Why you shouldn’t bother earning Avios with e-Rewards

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If you are a member of British Airways Executive Club, avios.com, Virgin Flying Club or a few other programmes, you may find yourself receiving an e-mailed invitation to earn miles by joining e-Rewards.

I have been there and done that. And I can tell you, with all honestly, that you should delete the email and forget about it.

On the face of it, it seems a decent deal. You give e-Rewards some information – actually, a LOT of information – about yourself. They then email you with occasional market research surveys.

For each survey you complete, you earn points. When you reach certain point levels, you can redeem your points for miles. What could be wrong with that?

Well, as any seasoned e-Rewards member (or ex-member) can tell you, quite a lot can be wrong!

Just because you are sent a survey, it does not mean you are ‘qualified’ to complete it. Often you are thrown out after the first couple of questions, with no points earned.
Sometimes, you can go a L-O-N-G way into a survey before you are thrown out. You can waste over 15 minutes at times before they decide you are not the sort of person they want. In these circumstances, you receive a nominal drip of points which is a tiny fraction of what you would have got had you completed the last couple of questions.
Customer service is minimal, should you ever need to contact them.
The ‘time spent to Avios earned’ ratio is pathetic, however cheaply you value your time!
It will, without a doubt, take you longer than you think to reach the level where you can cash out.

The problem, of course, is that once you’ve done a couple of surveys you feel obliged to push on with them until you can empty your account! I would love to know what percentage of members cancel their membership after making their first redemption!!

The only possible reason to join is if they offer a good sign-up bonus. This may be, for example, 500 Avios after you complete your first survey.

In such case, join for only as long as it takes to complete that first survey. Then cancel! Do not, in any circumstances, be persuaded to carry on – I am sure you will regret it in the end. I did!

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Howard B says:

7 Nov7 November 11:27

By the way great website!!!!!!!!
tommyl78 says:

7 Nov7 November 12:41

Totally agree with Raffles here, although as he says it largely boils down to how you “value” your time. If you actually work out the time you’re spending on these surveys, the Avios rewards (when you consider the cash value of them) are paltry.

That said if you’re sat at work doing nothing, or looking to kill time for whatever reason, I suppose you might as well do them.
- Mariusz says:
  
  7 Nov7 November 16:19
  
  Absolutely. I agree 🙂
Mark C says:

7 Nov7 November 20:19

I have multiple accounts for multiple family members, from avios.com, HHonors and priority club. The hotel ones give 3000 IB avios for 8000 points, better than the avios.com rate, and you can use them to top up other programmes to if needed.

The basic trick is to always answer yes at the start. For example if the first question is, Do you smoke? then obviously the survey is about smoking, so if you say no, then you’ll just get screened out.

Once you are in, don’t bother reading the survey questions and just click randomly. I have gotten quite good at detecting if there are any “quality control” questions. Also, I get the same survey on several accounts, which makes it even faster to do it again.

I cash out about once every 3 months per account. Yougov is good in that you’re guaranteed to earn 50p or so each time, but it takes 2 years to cash out. Of course, there are more profitable ways of spending your time if you want to, but I’m still a student :p
Joe Frampton says:

8 Nov8 November 08:09

I use Erewards to keep my Virgin account active, usually get 1000 miles per year, on being rejected at the first two or three questions,So I dont waste so much time on it.
Trevor says:

8 Nov8 November 11:59

A controversial post indeed! I can see why people (like I used to) want to earn extra points off e-Rewards, but just how do you value your time?

It is worth constantly trying to take part in surveys that you fail to qualify for? When you (eventually, over a few months) have enough points to exchange, how badly did you need those 1000 Avios after spending hours trying to earn them? At 6hrs (do a real evaluation of your time and you’ll see this is true) to earn 1000 Avios (±£10), you’re earning a measly £1.66/hr and it’s taken you weeks or months to scrape all this together. You’d probably do better keeping an eye on the floor for dropped change near supermarket checkouts, or checking payphone and vending machines for change like a hobo! Considering you can earn 500 or a 1000 points for quick hotel online offers, or 2000 Avios just for being new to changing your ClubCard points, or earn 20,000 Avios simply by taking 5min to apply for a new credit card, is hours on e-Rewards really that valuable to you?

I also thought it was a great way to earn extra points – while I was still a naive points collector. Now that I read this blog (and others) and know how to do it for real, e-rewards just doesn’t compare.

Yup, you can do it watching TV, but why not just relax and watch TV? Yup, you can crack the knack and have multiple accounts to complete more surveys, but if you’re going to take the time and make the effort, why not do it for something more appealing and ultimately more rewarding than these boring surveys?

There may be a time and a place for these surveys, but they are few and far between.

And if your life is so dull and you wish to continue, be careful what partners you are earning for and think you are keeping alive. I earned 1000’s of points for Air France’s Flying Blue, only to have them all lost because their T&C’s stipulate that to keep miles from expiring, you actually have to take a flight with them every 2 years!

So be sure that your wasted time on e-Rewards won’t be more wasted – check your partner T&C’s carefully. But rather reconsider if the effort is worth the result when compared to the many other methods of earning points.
- xcalx says:
  
  8 Nov8 November 18:21
  
  It is worth constantly trying to take part in surveys that you fail to qualify for?
  
  No, but the knack is qualifing for the ones you want to and not others then just hitting any answer.
- Roger says:
  
  11 Nov11 November 18:18
  
  Why be kind to the dreadful Flying Blue programme? The terminal Flying Poo requires a QUALIFYING flight at least once every 20 MONTHS! And a qualifying flight doesn’t include most partners.
  
  No such quibbles with e-rewards. Somehow we’ve ended up being US and UK members. Because of browser checks, the US offers only work when we’re in the US and the UK offers only in the UK. Nevertheless, we’ve topped up some otherwise expiring FF and FG accounts this way.
gnarly says:

8 Nov8 November 17:03

I have a 3 month old baby. I find that those surveys that actually work on an iPad are a great way of spending time during the 3am feed etc. Of course, only about 50% work on an iPad/iPhone. I admit that my son does tend to distract me from my Avios earning opportunities….long may that continue.
xcalx says:

8 Nov8 November 18:10

I have 6 accounts and mainly do the 8000 for 3000 IB Avios . I have also used them to trade on FTs Coupon Connection. Dont forget that you can redeem these points to anyones Avios/ Virgin/Hotel partners account by changing your erewards name transfering then changing back. Great for topping up. Did anyone get the 10,000 for 10 mins (4mins infact) last week I thought it was a typo until the said 10.000 posted