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I’ve been recommended from various YouTube videos to use BA Shopping to maximise Avios collection, but I’ve gone through my history now and found that it’s never worked. Even when I do something perfectly as per the instructions, I never receive any points. If I complain, or claim missing points then I either never hear back, or I’m told “the purchase didn’t qualify” with no further details.
One of the most annoying ones was a travel insurance policy that stated I had to wait 180 before I got the points. After 181 days I didn’t receive them but BA said all claims had to be in a 90 day period!
I’m not exaggerating when I say I have received 0 points now. Is this normal?
Whilst a good concept, based on feedback within this site from others, especially issues around clawing back of points AFTER posting, I have never used it.
I have always used one of the 2 major casshb@ck sites, my choice being tcb.
That’s top cash back
It’s not normal.
There are ways to ensure it works:
First, ensure that you keep a proof of shopping. The confirmation email suffices. If it does not track, you can raise a ticket using that.
Second, I click the link on the shopping portal twice to ensure it tracks. I click once, the new window with the shop opens. I close it, refresh the BA page with the new tracker code and click again, and shop.
Third, I double check if I can see the shop in my history.
Lastly, sometimes there is a fine print: eg 7 Avios for new customers, but 1 Avios for the existing ones. Pay attention to that, too.People report it is a hit and miss, but for me it was relatively lucrative.
We actually get a fair few chunk of our annual points through BA shopping, especially on hotel bookings when you can sometimes get up to 14 avios per pound spent.
However, when you use it I find it’s always a roll of the dice as sometimes purchases mysteriously don’t seem to track or random amounts get clawed back for no apparent reason.
I think there is very little recourse to complain so if I think I’ve been messed about I just avoid that retailer in future.
So I would say worth using but also don’t count on every transaction tracking or going through as you thought it might.
I’ve never had issues. 1700 Avios just posted last week for a new Dell monitor. The devil is in the small print, as there does tend to be a range of exceptions.
Perhaps try getting a low cost item from John Lewis (credits within 5 days), and record everything to enable a claim to be made and find out where the problem is.
It definitely does – the majority of my Avios balance has come from BA shopping over the last couple of years not flights. You have to be careful (use the link properly for tracking, no swapping of windows/tabs) and read the small print regarding exclusions and earn rate, but it is entirely possible to accumulate a healthy balance this way as I have.
It definitely does – the majority of my Avios balance has come from BA shopping over the last couple of years not flights. You have to be careful (use the link properly for tracking, no swapping of windows/tabs) and read the small print regarding exclusions and earn rate, but it is entirely possible to accumulate a healthy balance this way as I have.
The only Avios collection problems I have had have been with Uber. My accounts are connected but I have never received any of the Avios I’m supposed to. I only use Uber a few times a year, but I was going to swap to booking trains through them for the better Avios rate than The Trainline but I haven’t
For me Uber avios track pretty much instantly which is impressive, that said, the earn rate is so low that you would have to be using it a lot for it to be making any real difference to your overall balance. Better than nothing I suppose and it all adds up!
For me Uber avios track pretty much instantly which is impressive, that said, the earn rate is so low that you would have to be using it a lot for it to be making any real difference to your overall balance. Better than nothing I suppose and it all adds up!
That’s good to know, thanks. I’ll take another look at my account and see if I can figure out the problem then
The issue is, I get no points whatsoever. I complain and they say „didn’t meet the criteria” and you have no recourse at all.
Glad it works for some though. I thought it might be a giant con
The only time I tried it, for a Hilton booking when Hilton was not available on TCB, it doesn’t seem to have worked. Booking was made almost one year ago, actual stay was in October, and still pending.
So yeah, only will use it if the retailer is not on TCB.
You’ll also read reports of them clawing back Avios that had actually been paid already. Never heard such a thing with TCB, even then they give cash for stuff that you end up cancelling.@routeski Tracking for all entities such as the estore and cashback sites is achieved by cookies in your web browser. (apologies if I’m telling you how to suck eggs here) You need to use a browswer with ALL cookies cleared, and not have any security settings which block 1st/3rd party cookies or any privacy software that may do it.
The general advice is to use a different web browser to your day to day one, clear everything before use, then accept all cookies on the estore website when the pop ups appear, then click the link provided to the retailer. Then accept all cookies on the retailer’s website and complete your purchase without switching tabs, and in one session.
The issue with estore is that some retailers such as Hilton are notorious for not paying even if it does track properly and as others have said they often claim back paid avios months or years later for no reason.
You also need to ask youself if it’s worth a few avios or if you’d be better getting higher rates via cashback sites, 10-12% cashback for Hotels.com on TCB is way better than 8 avios for example.
I’d add that I think the retailer is also important. There’s those that absolutely work, Apple and Dell come to mind, and those that seemingly never work, Hilton being obvious example.
The only time I tried it, for a Hilton booking when Hilton was not available on TCB, it doesn’t seem to have worked. Booking was made almost one year ago, actual stay was in October, and still pending.
So yeah, only will use it if the retailer is not on TCB.
You’ll also read reports of them clawing back Avios that had actually been paid already. Never heard such a thing with TCB, even then they give cash for stuff that you end up cancelling.Agree, this is very much my experience and hence I try to avoid BA Shopping unless they’re the only source.
Works for us, I used my £50 HN stipend the other day and found some bonus Avios had posted 🙂
Similarly, offspring bought car insurance the other day via BA Shopping and received 3K Avios.
If you ask me about my experience of Virgin Shops Away however, it’s a completely different story :-/
Says it tracks, but rarely pays out, despite being eligible according to the Ts and Cs
The problem is very simple.
BA does not bother putting the full T&C onto its site. You are likely to have disqualified yourself by buying or doing something which doesn’t count but which you weren’t told about. TCB is very good at listing all the rules and the same rules apply to BA.
The other problem is this. If, when you visit a partner site, you click ‘I dont accept cookies’, you have probably disqualified yourself from cashback because many retailers still use cookies as the basis for tracking.
It always seems to work for me. Some of the transactions do seem to sit in the pending folder for a long time, but do eventually credit. The actual number of Avios does seem to be calculated differently by different retails. Some don’t credit for the VAT and shipping element of the transaction, others have credited more than I was expecting.
I normally research what I am buying on a desktop and then purchase via BA Shopping app on my phone.
I have only had one removal of Avios and that was when they had double paid a transaction, so no issues with that.
Very reliable for me since simply shopping in an incognitio window.
Have shopped with the same retailer twice in the past month though- once it was better to use TopCash (so I did), second time used BA and tracked.
I don’t use the incognito for TCB and have had a few more missing tracking- but I trust the appeals/claims process more.
It usually works for me, although I’ve had a couple of recent shops at John Lewis and Waterstones fail to track because my phone has opened up the app for each retailer rather than carry through to the website.
I have found that using incognito mode on Google chrome on desktop having cleared cache and all cookies and then accepting everything when I click through works.
Also I research the item sku / product codes before purchasing. I just add items to basket using the item codes and then log into my specific supplier account during check out. Do not log into the specific website account before purchasing as that seems to lose tracking.
Also do mot click on any other pages until you’ve paid and have received confirmation of order acceptance.
I have never tried using it to book hotels or buy insurance. I think the latter should be based on your needs and buying a policy because it might give you some Avios seems a false economy.
It almost always works fine for me, but some of them stay pending for weeks on end which is the most frustrating part…
I find Bose, Booking.com, John Lewis and Uber are lightening quick. However I have pending from Heathrow Parking and Viator for November completions.
Works so well for me that I’ve given up monitoring transactions.
My modus operandi is to find the goods I want to buy without touching the eStore. When I’ve made up my mind, I open a fresh Firefox private window (which resets any tracking cookies) with no ad blocking on a private network (corporate networks often do strange things with ads), go to the eStore, click through to the retailer and buy everything in a single browser tab (tracking cookies can do strange things with multiple tabs), making sure that I always click, ‘Accept All’ to any cookie prompts. That process ensures that dilly-dallying, multiple tabs, back/forward buttons, amending basket contents, cookie settings, etc don’t break things.
I have more trouble with TCB, but I’ve worked out that their site can’t handle multiple click-throughs on one day. With hindsight, accounted for almost all my failures.
I’ve collected more than 100,000 Avios from the eStore in recent years. the process definitely works.
I have more trouble with TCB, but I’ve worked out that their site can’t handle multiple click-throughs on one day. With hindsight, accounted for almost all my failures.
I’ve collected more than 100,000 Avios from the eStore in recent years. the process definitely works.
Heathrow parking is a joke. I have pending avios from September for parking completed in early December!
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