrah shortly before leaving

[zapato1060]

Yes as stated credit records not linked via addresses.

[Lady London]

There is Accor+Qatar DD of course. Accor apparently has some sort of estore too. Just be careful with them on every little t and c – they are quite capable of deciding they just won’t honour their own ts and cs on some occasions too IME.