Avios are great, you can use them to fly very cheaply all over the world. There are several ways to build up Avios, this article will outline some easy and quick ways to build up your air miles balance quickly.
Surveys
Rewards for Thoughts is a website which pays out Avios in return for you completing surveys. They are not necessarily the best use of your time (if you were to look at the Avios you receive for the time taken, it is unlikely to be minimum wage), but if you sign up and complete just one survey you will receive 600 Avios which is not bad for 15 minutes work.
Tesco
Tesco Clubcard points can be converted into Avios at a rate of 1 Clubcard point to 2.4 Avios. You can redeem a clubcard point for one pence at Tesco, and as this article shows, 2.4 Avios, depending on how you use them, could be worth up to 12 pence. Even a poor redemption option should get you at least 2.4 pence. There are a number of other interesting things you can do with Clubcard points, which will be the subject of a later article.
Accor
Accor points can be transferred into Avios. Accor is the hotel chain that includes (among others) the Sofitel, Mercure, Novotel & Ibis. One Accor point can be redeemed for 2 euro cents at a hotel. If you want to convert them to Avios in your BA account then you can transfer them at a rate of two Accor points to one Avios. Obviously, this is an awful deal as you are paying 4 eurocents per mile, and as you can often buy Avios from Groupon Ireland/Spain for less than this, then this would be a poor use of points. A marginally better option is to transfer them to you Iberia plus account, as if you do this you get a rate of 1:1. You then transfer the Iberia points into you BA account at a rate of 1:1. You’ve suddenly doubled your points! 2 eurocents per Avios is still quite a steep price to pay, however as Accor only allows you to redeem for stays in batches of 2000 points, if you have a few hundred and are not going to use them for a stay, then this isn’t a terrible use of points. Just make sure you transfer to Iberia then BA, do not transfer them directly to BA. I am a fan of the Accor scheme and will do a detailed article on it tomorrow.
British Airways Holidays
At the risk of stating the obvious, booking holidays with BA is a great way to earn Avios. Surprisingly few people realise that you can often book a flight + car combo through BA holidays, for less than the price of just the flight. SO if you are flying somewhere, be sure to check the same flight on BA holidays with a car (especially useful if you actually need a car!) In addition to this, you will receive one bonus Avios for every £ you spend on the booking. This will mean you get points for flying and also for booking. If we value an Avios at 1 pence (which is very conservative) and the flight & car option is only marginally more expensive, then you may wish to weigh up the value of the Avios vs the incremental cost for the car.
Credit Cards
There are many credit cards that offer opportunities to earn Avios. Until I am regulated (hopefully soon!) I cannot promote specific products, but a quick google will tell you all additional detail you need on these. Do your research and make sure it’s the right card for someone in your financial situation.
The British Airways Executive Club Rewards Shopping Portal
This is a less well known avenue down which you can earn a lot of Avios (see this link). You need to login to your BA executive club account, then search for the retailer you wish to buy from. If the retailer is there, you will be able to see how many Avios you can earn per £ spent for example if you wanted to buy something from Asos, you would click the icon shown and you will then earn 6 Avios for every £ spent.
This is a great way to earn some Avios, but you should consider the opportunity cost of this. There are other sites, such as TopCashback (You and I will both receive £7.50 if you sign up via the link and then buy something) & Quidco (we will both get £10 if you use that link and then earn £5 cashback!) that offer cash for similar spends. Asos on Topcashback for example is currently paying out 9.6% for new customer orders. You can choose to withdraw cash from Topcashback as Avios at a rate of one pence per Avios. Therefore if you are a new customer, you should go via Topcashback rather than BA as you will earn an extra 3.6 Avios per £ spent. However, existing Asos customers will only receive 2.4% cashback, so in that case, it would make more sense to go via the BA app as you will receive an additional 3.6 Avios per £ spend.
That’s it for today. Happy earning!
The Points Wanderer 