Le Club Accorhotels – 500 Aeroplan miles, an Avios promotion and a unique IB / BA arbitrage

UPDATE – DECEMBER 2021:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly summary of the top hotel bonus point offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ menu above.

I posted recently about the ability to earn 500 free Delta SkyMiles for changing your Le Club Accorhotels earnings profile to SkyMiles.

It seems that this promotion is also available for Air Canada Aeroplan members via this link.  Change your earnings profile to Aeroplan and you are given 500 miles, no stay required.

However, let’s assume you are more interested in collecting Avios points than Aeroplan miles with Accor.

There are two ways to collect.  You can either have miles deposited directly into your Avios account after each stay, or you can collect Le Club Accorhotels points and then convert them to Avios later. 

The conversion rate is the same so it makes no real difference – if you don’t need the miles now, you might as well keep them as Accor points in case you can find a more profitable use.

Usually, after September 30th or earlier for one-night stays, you are better off earning via Iberia Plus Avios and not BA Avios.

The reason for this is the most astonishing Iberia Plus Avios v British Airways Executive Club Avios arbitrage on the market!   Take a look here and click on OneWorld:

Transfers to BAEC – 2 Le Club Accorhotels points = 1 Avios point

Transfers to Iberia Plus – 2 Le Club Accorhotels points = 5 Avios points

Now, who knows how long this will last?  Although, that said, it has been running since Avios was launched last November.

 The Iberia rate is surprisingly generous, because Le Club Accorhotels points are easy to earn:

1 eligible Euro spent = 2 Le Club Accorhotels points at Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Novotel, Suite Novotel, Mercure, and Adagio (excluding Adagio Access) hotels

1 eligible Euro spent = 1 Le Club Accorhotels point at ibis (excluding ibis budget) and all seasons/ibis styles hotels

So …. if you spend €100 in a Sofitel, you will receive 100 BA Avios points in your account or 500 Iberia Plus Avios!  (Or, if you take Accor points, you would receive 200 Accor points which you could convert later into 100 BA or 500 Iberia.) 

Via Iberia, you are getting 5 Avios per Euro at most brands, which is effectively 6 Avios per £1.  Which is not to be sniffed at.  Remember that you can transfer Iberia Plus Avios to BA Avios as long as your Iberia account has been open for 90 days.

However, until September 30th on 2+ night stays, this promotion – click here – for collecting with avios.com may be a better deal instead.

If you set up your Accor account to receive Avios directly into avios.com, and stay for two nights or more each time, you will receive the base points of 1 per €1 and a bonus:

• 1,000 Avios for your 1st stay
• 1,500 Avios for your 2nd stay
• 2,000 Avios for your 3rd stay

You will need to estimate your hotel bill and decide whether you will earn more Avios via this promotion or by taking your points as Iberia Plus Avios and moving them on to BA.

Accor Live Limitless update – December 2021:

Earn bonus Accor points: Accor is not currently running a global promotion

New to Accor Live Limitless?  Read our overview of Accor Live Limitless here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our analysis of what Accor Live Limitless points are worth is here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from Accor and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.